 You asked me to be a discussant. I'm not sure what it implies, but anyways, I kind of of course listened to you and also I had the opportunity to read the text. I think that's a really good concept that you actually get some of these drafts and get to respond to them and I think it's useful for me also to listen to you. But yeah, great papers I think and this sort of interest in how technology uses us and how to conceptualize the agency of technology, understand it or come to terms with it, how to exist with technology and so not how to quantify the self, but how to be yourself in the presence of quantification. I think these are really important questions. So in as much as it is a story of ourselves that we see in the data, it's also a writing that produces us. I think that sort of dichotomy is really interesting and I was thinking of, you know, it's fought on, but I was also thinking of how to interpreting what you say, how to conceptualize this in a larger perspective. And I was thinking of, yeah, you mentioned Jill's sort of paper and writing as kind of a, oh that's when technology was more easy. It didn't sort of project us back, but I was thinking that maybe paper and writing do that. Maybe that's a sign of something bigger. I was thinking of Jacques de Ida who writes about the grammatology that writing is an externalization of consciousness. And this externalization is what also creates us as human beings. I mean, in contrast to speech, it's normally perceived as closer to the soul. And also, I mean, also then writing is, can you hear me? And I was thinking also in a larger perspective, not writing, but Giorgio Agamdon talks in continuation of Foucault about the dispositive of the apparatus. It's literally anything that in some way has the capacity to capture, determine or model or control. And he uses also the example of the pen writing literature, but also extends this to agriculture and computers and cell phones. And why not language itself? He says. So to him, subjectivity is what appears in between the living and the apparatus. I think that's very similar to the way you think of it. So at the very fundamental level language and writing and these apparatuses are not neutral, but have their own realities. And these realities affect how we understand and construct ourselves, I think. I think you both point to this very nicely. How these systems of quantification functions as apparatuses or dispositives would be them. I also see this in other studies of software. I was thinking first, like sticking to the grammar of Phil Agra, who talks about grammars of action. And how systems, like computers, capture data. I mean, that's what they capture. I mean, they don't surveil us, but they capture us. And that changes our behaviors into, it changes our grammars of actions into becoming visible for capture. I mean, being at a university is quite obvious, you know, how research and education, etc. is constantly the object of capture. And also, but also Matthew Fuller in software studies who talks about word. I was thinking of that because of your text, Jill, but he says, well, word is not only a tool for writing. It also designs its users. I mean, a particular way of writing, particular global business like English, for instance. So, yeah, those, yeah, I have lots of other things to discuss. Yeah, but maybe we should start here. Well, I'm just sort of thinking, yes, yes, tell me more. Okay, yeah. Well, many, many interesting suggestions, really. There is one thing that actually graph from your presentation that I think was quite interesting and connects to something I've been writing about, but I couldn't really discuss in this presentation. I only briefly mentioned it at the very end. And it's the use of the transitive verbs in the description of how we engage with quantified software and with technologies in general. So the idea of humans using technology, so subject using an object. And my suggestion at the end of leaving wheat as things to leave with is also an option to try to think in terms of intransitive verbs. So can we think about technologies that things we cohabit with, that we dwell on? So can we think in terms of coexistence rather than usage and influence verbs that all imply a transition and an action upon an object or a subject? Because I very often notice that particularly in relation to quantified self-angamification, the stories that we hear are mostly about the effects of, and also about agency, for example, which implies a transitive verb. So it implies an action that happens on someone or something. But maybe the trick is in the verbs that we use. So thinking instead of cohabitation or living together or mutual influence. I've also been, for example, thinking about these technologies as parasites. So can we think of the quantified self, for example, of Nike fuel as a parasite or ourselves as parasites of these technologies? So in terms of co-living and mutual cohabitation rather than using each other? That's one more idea. Yeah, well, I think there's certainly a greater and greater level of equality balance between us and our technology. I mean, you can argue whether we have any agency left or not. But it's certainly quite clear that there's some sort of shared thing going on here anyway. And I do think it's really interesting thinking about how we're trying to imbue our technologies with subjectivity through artificial intelligence and stuff. At the same time as we're trying to quantify ourselves like this, there's this immensely complex and interesting back and forwards happening there. Yeah, but obviously, I mean, that also points to what you were alluding at towards the end of the whole discussion of post-humanism. And I was also thinking of that reading your paper of Karen Barad's thinking. Not that I'm so, I mean, some people really quote her a lot. I don't do that, but I find it interesting. But she also picks up actually on Foucault's notion of the apparatus or dispositive to understand as a way of sort of explaining what she calls sort of this agential realism and interactions between humans and technologies. I think that maybe there's something to be gained in her thinking. And that sort of must encourage us to think of these apparatuses as involving processes that are both technical and human at the same time. And if you are to understand them, we also need to not only look at them as extensions of human activity, but also as extensions of machine activity. And that how these machine activities are, and I quote philosophers all the time, Deleuze and Foucault writes that machines are social, are human technologies before they are technical ones. So actually, when we look at this, it sort of involves different steps. We shouldn't see this as just an extension of our own activity. We should look at the technical processes involved. But behind the technical processes, there are ideologies. I mean, I couldn't imagine the quantified self without also thinking. I think that's the topic of the next discussion after this session, the neoliberal subject, the construction of a neoliberal subject. I mean, just as much as the prison constructs a different subject or whatever in, of course, thinking. So I think, yeah, I think there's something to be gained in this kind of thinking. I'm just wondering that because, I mean, yes, I absolutely agree that the neoliberal, which we are going to return to, hugely important. But there are other examples of self-tracking. Like women have, I'm sure, always tracked their periods to some extent. Oh, well, all right then. And, or, you know, I have a friend who, I did the baby tracking on the computer, but I have a friend who does that on paper and she learned it from her mother. So, and these are forms of, I mean, you can trace some of that back to, you know, the sort of numerical bias in, sorry, in medicine, the way that women's care for children was like transition from midwives to doctors and it became more objective and more data and more machines and measure the baby, don't just, don't just look at the baby and feel it to see if it's healthy, but measure it, weigh it. And I do, I think, I mean, that's different from neoliberalism, right? I mean, maybe that you can certainly say then related, which makes me think that perhaps quantified self could have, I mean, now it's clearly very neoliberal, a lot of it. But maybe it could have been different and that's interesting to think about. Like, you know, Brecht suggested that why did we make radio broadcast? Why didn't we make it appear to appear like a two-way medium? I mean, he said that in the 30s and it's quite true. We could have made the technology different. So, is there a way we could think about quantified self as not neoliberal? Yeah, of course. I mean, the quantification. I mean, in the Roman Empire, they were obsessed with quantifying stocks since they, I mean, it's as old as writing, right? Keeping track of stuff. But I think then the sort of construction of the subject, I mean, we should also, I mean, now we are engaging the other panel, but also, I mean, how that's different from, say, the consumer, the consuming subject in the consumer society, as Le Favre described it, there's a control of consumption. So, for instance, to become, I mean, objects don't just have like a use value. They also have a sign value. So a car, for instance, is not just a car, it's also a particular brand that expresses a particular kind of power and authority. And the implication of this is that if I don't have a car, I don't have that authority. And if I have a particular car, I have a particular kind of authority. And I think that's sort of how sort of capitalism functions in his perspective. But I think with the quantified self, it's different. It doesn't want me to consume. It doesn't want me to obey, to become a particular kind of person. It just wants to measure me. And it sort of thrives on the data that I leave. That's the value that's gained. So it's a subject that's encouraged to share and who only comes into being by sharing, by being visible. That would be my thesis. Maybe if I can also add one thing. Connecting with what you were saying before about the connection with the neoliberal ideology. I think the point here is really to try to understand when we talk about the knowledge that is offered by the quantified self, what specific kind of knowledge are we talking about? And that's, I think, it's really the question. So when you, for example, were presenting the work by Jim Bridal, which is a brilliant work where he presents our Google, right? Our Google track. How his iPhone actually tracks his movement. And this idea of not remembering all the places where he has been. Which of course brings to the conclusion that, okay, my phone knows more about me than I do. But then of course this knowledge that we are talking about, it's a quantified knowledge. It's a knowledge that can be measured in terms of more or less. Which kind of reminded me of when I was presenting and talking about these differences by degree and differences in kind. So it's a specific kind of knowledge that can be quantified and therefore can be different by quantity. So I can say that, for example, my phone knows more about me than I do. But it is also a different, there are also knowledges of different qualities, of different kinds. So I think the question about the quantified self technology, if we want to somehow think and invent other narratives, other stories about the quantified self is to think how many other knowledges there can be. How many other knowledges we can imagine and present and discuss and create narratives about. I think that's really the challenge at this stage. I'm going to do more steps today as a result of this. Very good. Somebody should quantify that for me. Hi, I'm Phoebe Moore. Thanks again, excellent papers, really, really interesting. I think what occurred to me in your discussion is what's missing from the conversation is something about method that we rely on when we talk about quantification of activity and life is the fact that we're looking at something that's longitudinal. So that's something that's facilitated actually by the new technologies of sensory tracking. That's something that's missing in your discussion of what brings out the quality of the knowledge and the data itself. And then in terms of Bergson, I just wanted to pick up on something that he talked about that I think helps us to tease out how we can be critical of this or how we can think carefully about how this new form of knowledge, whether it's helpful or not. And it's his point that in fact, what we're talking about, once you start to datify, once you have this concept, I think you have to talk datism, which I think is something that sort of brings about this conceptualization that there can be a neutral understanding, something that's objective-fiable in some kind of way, is that each unit of measure is equal to every other unit of measure, which what I think happens when you begin to bring out the longitudinal dimension of how this looks over a period of time, which again is facilitated by the new technologies, it allows us to then make subjective interpretations from that data. So it doesn't, I would argue, at this stage, unless we talk about it critically as though it's something that's part of a bigger politically economic kind of shift and what that means. So that's one of the big questions that I continue to look at, but fantastic. And that's not really a question. It's just something I think that's been missing so far. Can I add something? Because I think that the first thing you raised, the method, maybe not a method, but that's something you actually address more explicitly actually in your written paper that some of us have read. You allude to artistic practice. I mean, you give examples of artists who sort of propose a different kind of engagement, and I know you also have a practice. So I think that's, I mean, is that a sort of way of sort of understanding this gaze on us? I think art is one of the best places to look to see how, you know, critiques of this. And there's so much interesting stuff happening in the art world, critiquing exactly this sort of technology. But also, like the example with Rodin's critique of the photography, often I think art is such a different way of portraying or seeing the world than this, which is trying to be so objective that it provides a really interesting alternative viewpoint. At the same time, as every time you look at some quantified thing, some artist has already done it. I mean, it's astounding. Like, okay, one of the silliest sort of quantified self-things I saw recently was on Quickstarter. It's a fart monitor. You clip it on your back pocket and it measures your gaseous emissions. And then you also enter what you eat and so forth. And it tracks your activity. And then it gives you an analysis saying how to reduce gas for you personalized. It didn't actually get funded. But that was like two years ago. But I think about five, maybe 10 years ago, Ellie Harrison, an artist, did that. She tracked her farts for a year. She made a, I think it's a Birmingham railway station. There's one of those little borders on the glass windows there that just looks like some random decoration, but it's actually a graph of her farts. And Beckett wrote about that in Malloy. Malloy counts his farts. I mean, so in this case, you know, art has predicted and critiqued, well, a failed quantified self-thing a long time ago, so absolutely look at art. Yeah, kind of trying to reconnect to the question, comment. So in terms of methods, I think we are kind of, we will always be at that end as long as we try to measure different things or to think about different units of measurement. So what I am thinking about is mostly imagining different, quite literally different words to be used to talk about what we do with our quantified selves, different narratives, different stories, and that's exactly what artists do, so I agree with that. So there are many examples of new media artists who are currently engaging with quantified self-technologies and gamification, and what they are ultimately proposing is essentially different ways of making sense of what do we really do. And very often the move is, as I did, really, is to focus on the personal intimate story of how a singular individual engages with these technologies. I guess this is probably a move to somehow counter these generalized universal narratives on quantified self, and it's also, of course, a method to say something different and probably also to escape from an otherwise strangling end of the quantified self. Thanks. There were great papers. I really enjoyed them. I just picked up on something that the discussion started with, in realities, and I think to some degree I think it's really important, the realities of all this. And Paolo, you said my phone knows more about me than I do. It just collects the information. It doesn't know about you. So bring it back to the two talks. It's like in yours, particularly Jill, what really struck me, particularly with the diaries and also the discussion advisor is therapy. People are using these things as therapy. And we had a discussion last night we talked about, there was a Guardian Art School a while ago about this woman who was on a forum, a health forum, and she was posing as a cancer sufferer, and she wasn't. And she was enjoined on adulation and the support she was getting through it. And I'm just wondering about therapy and for you Paolo, the intuition. I thought that you briefly touched upon it. I thought that it was a really interesting thing. And what was it about, say, your fit band, the night few, that while intuition there suddenly went, oh, hold on, the time zones are different. It's over. It's finished. It's coming to an end. I'm just interested in that kind of aspect of it. Yeah, actually, it's interesting that the technical fault of the Nike Fuel Ed was related to the moving between time zones because in the end, the problem that I had with Nike Fuel it was all about time and the timing of my tracking and how it was not changing in quality over time. So in a sense, it's the story of my engagement with Nike Fuel and the failure of it and the end of it. It's all about time. But it's also my consideration of breaking up with Nike Fuel, as I say, it was also about introducing the problem of time into my understanding of time and change, of course, and movement in my understanding of my engagement with Nike Fuel. So yeah, so that was my take. I think the issue of duration, it's quite crucial. And also, which connects to the idea of the event. So is it possible to imagine an event happening in these relationships that we have with our quantified selves or are they somehow condemned to remain static and always repeating themselves according to the same criteria? So how can events happen in these engagement? I think, for example, the idea of the dear diary that you mentioned, it's quite interesting because it brings to a different kind of connection of making sense of the relationship in the dear diary. This connection is always already there. And in particular, I think with Nike Fuel, what I realized at one point that it was almost impossible to tell when was a good time to stop using it. Because if it is always the same, so you can always go on for one more day, right? So you can always accumulate, you can always do plus one. So how do we decide when we stop using these self-tracking technologies? Actually, I would be very interested. I'm not sure if it has been done so far, but hearing some interviews of people who stopped using these technologies. And maybe they didn't necessarily make sense. Nothing particularly drastic happened. But how do we make sense of the decision of stepping back and stop this continuous and repetitive and homogeneous tracking of ourselves? Which would be a way of introducing the event and the issue of time in the way in which we make sense of quantified self. That would be a great study. Philippe Lejeune wrote an article. He's like the great scholar of diaries. He wrote an article about how diaries end, which is kind of fascinating. He has like four types, I can't remember them all. One is a big death, right? One is that somebody finds the diary who really shouldn't have, and there are a few others. But it's a really interesting question. Excellent question. Okay, well I suggest that we stop the panel here. Thank you so much for all the excellent discussions.