Recipes for Breaking Data Free: Alternative Interactions for Experiencing Personal Data

How do the specific, predefined ways data brokers like Garmin or Fitbit render personal biometric data for us hinder-or enhance-our ability to find meaning in our data? Using a Garmin activity tracker as a platform, I present a series of recipes for alternative modes to experience personal data. Recipes are sets of instructions people can follow or remix to create personal, novel data interactions. These recipes highlight how the under-used medium of sound can be a creative material for producing meaning. When we allow our personal data to be brokered by companies like Garmin, we exchange the hidden labor of data representation for an easy-to-access personal data experience; but in doing so, we forfeit the ability to do unexpected things with our data. By exposing these tradeoffs, these recipes encourage us to reclaim control of our own data and embrace the effortful process of data representation as a sense-making practice.