Datafication and Embodied Intelligence
Brandy Parker, Senior Design Director, Health Portfolio Lead, IDEO and Indigo Weller, Senior Consultant, Stripe Partners
Overview
Today, data analysis, digital technology and design objects are used for measuring, understanding, augmenting, surveilling, and controlling the body. As a consequence, data-driven technologies are continuously asking us to renegotiate our conceptions of and practices with bodies.
This salon discusses current technology designs, and practices around them, to capture and augment bodily modes of intelligence. How should we bridge representations based on data, on one hand, and lived experiences, on the other, when it comes to something so intimate as the body and its sensed phenomenology? What is – and what should be – the role of ethnography and design thinking in the current reformulation of lived, measured, and represented bodies?
References for Participants
Crawford, K., Lingel, J., & Karppi, T. (2015). Our Metrics, Ourselves: A Hundred Years of Self-Tracking from the Weight Scale to the Wrist Wearable Device. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(4-5), 479-496. 10.1177/1367549415584857. Download article.
Ruckenstein, Minna and Natasha Dow Schüll. The Datafication of Health. Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 46:261-278, October 2017. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041244
What Is a Salon?
In Salons, we gather in smaller groups to build collective intelligence about pressing or emerging topics. Hosts set the stage with key points and provocations, then participants drive the discussion, sharing diverse expertise and experiences. We come away with deeper understanding, new strategies and tactics for our work, and a wonderful network of thought partners.