System + Method: the datafication of self-knowledge contextualised through contemporary art practice

System + Method is a practice led inquiry into the datafication of self-knowledge, as seen in the increasing prevalence of lifelogging and self-surveillance technologies. The thesis takes a personal look at the value of data, reflecting on how data practices claim to shape us into the ‘best’ versions of ourselves. Using humour, performance and applying evolving technologies in the best spirit of artist’s DIY, I have experimented with the material forms and animating spirit of the contemporary desire for a more measured self. Drawing upon theories of the self from Hume to the pop psychology of the self-help movement, the project critically examines the desire for and consequences of the quantified self in a broad historical context. The project accumulates in exhibition utilising performance and disparate materials from current technologies, electronics, structural forms, objects of the everyday and embeds processual elements into the final works