Stealth Care: Wellness from the Algorithm invites visitors into the spectral spaces where AI, health data, and artistic and scientific research converge, interrogating the porous boundaries where data ownership and algorithmic agency bleed into the realities of healthcare and wellness industries. This immersive, multi-sensory installation is born from six months of cross-disciplinary research in Austria with Ars Electronica x IT:U, and harnesses machine learning and Bennetts’ personal, ‘non-normative’ crip and chronically ill bio-data as a foundational research element. Can the quantified self serve the ill body? As someone with an extensive medical data profile, Bennetts sought to understand when her biological data becomes the focal point, separated from non-normative measurements and untethered from the exploitation of third-party health data frameworks; what will it unveil?
Harvesting her diseased muscle data using a wearable Electromyography (EMG) device, Bennetts gives physicality to the unseen frequencies of her muscles into speculative therapies that blur the lines between empirical science and pseudo-wellness ritual. Can these emerging technologies truly make one’s health visible and understood? Echoing the serene ambience of Bennetts’ time spent in Central European thermal spas against the sterility of medical environments, the gallery morphs into a site where bio-data is meticulously analysed, categorised, and experienced. In this context, the quantified self is not just a subject of care but can be empowered, active, and autonomous in reclaiming their own bodily narrative.
Image: Amanda Bennetts, Stealth Care: Wellness from the Algorithm, 2024, Studio view. Photo: Christine Hall
