from my forthcoming Thesis:
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Foreword

I close my eyes soft

Surrounded by data dreams

What shall I do now?

I admit to a certain privilege of having a father who loved technology and being a medical doctor more than most anything in life.  From an early age, technology was driven home: from the IBM PC Jr in 1984 to the Panasonic 286 and hand-built computers of the 386 and 486 generations.  He encouraged my forays into assembling systems and some of my most cherished moments with him prior to his death were in putting these components together to form something workable.  So, too, were those moments spent within the hospital walls, having the chance to see behind the scenes at his place of employment.  The acrid smells of solvents and cleaners, the implements of healing, the stories from the operating room tables: all this fed the mystery of humanity and our condition. This diverse educational upbringing, that is, social and technological, would play a significant role in my ontological pursuit of data and social agency.

The mystery of data and societies’ pursuit of it continued for me quite by accident.  In 1999, the seminal movie “The Matrix” was released and, within the myriad of explanations regarding hidden semaphores and mythology was buried a small, seemingly insignificant conversational exchange.  Neo, having been newly exposed to the “real world” through the ingestion of a red pill, is captivated by the scrolling symbols and characters across one of the screens.  When queried, Cypher, the principal Judas to Neo’s saviour, says “...there's way too much information to decode the Matrix. You get used to it, though. Your brain does the translating. I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead.”  What appears to be a jocular if not inane conversation between two figures in the film struck me: how much of who and what we are is tied up in the data that surrounds us?

Moving forward in time, as one is wont to do, I was afforded the privilege of working as an adolescent therapist and social worker for a private residential facility and state-run programme, respectively.  I was always led to the curious fact that changing circumstance did not always change output.  That is, simply providing programmes or schemes of rent reduction or engaging in cognitive behavioural therapy with patients did not automatically make the direct beneficiary better.  Rather, the reward for participating was usually an extrinsic motivator; a child in a residential programme would simply do enough to earn the points to gain privilege in the same way a family would simply stay long enough to ensure automatic provisions for rent reduction before moving to a new place.  These children and families were acting on data, however colloquial or tribal it may be, and were leveraging it to increase their apparent agency. However, this was not intrinsically motivated and as such it was fascinating, if not ultimately self-defeating, for the purpose of what I would view as social agency.

Still further in my career, having pivoted to an engineering position at a data storage company, I was able to start processing what businesses were doing with data.  A product that I had a hand in developing used the concept of meta data, that is “data about data” to provide useful handles for how data could be transacted with, moved, deleted, transformed. Data could be instrumented based on descriptors of it, not just the raw binary components.  It provided context and meaning to an otherwise featureless digital experience. It was at this point that there became an inevitable collision between two worlds, sociological and technical, and this led to the desire and actualization of this thesis. 

I am fascinated by how data, whether in meta data form or the raw, binary bits and bytes that traverse the ether, enables us to change our world.  It is writ large in our social contract, this idea that we, to wit: an avatar, description, caricature, or depiction of us, carries such immense informational value to organizations both large and small as to create economic value.  This valence, first described by Stokes in 1963 under the aegis of politics, creates power, both actual and assured.  Coupled to the principals of materiality, data becomes the material pursuit of society, not unlike a fiat currency like the US Dollar or the Euro.  The arguments put forth by legislative bodies such as the European General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other legal statutes have been key to driving the value of data as a currency, as have the myriad of lawsuits against breach of privacy (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) and the current anti-Facebook sentiments for information sharing and monetization of personal data.  Further, the movement of cryptocurrency, in any of its forms, along with the rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to break from a fiat stranglehold and give control (and ultimately power) back to the populace from which it was created, transformed, and ultimately consumed by is another litmus test as to why this study on data materiality, valence and social agency is so apropos. 
 
 Carrying the message of social transformation forward from my past, there is no time like the present to where data carries enough meaning to change the very fabric of a life.  We are surrounded by it, much as Neo determined in “The Matrix.”  It wraps us in an ethereal blanket visible only to those who have the means and awareness to see it.  To provide visibility and awareness, then, is the ultimate challenge and question to be answered:  How does data support and influence the social agency of communities, of individuals?  How can it be used within a health context, for example, to provide a newly diagnosed patient a sense of ownership, purpose, and being within the bounds of what is seen as insurmountable or terminal?  And then, upon gaining insight into these questions, use what we create, transform, and consume into something that changes our social agency?

All I am made of

Is data finite and real