2(1) 2016: Quantified Selves
Browsing 2(1) 2016: Quantified Selves by Subject "das Selbst"
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ArticleCoupling Quantified Bodies. Affective Possibilities of Self-Quantification beyond the SelfCercós, Robert; Goddard, William; Nash, Adam; Yuille, Jeremy (2016) , S. 177-182The main promise behind the idea of self-quantification is to transform our lives through the continuous collection of numerical evidence about the body and its activity. Although this process may help boost self-knowledge, everyday life also involves a complex network of relations with other bodies that exert a significant, sometimes determining, influence on our behaviour. To address this concern, we suggest that self-quantification data can be modulated as perturbations to other human and non-human bodies that, in turn, may directly affect the everyday practices of the self. By coupling quantified bodies, we transform existing practices by disrupting the elements that realise, perform and reproduce existing practices. In order to explore and further understand the affective potential of this idea, we designed a system that creates unfamiliar, digitally enabled couplings between two quantified bodies: a human and a plant. In particular, in this design experiment we modulate walking activity data into perturbations to a quantified plant. How does this coupling transform the way we look at self-quantification? Are we bringing forth a new space of responsibility and ethical concern? What if the plant dies because someone did not walk enough? In this article we discuss the implications of creating such a coupling keeping a critical distance to current forms of self-quantification, which are often focused on change through prescriptive solutions rather than through the fostering of self-determined growth. With this work we aim to expand the current understanding of the affective possibilities of self-quantification in the context of social change.
- ArticleFrom Quantified to Qualified Self. A Fictional Dialogue at the MallBelliger, Andréa; Krieger, David J. (2016) , S. 25-40Quantifying the self is not enough; numbers and statistics must be interpreted, that is, integrated into networks of identity, society, and meaning. The quantified self must become a “qualified” self if body tracking is to have any impact on our lives and society. Data generated by body tracking in all forms are not merely a passive material for interpretation, they do not merely lie around in databases until something from outside makes meaning out of them. Data become information and flow in global networks. Without access to data, individuals must rely on experts and expert systems. Putting body-related data into the hands of those who are directly concerned makes them responsible for doing something with the data, for interpreting and making use of the data. Interpreting the data of body tracking occurs as networking. It breaks out of the constraints of modern subjectivity as well as paternalistic health care structures and occurs by participation, communication, and transparency, that is, by following “network norms.” Personal informatics and body tracking is a performative enactment of the informational self. The informational self is neither the product of technologies of power (Foucault), but of an “ethical” technology of the self. The self becomes a hub and an agent in the digital network society. Body tracking transforms the opaque and passive body of the pre-digital age into the informational self. Networking is the way in which order – personal, social, and ontological – is constructed in the digital age.
- ArticleIntroduction. The Quantified Self and Statistical BodiesAbend, Pablo; Fuchs, Mathias (2016) , S. 5-21