Life-Log-Art

In an overly connected and digitized world, privacy becomes a privilege, and many people renounce to this privilege in a voluntary and purposeful way. Nowadays the act of documenting and sharing every aspect of one’s life is becoming more socially acceptable, and some artists aim to question and draw attention to this practice. Lifeloggers are people who decided to register their lives in digital format. The lifelog goes beyond the blog and the digital journal, from photographic journals documenting every meal to real time video broadcasts from wearable cameras. By purpose or by accident, the private life becomes a work of performance art. All our e-mails are commonly archived, the details of every phone call is saved. The movements in one’s daily life are increasingly being monitored by our handheld locating devices. The digital bathroom scale keeps track of the weight lost or acquired. Sleep-deprived workers monitor their sleep cycles at night in search for optimal rest. What can we do, and can be done to us, with this growing digital memory? Some of these questions are raised by the works of a range of contemporary artists exploring the theme of lifelogging.