It seems like a day doesn’t go by where I don’t hear about some new self-tracking app or device. Do I honestly need to know where I am or what I’m eating every ding-dong day? Self-tracking, quantified self, lifelogging; you’re certainly right that these buzzwords are everywhere right now. It seems like every app out there wants to know what you’re doing and where you’re doing it—and granted, that’s something we really like about smartphones. But these things can be a little worrisome from a privacy standpoint, and it does seem like an awful lot of detail to be logging about your own life. What about being able to track someone’s location using your iPhone secretly? How does tracking affect your sense of identity? Do you know that I know where your cat lives? Do you even care? What if I woke up one month later and wondered “Where the F**k was I”!? Beware, your imagination leaves digital traces.
This course explores different methodologies of self-tracking using one of the most sophisticated tracking devices available today: the smartphone. Throughout the workshop, we will examine the social and cultural dimensions of self-tracking. Does it feel invasive, or is it exciting and empowering?
On a practical level, we will spend time walking around Trondheim with our smartphones, recording and mapping our movements. We will discuss different ways of understanding, interpreting, and using this data. How do artists work with location tracking? What can data reveal about us? How can it generate narratives and storylines? What can we learn from it? Who wants our data, and why?
While these questions will guide our discussions, the course is primarily hands-on. We will experiment with a range of tools and methods for tracking, mapping, and visualization, focusing on making, testing, and exploring through practice. Alongside these activities, we will look at a variety of artistic examples that engage with self-tracking, location data, and digital mapping as creative and critical practices. They will apply these tools in a single assignment that draws on the techniques and concepts introduced during the course. In addition, each student will contribute two examples—such as artworks, news stories, or technologies—related to the course themes. These contributions will be published on the course blog. bodynet.tumblr.com
Keywords: location tracking, self-tracking, digital shadows, life in the city, surveillance, artist as cartographers, storylines.
Target Group:
This course is geared towards MFA1 students who are committed to following the entire course of the program. MFA2 and BFA students are also welcome to join but unable to receive study points for the course.
Learning Outcomes:
- Students will become familiar with a range of mapping and visualization tools and platforms.
- Students in the course will be introduced to location tracking as a practice within digital art, literature, and activism.
- They explore how these approaches operate across different contexts and disciplines.
