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Paper short abstract:

We question the data-model boundary: When does data become model and model, data? How is data made strategic in this lifecycle? How has the data-model separation in the Human Brain Project fostered a human infrastructure where power/knowledge relations are disputed across the data-model divide?

Paper long abstract:

The Human Brain Project is a European Commission Flagship research project in computational neuroscience, of which a primary goal is to build multi-level models for the simulation of mouse and human brains. It is presented as a data integration project rather than a data production project, producing only 'strategic data' to complement and complete existing datasets required to build the models. The project extends the rhetorical separation between data and model to the organisation of the project as well as the design of its technological infrastructure, which will provide formats and tools for data collection, classification, storage and interpretation. This paper draws on fieldwork in the Human Brain Project to look specifically at Hippocampus neuron reconstruction. Through this case study, it questions the boundary between model and data, and illustrates different aspects, present in this digital reconstruction, of what Paul Edwards calls 'data-model symbiosis' (Edwards, P. N. 2010. A vast machine: Computer models, climate data, and the politics of global warming. MIT Press). In particular, we ask: When and how does data become model and model, data? How is data made strategic in this data-model life-cycle? We argue that the data-model separation in the Human Brain Project has fostered the development of a complicated 'human infrastructure' where power/knowledge relationships are being disputed and re-negotiated between participants across the data-model boundary.