(un)real data | Ep.#1: (In)dividuality and the Quantified Self [w/ Felix Stalder]

The rise of computation in the 1950s shifted society to one constructed purely in commercial terms, where selling and buying have become the main social relation and every possible human form of contact is reimagined as a service or a product. What does this imply for the self? When individuals are broken up into parts that are measurable as data streams, the self is quantified and life is understood through numbers, where the ultimate number is profit. Professor of Digital Culture and Network Theory Felix Stalder discusses the ambiguity of data, the limits of computation and what interpretations might exist beyond the world as a set of measurements.