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Data as Material
Works by Jordan Shaw
July 3- 13, 2025
Micak Contemporary Art Gallery is proud our present Jordan Shaw's new works in the gallery's first solo exhibition. "Data as Material" consists of projects and investigations focused on transforms ephemeral digital signals—Bluetooth transmissions, Wi-Fi networks, environmental sensor data—into physical sculptures, generative prints, and real-time interactive installations. Using data as both medium and subject, the works materialize the invisible architectures shaping our contemporary life, inviting audiences to reflect on the presence, fragility, and ethics of our digital environments.
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Workshop "Creative Coding for Beginners" @ Sat. July 12 @ 1 PM
The (in)visible is series of giclée prints that visualizes ambient Bluetooth signals collected by the artist. Each print overlays a series of data points—representing the detected Bluetooth signals from devices (ie. phones, smart watches)—as an image depciting how digital signals travel through phsycial space. The works transform fleeting transmissions into lasting abstracted visual artifacts visualizing networked digital life.
Pulses (Real-Time Series) visualize the unseen ambient data of Micak Gallery's by responding to Bluetooth activity in real- time. The sculpture shows concentric rings, pulsing as data passes through it. Each piece runs a custom generative visualization built by the artist. . Pulses is part of an ongoing series, in which the artists creates sculptural forms operating as a living archive of digital presence.
Connected Landscapes explores the intersection of technology and craft through the creation of electronic tapestries. Inspired by the Shaw's grandmother’s rug hooking, these works reimagine traditional textile practices using electronic materials. Drawing from Canadian landscapes, they reflect on themes of connectivity, cultural identity, and the influence of digital networks.
Worn Out Parts from Various Artworks is a photo series of discarded servo motors from the Shaw's past interactive projects. Once essential to movement and interaction, these decommissioned components now serve as symbols of technological transience and artistic waste. The work reflects on the environmental costs of digital art-making, inviting viewers to consider the lifecycle of materials and the tension between creation and discard.
(in)visible (Video) is a video recording from the (in)visible series captures real-time Bluetooth data overlaid onto live video footage, visualizing the invisible digital presence of nearby devices. Particles represent detected phones, watches, and vehicles, each reacting to the movement from the input video stream. The resulting animation reveals a constantly shifting portrait of digital activity across a specific site and time. Like a moving photograph of digital presence, this time-based work archives ephemeral signals, inviting viewers to reflect on the ambient data networks we inhabit, often unknowingly. Each video is a site-specific data visualization, uniquely recorded and composed in real time.​
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Where the (in)visible series visualizes ambient digital presence, Ephemeral Memories turns inward, exploring memory as another kind of invisible data we carry and process. Each etched acrylic panel preserves a stylized photographic memory, refracted through light, shadow, and subtle movement. As environmental conditions shift, so does the clarity of the image, mirroring how recollections evolve, fade, or transform over time. By including these panels, the exhibition expands its definition of data: not only technical signals, but also emotional and perceptual ones. Ephemeral Memories invites quiet reflection on the fragility of what we remember and how our minds archive experience.
About the Artist:
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Jordan Shaw is a Toronto-based artist who merges art with technology to explore the complex interplay between digital systems, emerging technologies, and the natural world. His education at Carleton University, Algonquin College, and an MFA from OCAD University shapes his practice, which emphasizes interaction, perspective, and data through mediums such as sculpture, electronics, light, robotics, AI, and other materials.
Shaw's work aims to spark curiosity and reflection, deepening our understanding of relationships, communities, and surroundings through innovative, interactive approaches. By utilizing these diverse mediums, he delves into the nuances of experience across urban, natural, and digital environments. His interest in generative AI, anamorphic perspective, digital and analog interactivity, light and robotics enriches his projects, inviting viewer engagement, fostering interaction, and sparking discussion.​
Shaw has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Nuit Blanche (Canada), MAPP_MTL (Canada), igNIGHT (Canada), Ars Electronica (Austria), Lumiere (Canada), Plexus Project (USA), IDKF (Germany), and Squeaky Wheel (USA). Notable solo exhibitions include “Various Works” at the Toronto Machine Learning Summit (2022, Canada), “Canadian Abstracts” during Vector Festival (2019, Canada), and “Refactored Landscapes” at Hashtag Gallery (2019, Canada).