Contemporary life is interwoven with surveillance. Gadgets and applications are increasingly being developed and used for tracking, quantifying, and documenting everyday life activities. State surveillance is now merely one example of the multifaceted forms of contemporary surveillance practices. Our current culture of surveillance is rather diverse and concerns relations between the public authorities and citizens, corporations and consumers as well as surveillance between friends, partners and within families. Focusing on the example of Denmark, this documentary explores the different manifestations and locales of surveillance, weaving together experts’ accounts and public opinions to reveal what is at stake in contemporary digital surveillance culture.
This portrait documentary film focuses on the self-tracking practices and habits of a dedicated self-quantifier from Denmark, Thomas Blomseth Christiansen. Thomas is no ordinary self-tracker. For the last eight years, he has been meticulously tracking and documenting various aspects of his life and health, ultimately ridding himself of his severe allergies and improving his overall health, as a result. The film captures some of Thomas’ experience while also providing reflections on the wider implications and ethical dimensions of self-tracking and quantification. The film is directed by Btihaj Ajana in collaboration with Jens Haaning.
Panel disussion at the event Life Gamified: Practices of the Quantified Self
Btihaj Ajana (AIAS and King’s College London), Paolo Ruffino (Lincoln University), Federica Lucivero (King’s College London), and Maria Chatzichristodoulou (London South Bank University)
Arts and Humanities Festival, 13 October 2016, King’s College London
Introduction to the event Life Gamified: Practices of the Quantified Self, Arts and Humanities Festival, 13 October 2016, King’s College London
AIAS WORKSHOP: The Quantified Self and the Rise of Self Tracking
Culture, 15 June 2016 ( Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies)
Games to live with (and die for): speculations on Nike+.
AIAS WORKSHOP: The Quantified Self and the Rise of SelfTracking
Culture, 15. june 2016 ( Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies)
AIAS WORKSHOP: The Quantified Self and the Rise of SelfTracking
Culture, 15. june 2016 ( Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies)
“The self as a laboratory”: optimization and self-tracking practices
in daily life.
AIAS WORKSHOP: The Quantified Self and the Rise of SelfTracking
Culture, 15. june 2016 ( Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies)
(from left to right) Btihaj Ajana (AIAS and King’s College London), Chris Till (Leeds Beckett University), Phoebe Moore (Middlesex University, UK), Lukasz Piwek (University of Bath, UK)
AIAS WORKSHOP: The Quantified Self and the Rise of SelfTracking
Culture, 15. june 2016 ( Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies)