This issue of APRJA examines the implications of datafication for research. Following a research workshop at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong in October 2014, it addresses the thematic framework of the 2015 transmediale festival “Capture All” as a research topic: “to investigate and propose actions that push against the limits of today’s pervasive quantification of life, work and play”, as the call explains. Indeed, to what extent does data “capture all” – even research?

We produce, share, collect, archive, use and misuse, knowingly or not, massive amounts of data, but what does its “capture” do to us? What are the inter-subjective relations between data-commodity and human subjects? In asking these questions, the articles in this journal seek insights into the logics of data flows between materials, things, data, code, software, interfaces and other stuff that permeates the cultures of datafication. Rather than merely mimicking the sciences’ use of (big) data, the arts and humanities must explore what kind of sensorium datafication generates for things and humans. What are the implications of being data? What are the darker forces involved in capturing and using data?