Sonifying the quantified self: Rhythmanalysis and performance research in and against the reduction of life-time to labour-time

Abstract

Today there is a proliferation of wearable and app-based technologies for self-quantification and self-tracking. This article explores the potential of an Open Marxist reading of Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis to understand data as an appearance assumed by the quantitative abstraction of everyday life, which negates a qualitative disjuncture between different natural and social rhythms – specifically those between embodied circadian and biological rhythms and the rhythms of work and organisations. It takes as a case study a piece of performance research investigating the methodological and practical potential of quantified-self technologies to tell us about the world of work and how it sits within life as a whole. The prototype performance research method developed in the case study reconnects the body to its forms of abstraction in a digital age by means of the collection, interpretation and sonification of data using wearable tech, mobile apps, synthesised music and modes of visual communication. Quantitative data were selectively ‘sonified’ with synthesisers and drum machines to produce a 40-minute electronic symphony performed to a public audience. The article theorises the project as a ‘negative dialectical’ intervention reconnecting quantitative data with the qualitative experience it abstracts from, exploring the potential for these technologies to be used as tools to recover the embodied social subject from its abstraction in data. Specifically, we explore how the rhythmanalytical method works in and against the reduction of life-time to labour-time by situating labour within the embodied time of life as a whole. We close by considering the capacity of wearable technologies to be repurposed by workers in constructing new forms of measurement around which to organise and bargain.

Narratives in numbers: Sociotechnical storytelling with self-tracking

“…However, this work is not taking a ‘rhythmanalysis’ approach to the study of self-tracking, as has emerged in recent years (Jethani 2021; Pitts et al . 2020; Vigren and Bergroth 2021). There is difficulty reconciling such an approach – given the connection to data, commoditisation, and capital – with the overall Marxist tenets of Lefebvre's work, within the scope of this research paper.…”

“…In focusing on this embeddedness, the approach is interested in both the literal talk about 'your everyday' of the participants in an interactionist sociological sense (Lyman and Scott 1989), as well as the more theoretical valuing (and critiquing) of the 'the' everyday (Lefebvre 2014), as elevated by Pink's (2012) in illustration of the interrelationships between digitalised spaces, senses, and practices. However, this work is not taking a 'rhythmanalysis' approach to the study of self-tracking, as has emerged in recent years (Jethani 2021;Pitts et al 2020;Vigren and Bergroth 2021). There is difficulty reconciling such an approachgiven the connection to data, commoditisation, and capitalwith the overall Marxist tenets of Lefebvre's work, within the scope of this research paper.…”

Creative Labour, Metabolic Rift and the Crisis of Social Reproduction

“…79, 89). Rather than a caesura between Marx's early and mature work a common thread remains in the dialectical relationship posited between subjects and their subjectification and reproduction by means of an objective world that springs from their creation but dominates them from without (Pitts et al 2019). The development of this idea through an account of capitalist production and exchange in capital depends upon the separation from nature outlined in the early work as its logical basis.…”

Engaging the body, appropriating a corporate wellness programme

“…The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1746-5648.htm rewarding positive behaviour through encouraging messages, instant feedback and attractive visuals or thanks to processes of gamification (Fritz et al, 2014;Giddens et al, 2017;Burns et al, 2012;Fogg, 2003;Paluch and Tuzovic, 2019). Conversely, critical approaches frame wearable technologies and the interest organisations display in corporate well-being programmes as a further means of control and exploitation of workers' bodies (Maltseva, 2020;Pitts et al, 2020;O'Neill, 2017). From this perspective, wearable devices and corporate well-being are seen as an invasion of workers' personal sphere, in order to improve their productivity and reduce organisational costs related to illness absenteeism (Lupton, 2016).…”

“…, 2012; Fogg, 2003; Paluch and Tuzovic, 2019). Conversely, critical approaches frame wearable technologies and the interest organisations display in corporate well-being programmes as a further means of control and exploitation of workers' bodies (Maltseva, 2020; Pitts et al. , 2020; O'Neill, 2017).…”