I love your projects + explorations, Aman!! Your thoughtfulness and intentionality really comes across! I am excited to see what directions you'll go. I think it's really interesting too how you're comparing "big data" with "small data" and how there could be points of intersection between those two... Like could you locate some of your quantified self work within the bigger data set. Or use it to frame the bigger data set in a different way? (e.g. my quantified self data shows how tired and busy I am (maybe not for you, speaking for myself!), no wonder wealth inequality/capitalism is still around bc we're all too exhausted/busy for activism... not the best example but something like that). Can't wait to see what you create + continue finding out!!
That is a lovely articulation of what I'm hoping to get at, Emery! Thank you for your kind words, as always!! Arriving at a logic to constrain the ideas so I can start experiments, and hoping to share that on Thursday.
re: "Could I take all my Google and/ or Meta data and really make something meaningful of it? Understand it in some more meaningful way, without getting overwhelmed, without doxing myself? Has someone done some work in making a how-to/ recipe book for: how to make sense of the droves of data you have given to Facebook, Instagram and/or Google Photos and/or Maps and/or Mail?! Could this be a project direction that's meaningful to not just me but others too?"
Yes! I think that would be so valuable and interesting!! I had once requested to Uber that they email me all of the information they've collected about me that's contributed to my X/5 star rating, and the data they sent me wasn't very helpful/raw... but I could share that with you if it'd be an interesting data point about the process and formatting of data-sharing that a big company is willing to give back to a data point/user/human
Thanks Kat! That's a great shout. Especially given that I had less luck than expected with Google Maps in terms of getting my data out of it. I'll try Uber + Lyft and let you know if it would be helpful to work with your dataset too—thank you for offering!!!