Data Mines: The Quantified Self and the Cultural Work of Data in the Digital Age

YULIYA GRINBERG, then a graduate student at Columbia University, New York, New York, received a grant in April 2014 to aid research on 'Data Mines: The Quantified Self and the Cultural Work of Data in the Digital Age,' supervised by Dr. Marilyn Ivy. Computerized self-tracking is increasingly permeating everyday spaces. Not only is one's activity systematically logged online but mechanisms of capture are being incorporated into the wider ambient environment. Step tracking or 'activity logging' is now a standard feature on new model iPhones, but tracking capabilities are also enthusiastically being integrated into cars, appliances, watches, clothing, jewelry and a great number of other previously 'dumb' things. No longer is personal data collection simply an administrative tool or personal prerogative but increasingly seen as a wider moral and even civic duty. This research places the rhetoric that surrounds personal data under critical scrutiny, investigating not only the various ways in which data expose us but also the limits of digital transparency. Throughout, this research looks to understand what constitutes 'data,' what can properly be seen as a 'device' capable of capture, and how this framing impacts the type knowledge or information admitted or denied a record. Recognizing these limitations may help to temper the ambitious and frightening sense of an all-pervasive panoptic visibility enabled by contemporary technologies of self-tracking and offer an alternative perspective on what it may mean to live in a world increasingly represented through 'data.