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The friction humans create on Earth: that’s one of the obsessions explored by Spanish artist Solimán López, whose groundbreaking projects connect diverse disciplines like physics, astronomy, biotechnology, and digital art. He is also the founder of the Harddiskmuseum, a repository for contemporary thinking. For him, collecting and analyzing data is the only way humankind can look back and learn from its mistakes—so that we do not repeat them in the future.
Data is usually a tool for management - something organisations collect to monitor and control. Solimán López uses it differently: as a material for making the invisible visible, for confronting us with what we're actually doing to the planet. The Spanish artist's work turns datasets into aesthetic experiences that the analytics dashboard never could.
Solimán López is a Spanish artist whose groundbreaking practice connects diverse disciplines - physics, astronomy, biotechnology, and digital art - in service of a sustained investigation into humanity's relationship with Earth. He is the founder of the Harddiskmuseum, a repository for contemporary thinking that reflects his conviction that data is not neutral: it is a record of the choices we make and the friction we generate on the planet we inhabit. His work has established him as one of the most rigorous and ambitious artists working at the intersection of art and science.
The friction humans create on Earth is not abstract - it's measurable, recordable, and accumulating. Solimán López's career is built on the conviction that art has a specific role to play in making those measurements felt rather than just understood. This conversation explores how data moves from spreadsheet to artwork: the curatorial and aesthetic decisions involved, the scientific collaborations that make the work rigorous, and the philosophical position that drives the whole project. It's also a conversation about what it means to build something like the Harddiskmuseum - a repository not for objects but for thinking.
Data as artistic material
López treats data not as information but as material - something to be shaped, arranged, and given form in ways that produce experience rather than just knowledge. This is a different relationship to data than scientists and analysts have, and it produces different results.
The Harddiskmuseum as cultural infrastructure
A repository for contemporary thinking is an unusual institutional form. The Harddiskmuseum reflects López's conviction that ideas need to be preserved as carefully as objects - and that the digital age requires new forms of institutional care.
Astronomy, biotechnology, and digital art
The breadth of López's collaborations reflects a methodological commitment to following the question wherever it leads. The relevant expertise for understanding humanity's impact on Earth is distributed across many disciplines.
Art as collective memory
López argues that collecting and analysing data is how we learn from the past - and that art is a form of data collection that captures what numbers alone cannot. This positions artists as essential participants in the project of planetary self-knowledge.
The most significant art of the early 21st century is engaging with the same questions that science and policy are struggling with - but using different tools and reaching different audiences. Solimán López's work is a sustained argument that art and data can do things together that neither can do alone. For collectors interested in work that matters beyond its market category, this is essential listening.
Unlocked is the podcast by 100 collectors - the global network for digital art collectors. Each episode, we speak with artists, curators, collectors, and builders shaping the digital art world. No market speculation. No hype. Just honest, substantive conversations about art, practice, and what it means to collect today. New episodes release throughout the year. Find Unlocked on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 100 collectors is a membership network. [Explore membership →]
