Life is Good for Now at NODE17

The utilization of Big Data permeates many areas of our everyday life. Yet, especially when it is applied to the most personal and intimate information, knowledge about the condition of our bodies and the health of our minds, a quite ambivalent feeling spreads: What do companies and administrations know about us? How is this data applied to estimate our life expectation? And how do we make critical decisions about our well-being based on our quantified selves? Bernd Hopfengärtner and Ludwig Zeller’s speculative narration “Life is Good For Now” draws the image of a near future in which massive data collection lays the ground for self determined action as well as external control. The story unfolds through various constellations of objects representing the socio-political entanglement in which the issue of informational self-determination is situated. They confront us with the material foundations of abstract questions and leave a gap for us to fill: How would we fit into this picture? How would we behave in these settings and under these conditions?