As sensor technologies increasingly permeate everyday practices in mobility, traffic, health and care, the capture, processing, and interpretation of data have become central to socio-technical organisation, planning, monitoring, and decision-making. This one-day workshop is a cross-project initiative (A03 Navigation in/through Smart Cycling, A05 Healthcare, P05 Traffic Interaction) that invites researchers to critically examine the politics, ethics, and technical challenges inherent in negotiating and handling sensory data.

Besides technologically generated sensor data, research on sensory and embodied knowledge foregrounds the distributed sensorium, highlighting how sensing through bodies and environments produces situated forms of data and knowledge that coexist and interact with technical modes of sensing.
Moving beyond mere data presentation, this workshop explores how conceptions and practices of visualisation act as a form of distributed sense-making, posing the question how complexity can be handled and, where possible, reduced without losing accessibility. Participants will engage with critical tensions regarding data ownership and access (e.g. public vs. private platforms), interoperability across domains, and the (in)visibility of interpretative processes that define “prosocial” behavior, pertain to “good governance”, or shape care practices.

Through interactive “show-and-tell” talks, collaborative mapping and graphic recording, the workshop addresses the negotiation work that goes into making sensory data accessible, including for non-visual modalities (audio/haptic), and accountable to diverse stakeholders. The goal is to produce a shared framework for understanding the distributed socio-technical sensorium, identify frictions in current data practices and infrastructures, and formulate a research agenda for future working papers on the politics of sensing.

If you want to particiapte at the workshop, please register via email to Akib Shahriar Khan.