Body Data and the Internet
The words ‘body data’ came across as a new word that I have never heard until Ghislaine Boddington’s lecture on its meaning and relevance and even after the class I discovered that there are limited sources of information on this topic and in my opinion this is because protecting your privacy and information is not the wish of rich people at the helms of affairs in technology, for this reason, I will be reflecting solely on Ghislaine Boddington’s lecture ‘who owns our body data’ and also the creative research she has done over the years ‘ the internet of bodies’ . The Internet of Bodies is a practice as research programme of work initiated by Ghislaine Boddington to encompass and expand on her two decades of research into the emergence and evolution of virtual physical blended presence and digital intimacy. This contemporary research has resulted in an extensive set of public engagement and consultancy work across a wide range of sectors, through keynote presentations, directed performances and installations, curations, discussions and writings, find more information about this below
The Internet of Bodies by Ghislaine Boddington explores her long term work into virtual physical presence and digital intimacy.
This lecture had me questioning how much information I have put out there and how much access I have given to websites to ‘harvest’ my personal data by accepting cookies every time I visit a website. Over the years I have also heard the saying that ‘DATA IS KING’, this lecture gave me more clarity of how multinationals rake in millions for themselves with the data that have been collected from innocent people who have no idea of the implications of their actions anytime they put their personal information on these platforms
In this lecture, Ghislaine Boddington took us through the various methods that her organization and people of the same belief that your data should be protected have taken to protect their personal information and the future of the human body and technology, I also found out about digital intimacy and the collective embodiment of the future. Her creative research also proposes that ‘our bodies have, in 2020, finally have become the interface. This leads to ethical considerations of the inherent issues of the data ownership of these biometric-led technologies.’ Boddington, G. (1989).
I implore anyone reading this to be more self-aware anytime you access the internet as this will help you make conscious decisions on the type of your data that you want in a public domain like the world wide web.
REFERENCES
Boddington, G. (1989). The Internet of Bodies | Ghislaine Boddington. [online], Available at: https://www.internetofbodies.net/ [Accessed 11 Dec. 2022].
University of Greenwich. (n.d.). A Nudge and a Push: Towards Ethical Sustainability in an Era of (Invisible) Data Harvesting | Research activities. [online] Available at: https://www.gre.ac.uk/research/activity/las/a-nudge-and-a-push [Accessed 11 Dec. 2022].
History.com Editors (2019). The Invention of the Internet. [online] HISTORY. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/invention-of-the-internet. (Accessed 11 Dec 2022)
