BIG DATA OF SELF: MOSCOW BIOHACKING FESTIVAL

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33876/2224-9680/2019-2-18/06

Abstract

In September 2019, the Rocket Science festival of biohacking took place in Moscow. The event’s concept was built around the notion of collecting data about oneself to improve one’s quality of life. As Big Data of Self organizers put it, “Doctor House claimed that everyone lies. It is partially true since we all still describe our health with words, in the hope that the doctor will understand and help. Why hope if we can know for certain?!” Yelena Sokolova met with the festival’s co-organizer and PRT Lab head Artyom Davydov. They discussed the idea behind the festival and the experience of its implementation, as well as the Russians’ attitude to their health in the context of technologies – a study of the latter was conducted by Rocket Science channel and The-Challenger.ru portal.

Citation link:

Sokolova Ye. K. (2019). Big Data of Self: Moscow Biohacking Festival [Big data sebja: festival’ biohakinga v Moskve]. Medical Anthropology and Bioethics [Medicinskaja antropologija i biojetika], 2 (18).

References

• Coeckelbergh, M. (2013) Human Being @ Risk: Enhancement, Technology, and the Evaluation of Vulnerability Transformations, N.Y.: Springer.
• Delfanti, A. (2012) Tweaking genes in your garage. Biohacking, activism and entrepreneurship, Activist Media and Biopolitics: Critical Media Interventions in the Age of Biopower, Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press.
• Delfanti, A. (2013) Biohackers: The Politics of Open Science, London: Pluto Press.
• Fröding B. (2012) Virtue Ethics and Human Enhancement, Dordrecht: Springer.
• Neff, G., Nafus, D. (2016) The Self-Tracking, The MIT Press.
• Rettberg, J. (2014) Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves, Rochester: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Ruckenstein, M., Pantzar, M. (2017) Beyond the Quantified Self: Thematic exploration of a dataistic paradigm, New Media & Society, N 19(3), pp. 401–18.
• Selke, S. (ed.) (2016) Lifelogging: Digital self-tracking and Lifelogging – between disruptive technology and cultural transformation, N.Y.: Springer.