Bio Mapping


Image of brainscan taken from internet


Interrogating the Individual

In Western society, individuals are continuously monitored by technical systems, everything from CCTV cameras that follow our movements to the microscopic level of magnetic resonance scans that record our responses to a variety of stimuli.

These apparently unconnected technical systems are all part of an attempt to interpret and manage the minute functions of human beings.

What effect does this kind of continuous ambient monitoring have on how we imagine ourselves and others around us?

In the shadow of this type of top down interrogation of the individual the Bio mapping project suggests a different type of body politic.

The central notion of Bio Mapping is that we can make better sense of our own body data than a disinterested observer.

By recording our own body's bio data along with our geographic location we can review the information and make meaningful decisions about our life.

Furthermore those close to us both physically and socially may have a certain interest in how we interpret our environment.

By allowing people to make active choices about how to share this intimate yet ambiguous data we not only create radically new social relations but we also change our own perception of ourselves from being at the mercy of these nearly invisible technical systems to becoming their master.

This process in turn suggests a whole range of new technologies that invert the control paradigm of biometric technologies.

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All the work on the Bio Mapping website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 2.5 License. The CSS is adapted from Intensive Station

Last Updated 22.08.07

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Hello I need to get feedback from people about what they think about the Bio Mapping project. Please help by filling out this online form. Thanks so much !!!

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I am in Tokyo speaking and running a Bio Mapping workshop at the Dislocate 07 conference. Come and join us if you are around.

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Link to all the press coveage

The San Francisco Emotion Map is complete. At the end of July I will be Bio Mapping in Tokyo. Until then I am working on my book and setting up a project in Stockport and Stoke Newington. Please see my main site for more info.

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There is a new interview about the Bio Mapping project.

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Bio Mapping has won the SciArt R&D award which will give me time to write a book about the project and commission some critical / historical essays around the project. If you are intersted in writing one get in touch!

Live interview on WAMU US public radio.

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New articles about Bio Mapping on the Discovery Channel the New Scientist and on Slashdot in the German Telepolis, Italian MondoGIS , French Liberation and Techno Science as well as British Council magazine

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A high quality MPEG4 video of the Greenwich Emotion Map is available for download

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I was interviewed on BBC World Service and NewsTalk106. See Tom Hagler's walk in Covent Garden.
(requires Google Earth)

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The Observer carries an article on Bio Mapping. Click on the links to view David Smith's walks in rural Bibury as well as 'Murder Mile' in Hackney.
(requires Google Earth)