Data bodies are “discrete parts of our whole selves that are collected, stored in databases,“ according to the collective Our Data Bodies. Yet, our data bodies do not belong to us. In the age of “surveillance capitalism” (Shoshana Zuboff) the tracking, analysis, sale, and archiving of user data happens widely unnoticed. Inspired by the film The Alphabet of Feeling Bad (Ann Cvetkovich and Karin Michalski, 2012) as well as Joana Moll’s artistic work and investigations I revisit negative feelings related to the opaque infrastructures underlying the uncanny excess and growth of data bodies and look into our non-sovereign relation to the accumulation of user data for advertising purposes and other third-party interests. Is ’data body’ a useful metaphor to explore and analyse these feelings, their underlying (body) politics as well as the archival and material infrastructures they are connected to?

Annika Haas is a media theorist and critic based in Berlin and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research Training Group Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim. Previously, she was a Research Associate at the Berlin University of the Arts (2017–2023). In 2022, she completed her PhD with a thesis on Hélène Cixous’s philosophy and writing through the body: Avant-Theorie. Hélène Cixous’ écriture du corps. Her research interests include French philosophy, theory as an aesthetic practice, and, more recently, aesthetics beyond repair in response to the damages caused by digital capitalism and its infrastructures.

http://annikahaa-s.com

Moderation: Rea Alp, Kunstwissenschaftlerin und Kunsthistorikerin, Promovendin an der HFBK Hamburg