NFDI4Culture Metadata API

The art installation ‘Dialectics of Climate Futures’ by Milli Keil and Philipp Proff uses the method of dialectics – a discussion along opposing positions – to engage recipients in the discourse on the climate crisis via artificial intelligence and data visualisation. The University Library of the Berlin University of the Arts provided intensive support for the data management of this work and, together with NFDI4Culture, looked for ways to publish the generated data in the best possible way.

As with all data management, the process began with an understanding of the work and the data. Especially in spring 2023, when AI developments were still very recent, this first required expertise on how artificial intelligence works and the background to it. The NFDI4Culture Community Plenary offered the ideal opportunity to better understand and categorise the many unknowns in direct conversation.

It quickly became clear that the legal questions, which are otherwise often so complicated, were exceptionally simple and could be answered thanks to the support of the NFDI4Culture Legal Helpdesk. The text-to-text output of the artificial intelligence was therefore not an obstacle, also because the data did not include any personalised information.

Yet, other questions had to be addressed:

- How do you document a physical installation, which data associated with it and also generated by it are relevant?

- What form of re-use is desired by the authors and how can it be realised?

Only the question of a suitable publication service was quickly answered as the university lacks the required infrastructure: RADAR4Culture. The platform, which was a perfect fit both professionally and technically, also provided much-needed expertise in handling the data sets.

In an intensive exchange process, everyone involved found solutions to the questions. The result was comprehensive documentation including images and descriptions of the data flows. Together with the SQL database and the data collected (during two exhibitions), the data set published under CC-BY not only enables a digital experience of the installation but also the reconstruction of the installation at different locations and thus the continuation of the discourse on the subject of climate.

The data set for the art installation ‘Dialectics of Climate Futures’ is persistently catalogued in the Wissensportal der Künste of the Berlin University of the Arts Library and is available at RADAR4Culture via DOI 10.22000/1973.