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Title: Data Epics: Embarking on Literary Journeys of Home Internet of Things Data
In this paper, we use fiction as a method to complicate the commonplace narratives of data as intangible and objective, in the particular context of Internet of Things (IoT) in the home. We, a team of two design researchers, partnered with a fiction writer and a single IoT enthusiast, Susan, to create The Data Epics: four short stories based on Susan's monthly home IoT data logs. The Data Epics revealed new imaginaries for data, showing new world-views and lively data, but also surfaced data's entanglement in meshes and hierarchies, and concerns about control and power. Our work also examines the labor of tending to and interpreting data and a particular interest in anomalies. We conclude with discussions of how data imaginaries from fiction might be imperfect, but are uniquely generative, offering a path to get closer to IoT data by trying things on and zooming in and slowing down.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1947696
PAR ID:
10285709
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Human factors in computing systems
Volume:
CHI'21
Issue:
CHI'21
ISSN:
1062-9432
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1-17
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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