Layers of Identity

The theme of this techno-aesthetic research is the individual, personal and collective formation of identity through the cultural practice of self-measurement in our contemporary sensory environment.

With the emergence of the empirical sciences and a series of technical measuring instruments in the second half of the 19th century, methods of self-measurement were established that contributed to the precise and comprehensive recording of the self. Following the ideal of optimisation, a social reality has since emerged to which the practice of biofeedback is linked.

To summarise the concept of the quantified self, its black box combines mathematical calculation with purposeful rational thinking in an uncanny way. The quantification of one's own life should prove to be an expedition into as yet unexplored areas of the self.

However, we assume that the self-measurement of the ego remains in the realm of the measurable, analytical and analysable, even though it touches our innermost feelings and has an identity-forming effect.



Artistic research questions:
• How can a digital feminism artistically confront the new forms of dispossession through surveillance capitalism?

• If surveillance capitalism transforms collected data as a raw material into a commodity, what artistic-technical alternatives can be identified in a feminist practice?

• What techno-logical differences characterise an artistic practice with biofeedback sensor technology that values the contradictory and unpredictable human experience as such?

• To what extent does the focus on one's own body as an object go hand in hand with the loss of one's own sense of body as a subject and authorises algorithms to control and change our self-perception?

• What influence does biofeedback have on our identity through affect modulation or are there temporal gaps between the body and sensory systems that create new identities characterised by resistance and indeterminacy?

• How do biofeedback devices on the body format body movement?

• What is the relationship between the mapping of data and its meaning for interpersonal experience?

Funding / Sponsor / Support:
• Funded by Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Dresden
• Organiser: Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau e.V.
• Supported by Kreativ.Raum.Büro, Hanse3, Malermeister Lau

credits:
Audiovisual data generation: Katharina Groß
Text and dance: Victoria Henneberg
Graphic design: Evelyn Siegmund
Costume design: Wiete Sommer
Hardware development: Markus Degenkolbe
Organiser: Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau e.V.

Public dates:
15.6.24, Kreativ Raum Büro - Wilsdruffer Straße 16, Dresden

for more see https://katharinagross.tv/layers-of-identity/
& @layers_of_identity.24