School of Interactive Arts & Technology

This paper explores the concept of somaesthetics as an approach to the design of expressive interaction. This concept is exemplified through the design process of soft(n), an interactive tangible art installation developed in conjunction with V2_Lab in Rotterdam. Somaesthetics is a term coined by Richard Shusterman, a pragmatist philosopher interested in the critical study of bodily experience as a focus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation and agency. In the context of interaction, somaesthetics offers a bridging strategy between embodied practices based in somatics, and the design of an aesthetics of interaction for HCI. This paper argues for the value of exploring design strategies that employ a somaesthetic approach, presents a definitional framework of somaesthetics that can be applied to interaction, and links the concept of somaesthetics to a specific design case in which tactile interaction is applied to the design of a networked, tangible interactive artwork called soft(n).

This paper presents a framework and design for a wearable social network based on Facebook. We begin with a discussion of social networking by isolating key characteristics of social interactions in three research areas: Social Networking Sites, Mobile Computing, and Wearable Computing. These characteristics are analyzed to suggest a design framework that can be applied to the design of social networks. Using this framework, we have designed and created a wearable social network called Patches, which extends the social interactions available in most wearable devices today.

Our physical technology continues to grow smaller and smaller; so small that the computer itself is no longer seen as an object but a set of invisible distributed processes. Technology is becoming an inseparable aspect of experience, palpable yet invisible. At the same time, an extra-ordinary wealth of literature is emerging within human-computer interaction that is exploring experience, embodiment, subjectivity, and felt-life. This interest is often accompanied by research questions that are continuing to re-balance our understanding of the relationship between subjective and objective knowing, making, and doing. These emerging trends can be seen as a response to the phenomena of the really, really small: and marks a cognitive and creative shift from the visible to the invisible. This paper contextualizes the emerging recognition within HCI that there is value in designing for technology as experience, and offers a framework from the field of Somatics that can contribute to the discourse, particularly with regard to the body in everyday life.  Somatics is exemplified through first-person methodologies and embodied approaches to learning and interacting. I present a set of design cases that demonstrate its application within  HCI.

This paper describes the move.me interaction prototype developed in conjunction with V2_lab in Rotterdam. move.me proposes a scenario for social interaction and the notion of social intimacy. Interaction with sensory enhanced, soft, pliable, tactile, throw-able cushions afford new approaches to pleasure, movement and play. A somatics approach to touch and kinaesthesia provides an underlying design framework. The technology developed for move.me uses the surface of the cushion as an intelligent tactile interface. Making use of a movement analysis system called Laban Effort-Shape, we have developed a model that provides a high-level interpretation of varying qualities of touch and motion trajectory. We describe the notion of social intimacy, and how we model it through techniques in somatics and performance practice. We describe the underlying concepts of move.me and its motivations. We illustrate the structural layers of interaction and related technical detail. Finally, we discuss the related body of work in the context of evaluating our approach and conclude with plans for future work.

Human beings need to connect: to themselves, each other, and their objects of affection in the world in which they live. Mobility, connectivity, invisibility, and intimacy aren’t just keywords—they’re becoming key content, and even key processes. What was the search key is becoming the sought-after object of our desire: our experience of ourselves through our technologies. Our ability to design our futures requires some hand-holding: bringing closer connection to the communication between art, science, and research in the technology industry. This hand-holding can be uncomfortable at first, with a requisite period of sweaty palms, uncomfortable silences, and social faux pas. But hand-holding can also invite affection, curiosity, and vulnerable data: which, if respected, can result in knowledge sharing and building. This research domain extends embodied cognition, expanded perception, adaptive environments, and interactive systems. It considers these differing aspects as layers of architectures that embrace and include the body and its own data, affectionate computing, sensual interfaces, models for intention, smart materials, textiles, shape-shifting forms, and spaces that can move and transform.

In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework or understanding the aesthetic qualities of multi-touch and tactile interfaces for table-top interaction. While aesthetics has traditionally been defined as the visual appearance of an artifact, we promote a tactile aesthetics that is firmly rooted in the experience of use and interaction. Our model of tactile aesthetics comprises four distinct yet overlapping areas: 1.)
Embodiment, which grounds our framework within the larger philosophical context of experience; 2.) Materiality, which emphasizes the importance of the physical shape, form and texture of interactive systems; 3.) Sensorial Mapping, which is the creation of appropriate cross-modal relationships between touch and our other senses, and 4.) Semantics of Caress, the investigation into the meaning of touch which can inform computational models of gesture recognition. We apply this framework to evaluate a series of tactile and multi-touch artworks and discuss how our model can benefit the design of future multi- touch systems.

There is a common ground that exists between the first person methodologies of performance practice and the technology research of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI). Exploring this common ground, this essay describes movement research based in performance and somatics and then applied to the design of digital networked interfaces for wearable technologies. The research is based on a body of knowledge practices from performance/somatics that operate ‘from the inside out’, using the experience of the moving body to construct knowledge. Within both performance practice and HCI, there is a need to construct models of the user’s experience. One of the key questions this paper asks is: How can we bridge specific domain knowledge within performance practice to transform design strategies for our new technologies? The first section provides a theoretical context for bridging embodied practices from performance to HCI, and looks at (1) how performance methodologies can be used as a model for experience, (2) applying existing design concepts for creating gestural movement vocabularies in interaction, and (3) developing methods that bridge from experience to experience modeling. The second section provides a design context through the description of the development of the interactive wearable technology art piece entitled exhale, an installation that illustrates how first-person methodologies of performance can be used to inform the design of digital interfaces/interactive clothing within an experiential environment.

The thesis examines Merce Cunningham’s making of the dance Trackers, which was created with the assistance of LifeForms, a computer choreographic software tool developed at Simon Fraser University in the computer graphics research lab. LifeForms provides an interactive, graphical interface that enables a choreographer to sketch out movement ideas in space and time. The making of Trackers is an example of an ongoing process of exploration in Merce Cunningham’s work with computer technology. Trackers was premiered on Tuesday, March 19, 1991, at the New York City Center Theater, and was performed by Merce Cunningham and eleven of the Cunningham Company dancers. The author, a member of the LifeForms design team at Simon Fraser University, has worked with Cunningham since December 1989 for a period totaling seventy five days, tutoring him in the use of LifeForms and supporting his creation of new movement.

The history of dance and the use of computers is examined in order to provide technological context and supporting material to the case study of Cunningham’s making of Trackers. Choreographic process as it occurs in the studio is explored, in order to assess how computer technology can be used as a supportive tool in the creation, recording and interpretation of dance. This provides a background to the description of computers systems that have been developed for dance. The case study examines the evolving versions of LifeForms used by Merce Cunningham since December 1989, and describes in detail the system used by Cunningham to create Trackers. It investigates how the study of design process has affected the implementation of LifeForms. It also describes the history of the Cunningham/ LifeForms relationship: Cunningham’s use of chance procedures, the installation of the computer system and software, Cunningham’s learning process, and the creative process and methods used by Cunningham to make the movement within LifeForms to create the dance Trackers. The study concludes that computer technology can enrich the creative experience of choreographers by providing new methods to explore movement compositionally and recommends further directions for choreographic research.

THE VARIETIES OF USER EXPERIENCE: BRIDGING EMBODIED METHODOLOGIES FROM SOMATICS AND PERFORMANCE TO HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION

ABSTRACT: Embodied Interaction continues to gain significance within the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Its growing recognition and value is evidenced in part by a remarkable increase in systems design and publication focusing on various aspects of Embodiment. The enduring need to interact through experience has spawned a variety of interdisciplinary bridging strategies in the hope of gaining deeper understanding of human experience. Along with phenomenology, cognitive science, psychology and the arts, recent interdisciplinary contributions to HCI include the knowledge-rich domains of Somatics and Performance that carry long-standing traditions of embodied practice. The common ground between HCI and the fields of Somatics and Performance is based on the need to understand and model human experience. Yet, Somatics and Performance differ from normative HCI in their epistemological frameworks of embodiment. This is particularly evident in their histories of knowledge construction and representation. The contributions of Somatics and Performance to the history of embodiment are not yet fully understood within HCI. Differing epistemologies and their resulting approaches to experience identify an under-theorized area of research and an opportunity to develop a richer knowledge and practice base. This is examined by comparing theories and practices of embodied experience between HCI and Somatics (Performance) and analyzing influences, values and assumptions underlying epistemological frameworks. The analysis results in a set of design strategies based in embodied practices within Somatics and Performance. The subsequent application of these strategies is examined through a series of interactive art installations that employ embodied interaction as a central expression of technology. Case Studies provide evidence in the form of rigorously documented design processes that illustrate these strategies. This research exemplifies ‘Research through Art’ applied in the context of experience design for tangible, wearable and social interaction.

This paper describes some trajectories of the artistic research and development for the whisper project, an art research project that was developed in collaboration with v2 lab from 2002 to 2003. The concept of softly developing art research through embodiment strategies and techniques is borrowed from first person methodologies as defined within somatics. In this essay we look at the role of r+ d, the research and devising process within our art research.

Abstract This project focuses on the development of a language of interaction based on developing an affect space in collaborative sensing environments. The goal is to design a networked semantics of caress, where the interactivity can recognize, understand, and even express non-rational states such as emotion or intention. This suggests the development of qualitative models for data flow and data-architecture and the development of languages of intimacy, gesture, and the extension of tactility.

Tacit knowledge represents an embodied understanding of experience which shapes our form and action (Polanyi). For this study, the mimetic transformation of this'hidden'knowledge is described as a process of active engagement in order to arrive at a conditional representation of experience that may be tested for efficacy in the world.

Abstract This paper illustrates a prototype for visualizing contemporary dance through a movement analysis tool, entitled ActionPlot. Contemporary dance is an experiential and time based art form with few available analysis techniques. Our design facilitates structural analysis of dance performance by codifying and plotting expert viewer information.

Abstract Interface ecology is an emerging metadisciplinary approach, in which the creation of rich interactive experiences spans n disciplines---such as computer graphics, mathematics, gaming, visual art, performance, and cultural theory. Interfaces extend beyond interactive artifacts, activities, and social spaces, forming intricate ecosystems. Interfaces are the catalytic border zones where systems of representation meet, mix, and recombine.

ABSTRACT This text is a summary of the realization and interpretation of the autonomous responsive electronic media artwork “Memory Association Machine”(MAM). Realization and interpretation are components of the creative process that braids conceptual, site-specific, electronic media art and artificial intelligence practises. MAM relates itself to its context using three primary processes: perception, the integration of sense data into a field of experience, and the freeassociation through that field.

Abstract We present a tool for computer aided choreography titled Scuddle. Scuddle uses a Genetic Algorithm to generate movement catalysts for contemporary choreography. The use of movement catalysts challenge choreographers to distance themselves from habits to better explore creative movement. Scuddle was designed as a method for both facilitating creativity and supporting active reflection on creativity through awareness of the decision making process.

Abstract This paper describes the design of an interactive visualization prototype, called EMVIZ, that generates abstract expressive visual representations of human movement quality. The system produces dynamic visual representations of Laban Basic-Efforts which are derived from the rigorous framework of Laban Movement Analysis. Movement data is obtained from a real-time machine-learning system that applies Laban Movement Analysis to extract movement qualities from a moving body.

Abstract This paper explores social computing from the perspective of sociology and its effect on social networks. We focus on traditions of symbolism, personalization, and gift culture to better understand the lived experience of participants engaging in social networking tasks. Our review reveals the importance of symbolic communication, creating strong emotional ties through personalization, and creating bonds through gift exchange.

Abstract In this paper, we describe the design of a touch input system utilizing directionally conductive fabric for use as “smart fabric” in wearable computing garments. Our development is based on utilizing the fabric surface as a tactile interface. We have defined a set of qualitative gestures using heuristic algorithms. This model provides high-level interpretations for the tactile quality of the caress, which is used to derive parameters for the interaction model.

Abstract As designers of interactive systems (spaces, process and products for people), we find ourselves stretching the limits of methodological structures that enable us to explore, build, communicate, and prototype experience. This workshop aims to investigate divergent disciplines that each contains rich knowledge and rigorous methodologies for for addressing human experience in interactive systems.