Human Network Error

Something happened on this trip. Some kind of cosmic realization of where and who and who am I in the world through other people. It's ironic the winter workshop is related to smart data and networks, because spatially, we are circumscribed within million possible configurations of options but then again, we are somehow, the steerswomen and men of where we want to take it. 

Networks, possible dynamic combinations, math equations, sheets with data fill the screen yet working in groups was the most challenging part of the workshop. We all say we want to connect but academics seemed rushed to publish (or peril), seemed interested in data and what it said of their research questions but not about student's learning or the methodology itself.  So I wonder if the query is correct. What is "smart" when it comes to mediating and visualizing data? What is technology in this sense, a powerful harnessing tool of the 'social' or the 'artificial'? Are we, researchers, fishing in the vastness of binary dark and bright digits, understanding the phenomena of depletion or just interpreting mackerels, sea bass and tilapias from their context?