About

Metric Life is a digital platform relating to the ongoing project, “The Over-examined Life: Ontologies of the Quantified Self”, managed by Professor Btihaj Ajana. The project addresses the growing trend of digital self-tracking and fitness monitoring, which has become prevalent in recent years. It was initiated as part of a Marie Curie Fellowship undertaken by Professor Ajana at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies.

Drawing on empirical research and theoretical analysis, the project aims to provide critical insights into the dynamics and implications of this rising culture of self-monitoring and digital health management which have been enabled by the rapid spread of tracking devices and apps in everyday culture.

Metric Life is also a curatorial space designed to engage users and audiences interested in the topic of the Quantified Self and its practices, and encourage them to submit multimedia material in the form of artworks or textual reflections on their own experiences of using self-tracking devices, apps and relevant online platforms.

Professor Ajana is an international scholar and media practitioner in the fields of digital culture and social analysis. Her academic research is interdisciplinary in nature and focuses on the intersections between technology, biopolitics and ethics. She looks at these in various contexts including developments in surveillance technologies and biometric identity systems, digital health and self-tracking culture, museums and curatorial processes, and immigration and citizenship governance.

She is Professor of Ethics and Digital Culture at the department of Digital Humanities in King’s College London and a former Marie Curie Fellow and Associate Professor at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies.

Professor Ajana is the author of Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity (Palgrave, 2013) and editor of Self-Tracking: Empirical and Philosophical Investigations (Palgrave, 2018),  Metric Culture: Ontologies of Self-Tracking Practices (Emerald, 2018), and The Quantification of Bodies in Health: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Emerald, 2021) . She is also Associate Editor for the book series Quantified Societies and Selves with Bristol University Press.

You can find more details on Professor Ajana's academic work here.