Interview Paper [Interviewees]:
Sabine Seymour (Director, Fashionable Technology Lab in Parsons School of Design) Shannon Mattern (an associate professor in the School of Media Studies at The New School) Grace Jun (a part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design, Open Style Lab)
Nelesi Rodriguez (Media Studies Alumni, who did her thesis research on Quantified Self) [Potential Interviewees] Gabriel Granoli (MFADT alumni, Data Visualization expert) Maksim Kogan (a data engineer in a data visualization company.) Sashi Padarthy (Head, Digital Design and Innovation at Cognizant) Nicholas Feltron (Feltron Report http://feltron.com/index.html) Gleb Osatinski (a film director of “Quantified Self” movie) I’m also contacting the Quantified Self community.
1.Identify and contact an expert subject requesting an interview. Dr. Sabine Seymour who is a pioneer in wearable technology, who created a term of “fashionable technology.” Dr. Sabine Seymour is serial entrepreneur and researcher focusing on the next generation of wearables and the intertwining of aesthetics and function in our garments. She has been involved in wearables for almost two decades as the founder of Moondial, a consultancy working with Fortune 500 companies worldwide on inventing new products, examining manufacturing processes, and building prototypes. She recently launched SUPA (formerly SoftSpot), a digital platform for clothing. SUPA is a highly personalized lifestyle AI connecting textile based SUPA sensors in clothing with the Internet of Things. Bio in Linkedin
2. Write a brief bio of the subject, focusing on details that relate to your thesis work. I am researching on the use of personal data driven by quantified self-movement in the domain of data visualization. My goal is to make a wearable art and an integrated self data dashboard that shows a whimsical scene of our quantified self by wearing personal data from biometric data, health data to social network information so that people may re-think about our quantified bodies and datafied-self with an awareness of ethics for personal data in the hyper-connected age. The other thing I want to pursue is to create a functional wearable design product that makes a meaningful interaction between a user and other people with their physical data by visualizing the data on one’s cloth. Through this project, I want to investigate the tension between the practical benefits of personal data for wellness (health) and obsessive, egocentric pursuit of the quantified self. Another concern of Wearable Self is a loss of control over our personal data and its use for gain by tech corporations. My prototype explores e-textiles that connect in real time to the wearer's lifestyle data and at the same time responds to the body's physical changes. 3. Write brief descriptions of the broad areas to cover in the conversation.
Simply speaking, for my thesis, I'm creating a wearable art (or fashion) as a dashboard as well and connect them to the dashboard UI in real time. (my prototypes are below). My thesis concept is representing the culture of quantification of our life(quantified-self movement driven by wearable devices and self-tracking apps which might look obsessive when it goes extreme. So the dashboard shows a whimsical scene of a person's lifestyle who is too fascinated in maintaining a healthier lifestyle by quantifying all personal data. I was an individual who was fascinated in wearing Fitbit and other wearable devices, but I found there is room for critical thinking within the quantification of our lives. (myself was an active Fitbit user and I often used the personal data for my project as well.)
4. Write a script including at least 12 important questions. 1) How do you think about the concept phrase of “Wearable Self, Wearable Data?” 2) My project is in line with the thinking of “body as a metaphor.” Could you explain your thoughts about this phrase? 3) How do you think about data ownership in the age of Internet of Things? 4) My project reflects the trend of quantification of our modern life at the same time standing for our data ownership. How do you think about quantified self movement such as self-tracking, self-surveillance by using wearable devices? What will be the pros and cons of the behaviors of self-tracking? 5) What’s the most hot topic in the current wearable technology (and fashionable technology)? 6) I’m planning to use e-textile that can transform with light and color, but I’m not sure I can utilize it or not for making a garment. How do the e-textiles and smart textiles work? 7) I’m planning to connect EEG (OpenBCI) data to the garment to track physical data in real time. Do you think it does work for my project? 8) I’m planning to make this prototype extreme and observe people’s interactions and opinions toward the project. What will be a successful documentation and interaction with audiences? 9) What artificial intelligence stands for the future of fashion? 10) Do you think my project has a possibility to be an AI fashion project if I connect it to a self data dashboard that can predict the wearer’s lifestyle with machine learning? 11) How do you think about commercial value of fashionable technology as a product? (I have been curious about your current launch of “SUPA” brand.) 12) Do you concern about your own data? If you imagine you wear your personal information or data, what kinds of data do you want to wear and show? 13) Are there any other advice for thesis research?
5. Tape the interview. Create a text transcript, presenting the significant portions of the discussion only.
6. Write a narrative of your most important take-aways. How has this expert informed your work? In discussions of the criticality of my concept “wearable data” with Sabine Seymour, a controversial issue was whether the quantified self-movement is obsession with data that tries quantification of every
aspect of life or it’s actually beneficial for motivating users’ health and wellness, While Sabine argues that it’s not a matter of defining the movement as good or bad because there are many layers within the context. Sabine’s assertion that Quantified Self can be used for positive design experience, contradicted by some critics claim about the negative side of Quantified Self movement and the use of wearable devices. In her point of view, Quantified Self movement actually allows us to get a much better sampling sizes or ourselves. Also, we can let somebody doctors, trainers views that information to get some advice based on our health data. The other perspective is, through that, maybe healthcare can become cheaper because we don’t have to go to hospitals or clinics all the time to measure our health data. Also, we can get psychological analysis based on the data sets by ourselves. Also, it can also contribute the society because when we have a positive self-images with the confidence of our bodies, health, and lifestyle, we are more likely to love ourselves and also would love other people. So Sabine suggested me to create questionnaires, make samplings of people who are of different ages, who have different cultural backgrounds and also people with different physical profiles. Then you can actually create a sampling size with health data from different people. Sabine gave me advice: considering what is really in general people’s mind. She told me my Wearable Data would be really interesting design project if I have many sampling sizes and go through user testings instead of just reflecting my opinion of Quantified Self. Sabine used to use the phrase “skin as a metaphor” or “body as a metaphor.” She has been interested in how technology impacts on our bodies and make us rethink about our bodies. She stated “There is a psychological aspect. You can think about psychological effects when you wear the data on your body. How would you feel about yourself with your data? ” Lastly, she preferred the term “Datafied Self” to “Wearable Data” because it has more critical meaning in it. She suggested me rethink what is “Qualified Self” that is contrast to “Quantified Self?” Sabine addressed What you want to do is-- what is the core question that you want to ask with your data? If it is just “a wearable data,” nobody will care about it because it’s not really contextualized. Defining your own term is really good -- I prefer “Datafied Self” to “Wearable Data” because it has more critical meaning in it. Think what is “Qualified Self” that is contrast to “Quantified Self?” Lastly, I asked Sabine a her opinion on the commercial values of this kind of product (wearable fashion that can be connected to our data) because she just launched her fashion brand “SUPA” which is an Artificial Intelligence fashion, a highly personalized lifestyle concierge connecting SUPA sensors in clothing with the Internet of Things - discreet, well-connected, and with style. It’s a smart clothing startup that creates sensors that can be integrated into any garment.Sabine believes there is a niche market for selling those kinds of products because our data are already in our smartphone even though we don’t track every movement of our lives by ourselves. Sabine thinks data is encrypted and nobody forces us to share our data before we are open to giving and share our data, so data ownership is not a right context to address with my garment. In sum, Sabine told me to find own theme what you want to examine with a clear context of your data and then make a project with your personal data such as health data like steps, calories and sleep patterns. Make your project simple to clarify what you are really thinking and argue your emotional opinion engaged in quantified self. If you want to connect Fitbit data to your garment, make it in real time so that your physical movement would be visualized on your body, it will be interesting to check a person’s state in real time on one’s body instead of accessing to Fitbit dashboard every time you want to check it. It will be really interesting if I can show both aspects of quantified self: one thing would be somebody who is too obsessed with data and the other thing would be the new way of using health data that makes a meaningful interaction with other people and also a product that motivates users’ health and wellness through the experience.