Unreal Is the New Real

Data, at least until the advent of machine learning, was usually taken as the alphanumerical representation of a physical state or process, for example as a measurement or categorical designation. While there has been a lot of discussion about the accuracy or politics of such representations, the implicit assumption has always been that the physical state or event comes first and the data second. Quite arguably, this has never been the complete story. Indeed, many anthropologists claim the capacity to make up and believe in stories that have no direct link to physical reality is uniquely human. As we move deeper and deeper into digital environments, data functions less as a camera and more as an engine, not recording the world but bringing it into existence. Because of the growing importance of post-representational data, we should no longer focus on what data is but what it does. Because unreal data is also real in its consequences.