ABSTRACT
The tracking and recording of everyday personal data (for example, steps, calories, sleeping habits) has gained momentum in recent years with the rise of smart technologies. However, as a new and evolving practice, the espoused benefits of self-tracking practices (such as self-care and the redistribution of expertise) remain largely speculative and promissory. There are also parallel concerns in scholarly literature about the relationship between voluntary modes of self-tracking and a growing awareness of the ways in which people are being surveyed, more than in any other time in history, by security, government and commercial organizations, through such tracking technologies.
This chapter expands on these debates in and around self-tracking practices by focusing on how creative interventions in the space are addressing and exploring these concerns—especially around providing more complexity around discussions that consider human and more-than-human entanglements. We begin with a pioneer in the space of locative media, Hajime Ishikawa, who began self-tracking nearly 20 years ago with the introduction of GPS devices. Ishikawa not only uses his tracking data to think creatively about his surrounds but also, by tracking his cat, he began to think differently about how he and his more-than-human counterpart companions move in and through the environment. We then look at creative practice interventions by contemporary artists, which allow us to think through alternative modes of techniques, translation and knowledge transmission around the omniscient and omnipresent advancement of self-tracking practices.
