For cattle and humans alike, wearable data technologies at the forefront of the production of docile and marketable bodies through digital ‘precision feeding systems’ and ‘dieting regimes’. The Wearable Cow Aggregates turn this approach on its head. Rather than extract bodily information, they use and exaggerate the awkwardness and discomfort of our bodies to give us embodied experience of statistical data, allowing us to reflect on its social and political implications.

A cow’s life is in the dairy industry defined by the amount of milk she produces, which on average is 24 litres a day or 51,840 litres in the 6 years, before she retires and becomes low quality beef. These sculptures allow for parts of a cow’s life to be worn on a human body, the empty milk bottles standing in for the hours of life expended, each litre taking one hour.

The first iteration of the wearable cow aggregates were produced by members of Autonomous Tech Fetish for Data Buffet, as part of the Museum of Contemporary Commodities in Exeter.