This project examines the phenomenon of gamification as it continually extends to more and more aspects of daily life.
The first part of this project examines small, wearable physical activity tracker technologies like the Fitbit, that use sensors to collect, measure and store data on the user’s movement and health. With the Fitbit, users receive directives from a series of opaque algorithms premised on pre-determined notions of scientific objectivity, healthiness and activity. The opacity of these algorithms derives from both the design of the FitBit and the gamification of the technology.
Fitbit produces not only a quantification of exercise but also a discourse of health, happiness, and scientific empiricism and through its gamification, the docile bodies of its users are opaquely subjected to self-disciplinary techniques and deep mining to manipulate conceptualizations of the self and obscure the very systems that make them possible. This project examines the processes of concealment via gamification to engage with the questions surrounding the visibility/invisibility and materiality of users and the data they generate as a resource.
This project continues its investigation into gamification through its employment with cryptocurrency and blockchain on emerging platforms like CryptoKitty and Bits.Farm. This project will argue that gamification is being extended through these platforms and it changes the rules by which subjects formulated as it places algorithmic logic at the center of formulation.
JAIME LEE KIRTZ 