Draft proposal for a video submission to Sparks a call for artists by ars electronica for : Artistic Visions in the Future of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing
In the context of H2020 Eu program

Anna Carreras
Phil Langley
Natacha Roussel


After a week spent at relearn (20-25th august 2015 in BXL)  working on issues around alternative self tracking data and re-make human software we decided to tentatively answer the Sparks call



Link to the call:
http://www.aec.at/sparks/

more info on Sparks program:
http://www.aec.at/sparks/about-sparks/



Tentative synopsis for a video

http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/qs--ars-script

ORIGINAL REFERENCE FROM RELEARN:
http://relearn.be/2015/etherdump/quantification.html


“I never can catch myself at any time without a perception.” Hume Treatise


----- Intro 

Starting a bit paranoiac with many numbers dashboards matrix ......;;
Voice over explaining would be good to continue with e-speak but in that case we need subtitles.


Self Quantification the body as numbers with classic quantified self
Some explanation of the phenomena

A continuous augmentation of quantification and normalization processes now reaches the threshold of intimate body data right at the skin level, it measures our activities our sweat and our weight on earth. 

How do this relates to a history of body representation does it allow for exploration  hose measurements are hyper specific, their main flaw is that the only contextual information they bear is valuable metadata. As self quantification seem to  completely lack possible poetic representation we felt the need to explore other approaches to this information and think about how to visualize and gamify those processes.


 **VISUALS: classic quantified self visuals:  the dashboard,  a person with numbers all over the place, I have quite a large collection of those maybe we can make a quick slide show or something**

**SOUND: machine sound VISUALS: number display mostly ambiance and illustration**

How did we imagine our bodies in 1950 when we had no information abous


Dr Praetorius in People will talk directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz 1951


Anatomy is more or less  the study of the human body. The human body is not necessarily the human  being. Here lies a cadaver. The fact that she was, not long ago, a  living, warm, lovely young girl is of little consequence in this  classroom. You will not be required to dissect and examine the love that  was in her — or the hate. All the hope, despair, memories and desires  that motivated every moment of her existence. They ceased to exist when  she ceased to exist. Instead, for weeks and months to come, you will  dissect, examine and identify her organs, bones,  muscles, tissues and so on, one by one. These you will faithfully  record in your notebooks and when the notebooks are filled, you will  know all about this cadaver that the medical profession requires you to  know."

http://www.google.be/imgres?imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p2Py4yeDg6A/Ur0iMeOC5rI/AAAAAAAARiI/zPH7Ts8yGE4/s1600/2013-12-01%252B012.png&imgrefurl=http://www.supertran.net/2013/12/movie-people-will-talk-1951.html&h=900&w=1600&tbnid=IDJGNbWR4-IxdM:&docid=ejMo_9elWSndQM&ei=tH76VaHtK4LuUsyelogD&tbm=isch&client=ubuntu&ved=0CFYQMyguMC5qFQoTCKGXhP_X_ccCFQK3FAodTI8FMQ


The issues of human relations in the context of medecine is not a new one it has been addressed over time in different ways we face similar issues in the context of the self quantification practices.

If we crop us in bits (bits as pieces, bits as 011010110) or in data we only become portions of data and lose our unity


The current processes directly benefits from data donation that are taking advantage of a long history of self help and support groups, but does not seem to fit into civil rights revendications associated to some of those movements among them feminists.  

The pleasurable surveillance through gamification processes
ref:
http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/viewFile/gaming/gaming

**How to illustrate? notions of game metadata *
http://i.nextmedia.com.au/Utils/ImageResizer.ashx?n=http%3a%2f%2fi.nextmedia.com.au%2fNews%2fmetadata.jpg&h=480&w=640





-----Parametric design and personal quantification

Issue of body representation are at stake its great to see that new tools exist and are at our disposal we want to appropriate them explore them see their potential and limits

Parametric design provides amazing possibilities to quickly represent human bodies in 3D, such as the powerful makehuman software. However the social limitations embedded in the interface design are limits the representations to some abstract and space less vision of the body we have alternative proposals.


** Visuals, Phil's re-makehuman tutorial video??...with subtitles...**
** I have some images of walker prop **


Instructions to destabilize makehuman software: http://relearn.be/2015/quantified_data/remake%20instructions
Instructions for alternative quantification practices:

•     * get time based data
•     * get a sense of their context

------ Quantification a Social process isolating individuals into a desiring machine


The Bachelor Machine is an encompassing structure that self feeds itself, a self sufficient tool kit for individual care, driving its energy to creating a network of social relations and economic processes.

The self centered functionning of a bachelors machine leads to an excessive energy exteriorized to social and relational structures.

They organize fixed methodical connections, between already attributed elements, that respond to a rigid and ompossible to discuss internal logics.


   This project is to be conceived as a collective enunciation of a process that would allow for non conventional visualisations of the human body that would allow space for alternative self image in a fluidity between desire and politics


NOTES: http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/qs--ars-mess

------ Our proposal

Adressing self quantifiers we want to present more relevant body tracking information  hence we look for ways to capture and illustrate subbtle and contextual information.
To the benefit of our health there is more to walking than step data, by being actively counscious of surroundings; an instantantaneous sense of perception.
**Visuals????? maybe only the text display**
**SOUND: recorded sound scape of Phil**

We propose not only to visualise differently, but also to envision different ways of capuring data, information maybe going through different mediums could be useful, ex transform photot into sound.

 Other option:
     Adressing the social network issues 

     a sound cloud like interface giving the possibility to people upload comments and images according to the recorded soundtrack.

Our project is to use contextual data and appropriated parametric design to represent  "The man in a bubble the lonely machine triggering desire "

*** Again a tutorial video about recording context and mesh translation"

By this process we aim to provide an alternative to the self tracking and parametric design potentials, and interfere with the processes of the "technological society" in a way that it leads us to different discoveries.







NB: just found this: 
    audio interfaces as a device for physical computing: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254006962_Audio_Interface_as_a_Device_for_Physical_Computing
    the sensor box, an old thingy (2003) that transformed sensor information into audio signals and back to data.......
http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2003/nime2003_208.pdf






 « On ne se trouve plus devant le couple masse-individu. Les individus sont devenus des « dividuels », et les masses, des échantillons, des données, des marchés ou des « banques » « dans une société de contrôle, l’entreprise a remplacé l’usine, et l’entreprise est une âme, un gaz. » Gilles Deleuze, Post scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle , 1990.