In June 2023, I completed a Ph.D. research at the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, titled “DATAFIED: A Critical Exploration of the Production of Knowledge in the Digital Age.” This epistemological investigation into datafication (defined as the quantification of qualitative aspects of life) was inspired by Walter Benjamin’s work “The Arcades Project.” It explores the significant underlying shifts in ways of thinking in the digital age, and our (blind) societal faith in technologies of quantification even (and especially) when they apply to qualitative aspects of living.
We often hear or read about the digital as a medium (social media), or as an actor in the national and international reconfigurations of power taking place today, but very seldom do we reflect on the systemic and seismic reshaping of how we know what we know. Like Benjamin one century earlier, I aimed to understand how these profound epistemological shifts affect the civilisation emerging at the dawn of the 21st century.
This Vimeo channel contains a number of recordings of presentations around this topic: a June 2023 Solstice Capra Alumni Gathering 20mn presentation on my PhD, a presentation on Datafication as the Phantasmagoria of the 21st Century (a benjaminian concept that has found new relevance today), some epistemological musings (2024) and more.
Rachel Carson’s quote sums up the purpose of this blog: “The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”