THE HUMAN FACE OF BIG DATA

Nearly everything we do today leaves an indelible digital trail: Where we live. What we search. What we read. Where we go. What we buy. What we say. All of this data is being recorded and stored.

The rapid emergence of internet-connected data devices and the massive gathering and analyzing of real-time data are helping to create a central planetary nervous system in which individuals have become human sensors, helping map and measure the planet while, at the same time, mapping intimate details of the lives of each and every one of us. In the technology industry, this phenomenon is commonly known as “Big Data.” And there is a very human side to this data that often is overlooked or untold.

Directed and produced by award-winning filmmaker Sandy Smolan (“Rachel River,” “The Click Effect”) and based on the best-selling book of the same name by executive producer Rick Smolan, photojournalist and creator of the epic Day in the Life series, THE HUMAN FACE OF BIG DATA takes viewers on a visually stunning journey to illuminate an extraordinary movement permeating every aspect of our lives, transforming individuals and society in both minute and monumental ways. The film features stunning real-time visualization of data, using state-of-the-art animations and graphics that illustrate the info streaming in from satellites, billions of sensors and GPS-enabled cameras and smart phones, which is now enabling us, as individuals and collectively as a society, to sense, measure and analyze vast quantities of raw information. The spectacular images allow us to view Big Data and see how it helps us to find patterns and meaning, and see how complex systems function to understand aspects of our existence in ways previously unimaginable.