With the rise of ubiquitous computing in the smart phone era and a multitude of affordable wearable sensing technologies, the act of self-tracking has today become a common practice through which individuals seek knowledge about themselves. MYdata, is mobile android app which acts as a novel personal informatics and data-art making tool. Inspired by the data feminist design principles embedded in designers Stephanie Posavec and Georgia Lupi’s acclaimed data-art project and book Dear Data, MYdata allows artists and everyday users to explore self-tracking for both personal reflection and creative self-expression through a flexible data capturing system and a library of colorful visualizations through which to view and share their data. In keeping with its feminist design principles MYdata preserves user privacy by storing all data locally but making it available to share at the users discretion. MYdata was created by members of the Critical Art and Technology Lab (CAT Lab) in the computer science department at the College of Charleston, primarily Jo Jackley and Drew Smuniewski.
It was presented as part of the 2023 Entertainment, and Media Conference (GEM), Bridgetown, Barbados, 2023 in a late breaking paper titled “MYdata: Designing A Feminist Tool for Self-Tracking Data Art” by S. Schoemann, D. Smineuski, and J. Jackley.
