Umbra
October 5, 2026
Self-tracking frames the female body as a resource to be optimised, promising legibility through wearables. Yet these systems are technically ambiguous, built on datasets not designed for women. The result is a quiet erosion of interoception, as an app’s readiness score feels more trustworthy than one’s own internal state.
Grounded in poetic computation, this project deliberately uses ambiguity to return interpretive authority to the individual. The outcome is a family of two objects: Umbra, a health data display that renders biosignals as evolving glyphs, and Sibyl, a satellite object that offers questions instead of answers. Together, they propose a practice of self-cryptography for attunement.
Designer: Ece Günesen
