I presented the work from a graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University, 
Katia Jacoby. Her installation related to the social concerns about lack of 
usable water in the world and the problematic argument that the next world war 
would be over water and not oil. The installation developed out of the documentation 
(data) gathered over a year which Katia input into a small note pad which she 
carried around with her. At the end of the year she was unable to calculate her 
data or make any correlation and find trends within her usage of water.

In the seminar we discussed ways in which she could have inputted her usage of water 
in to a database, by sending SMS messages by mobile phone to her computer. If she 
made website where she could have got people from different areas to take part and 
document their water usage on a database interface that could be put on the web. 
This draws in new lines of questioning such as how precise the data will be and how 
many people would make a scientific sample.

We then reviewed what she could do with this large amount of data, the obvious 
outcome would be to calculate total individual water usage over a year, for those 
who took part. The data could be projected in graphs although it could be argued 
“Is this art?” but that argument could be used on any final post-modern outcome. 
The data could have been used to manipulate mechanical object ie. Taps, which could 
turn on a off depending on the database outputs.