This is my Google location history; that is me exploring Berlin since summer 2014. It makes you believe to tell you something about me, or about Berlin, but look closely: It doesn’t. Self-tracking tricks you into a fake understanding, which is…none.
Maybe, actually, it does a great job at not “informing” you, but “ex-forming” you. “Ex-Formation” is a book I picked up today at proQM, one of my favourite book stores in Berlin. The author thinks that knowledge is not the goal, curiosity is. Also, he says, you want to make sure that people understand what they DON’T know: Their Unknown Knowns and Unknown Unknowns, so to say. I hope I’ll understand that better soon.
Our culture favours measurements over WHY’s and emotions, and I kind of want to show that. Are Why’s and emotions the Unknown Knowns of self-tracking?