30/06/2011Europe vs Facebook | Max Schrems
In accordance with the European legislation on data protection, every individu...
07/02/2014Whistle | Ben Jacobs. Whistle Labs, Inc.
The Whistle Activity Monitor is an on-collar device that measures your dog’s ...
16/10/2013How the Government Tracks You: NSA Surveillance
In October 2013 Fight for the Future and Demand Progress unveiled a video abou...
29/01/2012Narrative Clip | Martin Källström and more
The Narrative Clip is a small automatic camera and app that attaches to clothi...
29/08/2012The Program | Laura Poitras
The documentary maker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a veteran of the ...
08/05/2014We are data | Interviews
El valor de les dades que diàriament generem interessen a les empreses. Gràc...
30/04/2011Where the F**k was | James Bridle
In 2011, information technology researchers Alasdair Allen and Pete Warden dis...
04/12/2013_BIG BANG DATA
_BIG BANG DATA is an exhibition about the ‘datafication’ of the world curate...
04/12/2011Face to Facebook | Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico
This artistic intervention in the social web space shows the fragile nature of...
30/06/2004Horst Ademeit | Polaroids
During the last 40 years of his life, Horst Ademeit documented the harmful inf...
06/06/2013PRISM Whistleblower. Edward Snowden interview
On 9 June 2013, journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras made public the ...
20/01/2011Annual Reports | Nicholas Felton
Every year since 2005, Nicholas Felton has produced a report about himself bas...
Barcelona 9 May - 16 November 2014 | Madrid 12 March – 24 May 2015 | Buenos Aires 2 July – 28 November 2015
We are data
WE ARE DATA
From quantification to commodification of “the self”The need to measure everything we do, as a form of self-knowledge, has a long history, but what was once viewed as an extreme obsession is now an everyday practice and a growing economic sector.
The promise of the Quantified Self movement is that registering each of our acts is the best way of understanding their consequences and achieving any goal. This is one of the many industries that, through data, have started to commodify our privacy.
Today we are not just data consumers. Online social platforms build up an extremely detailed profile of our preferences, turning us into a product. Our data is the merchandise that data brokers buy and sell, and an essential component in the economic model of the the Internet. This systematic gathering of data on our personal lives is one of the factors that make possible the mass surveillance state revealed by Edward Snowden leaks.