Approximate Repetitions: Latent Big Data

Abstract

Donald Rumsfeld famously quipped, “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.” This has become a rallying call of Big Data: a search for all types of unknowns—for things “latent” within various systems. This paper examines the concept of latency and links it to proxies to understand how what is unknowable is nonetheless repeated and remade.