Artist Jacob van der Beugel recently participated in the International Workshop on Creative AI Exploration and Imagination (1), hosted by the Institute for Communication and Media Science at Leipzig University, by screening his film collaboration with Ethical Data Initiative Research Director Sabina Leonelli, Data Shadows. This participation highlights van der Beugel’s ongoing work at the intersection of art, science, and philosophy, exploring how we perceive and interact with abstract data in the modern world.

Van der Beugel is a sculptor known for creating monumental, architectural works that focus on the human condition and emerging notions of identity found within contemporary science (2). He primarily works with ceramics and concrete, materials he values for their ability to “freeze gesture” and capture the vestiges of the human process, thereby humanising data that often feels cold and abstract.

His major permanent installations include “The North Sketch Sequence” (2014) at Chatsworth House, an immersive room comprised of thousands of handmade ceramic panels that translate the DNA of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (4). This work, along with his later installation “The DNA Room” at Huis ten Bosch Palace in the Netherlands, demonstrates his unique approach to portraiture and the exploration of ancestry and inheritance through scientific information. He has also been artist-in-residence at renowned institutions like The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Van der Beugel’s participation centered on the screening of his short film, Data Shadows, a collaboration with philosopher and EDI Research Director Sabina Leonelli and filmmaker Oliver Page (3). The film is an abstract and metaphorical exploration of the concept of “data shadows”—data that is invisible, inaccessible, or ignored, contrary to the typical, naive perception of data as solid, clear, and immutable.

Data Shadows challenges this ethereal view of information by reimagining data as tangible physical objects. Van der Beugel visualised data clusters as concrete casts or physical cores extracted from the soil. The film follows the physical journey of these “data cores” as they undergo processes of de-contextualisation, loss, appropriation, and transformation. By transforming abstract processes into tangible imagery, the film raises crucial questions about the ethical and environmental implications of our data-driven lives and re-establishes the materiality of data.

1. Universität Leipzig. (n.d.). Creative AI exploration and imagination: Innovative methods for alternative digital futures. Institute for Communication and Media Science. Retrieved November 4, 2025, fromhttps://www.sozphil.uni-leipzig.de/en/institut-fuer-kommunikations-und-medienwissenschaft/professuren/professur-fuer-medien-und-kommunikationswissenschaft/creative-ai-exploration-and-imagination-innovative-methods-for-alternative-digital-futures

2. Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Jacob van der Beugel. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 4, 2025, fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_van_der_Beugel

3. Open Science Studies. (n.d.). Data shadows film. Retrieved November 4, 2025, fromhttps://opensciencestudies.eu/datashadowsfilm/

4. Royal Society of Sculptors. (n.d.). Jacob van der Beugel. Retrieved November 4, 2025, fromhttps://sculptors.org.uk/artists/jacob-van-der-beugel

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