U2.5 – △1 – W3 & Continuing

The goal of my work development for the final crit was to:

• Communicate the pervasive/ overwhelming nature of data collection and surveillance that’s quietly in the background

• Explore the role and question of identity in surveillance society through self-surveillance, data collecting

• Use my own experience as a mirror, but create suggestive work that prompts discussion

-> ??? How to use data collecting + paper and print as a medium communicate  my goals?

• Collecting more data, experimenting with type, layout, form to break the “neat” and communicate the amount and overwhelming factor.

1. Experimenting with content – layout, type – sizes, positions,

Over the week, I was collecting even more data. I was collecting data not only from my phone, but also from third parties such as my oyster rides, nectar card points, gps location. I use these data, the data form the previous week/s and also some of the visualisations to create a new booklet, focusing on experimenting with the layout and type to break from the neat

I continued in using print / booklet as medium, I also iterated on the size of the booklet to explore how the size of the printed material can affect the communication of my goals and the perception of the work by the audience.

The name “Quantified (my)self” was inspired by resources: “THE QUANTIFIED SELF” FROM 2016 “ & DATA-SELVES: MORE THAN HUMAN PERSPECTIVES” FROM 2019 by Deborah Lupton. The books explore the topic of the “Quantified Self” – which refers 1. to our self, that is formed and described by numbers and data and 2. A movement and practice of individuals using technology to track and measure various personal data related to their daily lives. She talks about how that is changing and re-framing the way that society behaves, records itself, and reflects on its own behaviour.

”The Quantified Self” term started with Gary wolf and Kevin Kelly, editors for the magazine wired in 2007

After printing my booklet out, I realised even after the experiments with type, layout and size, the outcome was still too linear as a book / booklet is usually meant to be read from the beginning to an end, focusing separately on the content of each page, which wasn’t my goal – my goal was to communicate the topic in the unsystematic amount of information and data that are being collected.

For further iterations I was working with the following questions:

• How can I break the linear narrative of the created booklet, create more engaging, suggestive material?

• How to visualise the overwhelming, amount of data, draw on the constant procceses, that shape/manipulate our identity?

2. Experimenting  with the medium, exploring ”craft”

Moving further with my project and reflecting on the latest outcome, I started iterating on the booklet. I used the booklet to create engaging poster – the poster was inspired by foldable brochures.

Research on foldable booklets / brochures, experiments:

The iteration on my booklet was a hybrid between a poster and a booklet, that can be engage with in different ways, leaving space to the viewer for interpretation.

After creating the digital version of the poster, I printed it out on A3, folded and then iterated on the sizes to see which one is the most effective. I printed on A1 and A0, and folded all of them the same way. The outcome offer a physical material for a viewer to engage with, it offered different ways to engage and broke from the linear narrative of a regular booklet.

*Unfortunately the A0 and A1 versions needed to be edited to reduce the printing cost, so the black background behind the shopping bills and the portrait had to be removed for these experimental draft versions. However the full design can be seen on the smallest version (in the top right corner) or in the digital version of the poster above.