Fabulating Biodata Futures for Living and Knowing Together

Abstract

A growing number of design researchers explore engagement with and through biodata. To help make sense of this growing space, we synthesize three emergent themes: (1) expanding notions of biodata and bodies, (2) attending to a greater diversity of human bodies and experiences with biodata, and (3) biodata collaborations between human and non-human bodies. We illustrate these themes with selected design examples. From this synthesis, we develop three interconnected fabulations reimagining alternative engagements with biodata: Weaving Alongside, Diffracting Selves, and Collective Affect. Our discussion unpacks conceptual work of the fabulations, offering invitations for design research to explore alternative ways of living and knowing together with biodata.

“The sleep data looks way better than I feel.” An autoethnographic account and diffractive reading of sleep-tracking

“…The study challenges the notion that the sleeping body can be reduced to bio-signals and opens up opportunities for the design of sleeptrackers to engage with bodies from a holistic perspective including mind, body, emotions and values. As suggested by Tsaknaki et al (2022), the body-scanning and body-mapping activity each morning during the study period was an attempt to turn abstract biodata into a material form that can be experienced with multiple senses, creating new meaning to support embodied understanding of biodata. Illustrating the felt experience of ones sleep on the body maps was an attempt to visualize the embodied sensations of sleep without categorisation, attending to and making visible the richness and variety of lived, and thus slept, experiences.…”

Affective Umbrella – A Wearable System to Visualize Heart and Electrodermal Activity, towards Emotion Regulation through Somaesthetic Appreciation

“…Affective experience and emotion have become trending research directions in the field of HCI [2,13,29,47,54,64,67]. Lin et al use a conditioning effect to trigger deep breathing exercises over scent when a person is in a stressful situation [38].…”