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i_mBODY lab 
As Light as Your Footsteps: A shoe-based wearable device for real-time modification of footstep sounds for illusory changes in body weight, will be part of the Show and Tell Demo Sessions in the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) Conference. The Show and Tell Session 2 will happen on June 7th, 2023, in the conference venue in Rhodes Island, Greece. Amar D’Adamo will be there showing the device and corresponding poster.
Joakinator: An Interface for Transforming Body Movement and Perception through Machine Learning and Sonification of Muscle-Tone and Force will be present in the Demo Sessions of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2023 conference in Mexico City. Demo sessions will take place on June 2nd at Biblioteca Vasconcelos.
We co-organized the CHI’ 23 Workshop – Body x Materials, a workshop exploring the role of material-enabled body-based multisensory experiences.
From the Call for Participation:
Over the last 15 years, HCI and Interaction Design have experienced a “material turn” characterised by a growing interest in the materiality of technology and computation, and in methods that support exploring, envisioning, and crafting with and through materials. The community has experienced a similar turn focused on the body, on how to best design for and from a first-person, lived experience, and the moving and sensual body. In this workshop, we focus on the intersection of these two turns. The emerging developments in multimodal interfaces open up opportunities to bring in materiality to the digital world as well as to transform the materiality of objects and bodies in the real-world, including the materiality of our own body. The different sensory qualities of (touchable and untouchable, physical and digital) objects and bodies, including our own, can be brought into the design of digital technologies to enrich, augment, and transform embodied experiences. In this “materials revolution” [15], what are the current theories, approaches, methods and tools that emphasise the critical role of materiality to body-based interactions with technology?
To explore this, in this workshop we will focus on five related themes: material enabling expression, material as a catalyst for human action, material enabling reflection and awareness, material enabling transformation and material supporting the design process for the re-creation of the existing and the yet-to-exist. This workshop with technology presentations, panel sessions with experts, and multidisciplinary discussions will: (i) bring together researchers who work on (re)creating sensory properties of materials through technology with those who investigate experiential effects of materials and material-enabled interactions, (ii) discuss methods, opportunities, difficulties in designing materiality and material-enabled interactions, and (iii) form a multidisciplinary community to build synergies and collaborations.
This workshop aims to build a community and open the design space for materiality and material-enabled body-based multisensory experiences by integrating research from various perspectives.
Read the full workshop proposal here.
For instructions on how to participate and more information, visit the CHI’ 23 Workshop – Body x Materials webpage.
Postdoctoral Researcher Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi presented a talk entitled “Exploring Advances in Machine Learning and their Multidisciplinary Applications” at the Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos (GISC) Seminar Series in the Department of Mathematics of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
The talk consisted of an overview of the latest development in machine learning techniques and of real-world examples of machine learning in action, including Affective Computing as well as Medicine, Physiological Signals Analysis, and Citizen Science. Additionally, it conveyed the importance of developing explainable AI methods. Finally, the talk covered a taste of Unconventional Computing, specifically regarding biological intelligent sensors and neuromorphic Computing.
Ana Tajadura-Jiménez participated in a round table discussion: Extended Perception: The Hacking of Systems, as part of Canal Connect 2023:
The scientific-technological evolution poses a change in the conception of the living being and the machine, as well as its essential and spiritual aspects. David Chalmers asked: “Can a machine be conscious?”, a question that artists and technologists have addressed, studying and researching the self of the machine as its own entity.
In the same way, scientific and technological progress is enabling the hacking of living systems, causing them to extend their consciousness and senses, thus varying their own perception and the way they communicate with the world.
Moderator: Ricardo Iglesias, multimedia artist and philosopher (UCM).
Speakers: Monica Rikic, electronic artist; Enrique Radigales, artist, curator and researcher; Ana Tajadura, lecturer in Computer Science and AI (UC3M), and researcher.
Canal Connect offered a series of round tables that invite us to reflect, to ask questions, which allow us to dialogue with experts from different artistic, scientific and technological fields. This time, the conversation revolved around ethical issues, the confluence of the human and the machine, interspecies communication, etc. For this 3rd edition, we have the support of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, affiliated with the Fondation de France. Attendance at the round tables will allow free access to the exhibition Organic Machine.
Ana Tajadura-Jiménez presented The Hearing Body: Sound-driven Body Transformation Experiences Applications for Emotional and Physical Health in the The AAAC Seminar Series 2022-2023. The Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (AAAC) Seminar Series has the twofold objective of: (1) presenting and critically reflecting on key research (both seminal and state-of-the art) in all areas of and disciplines related to Affective Computing, and (2) introducing Affective Computing to starting researchers and researchers from other disciplines.
The following was the talk’s abstract:
Body perceptions are important for people’s motor, social and emotional functioning. Critically, neuroscientific research has shown that body perceptions are not fixed, but are continuously updated through sensorimotor information. In this talk, I will present work from our group on how sound and other sensory feedback on one’s body and actions can be used to alter body perception, creating Body Transformation Experiences. I will talk about how neuroscientifically grounded insights that body perceptions are continuously updated through sensorimotor information may contribute to the design of novel body-centred technologies to support people’s needs and for behaviour change. I will then present various studies from our current project, Magic OutFit, aimed to inform the design of wearable technology in which sensory-driven changes in body perception are used to enhance behavioural patterns and emotional states in the context of exertion. I will discuss how apart from the focus on real-life applications, novel technologies for body sensing and sensory feedback may also become a research tool for investigating how emotional and multisensory processes shape body perception. I will conclude by identifying new challenges and opportunities that this line of work presents, some of which we are addressing in our current ERC project BODYinTRANSIT.
Lab member and PhD student José Vega won first place in the Teaching and Researcher Personnel (PDI) category during the 10km Intercampus XXIII running race! With an official time of 39:09, he also finished 8th place in the category of students. Here’s a video of the finish line. Congratulations!
On the 11th of March, the performance Una Noche con Ramona was presented at the international dance festival Soto a Chi Danza, organised by the association AMAT, from the region of Le Marche in Italy.
The performance took place at the Rotonda a Mare in the seaside town of Senigallia, in what used to be a resort.
This particular space with a sea view and qualities similar to those of a Greek forum hosted the Dream performing arts company, for the presentation of the site-specific piece Una Noche con Ramona.
Ramona is a “Love Influencer”, a “heroine of love”, a “collective body” that exists on the net, feeds through networks, feeds on desires and fantasies, travelling in our collective dreams.
Through a ritual, she is embodied in those who wish to experience it.
The audience has the role to imagine and, if they wish, to interact and co-create Ramona. This performance arises from real experiences. Ramona
has her Instagram page (IG: ramona_abate) and interacts with the people who write to them.
The play is inspired by these relationships filtered through the technological medium.
Director and performer: Raffaella Menchetti
Performer and multimedia creator: Joaquín Díaz
Playwright: Sara Serrano
Performer and creator: Francesca Vantu
Performer: Sofia Galliano
Online performer: Elissa
This project has been funded and supported by: Sneo.es, Hamlet.Love and BODYinTRANSIT ERC project
The 3rd of March was the presentation of the Performance Una Noche con Ramona and Joakinator: A Technological Embodyment of Onyric World at the Feel My Body festival, held at Link, Bologna, Italy.
Ramona is a “Love Influencer”, a “heroine of love”, a “collective body” that exists on the net, feeds through networks, feeds on desires and fantasies, travelling in our collective dreams.
Through a ritual, she is embodied in those who wish to experience it.
The audience has the role to imagine and, if they wish, to interact and co-create Ramona. This performance arises from real experiences. Ramona
has her Instagram page (IG: ramona_abate) and interacts with the people who write to them.
The play is inspired by these relationships filtered through the technological medium.
Director and performer: Raffaella Menchetti
Performer and multimedia creator: Joaquín Díaz
Playwright: Sara Serrano
Performer and creator: Francesca Vantu
Performer: Sofia Galliano
Online performer: Elissa
The Joakinator is a performative and technological device that allows us to introduce concepts, ideas and dreams into the body of the performer and explore them through their movements. Through this corporeal device, the integration of the oneiric world will be explored in the piece “Joakinator: Oniric Body”, turning it into a crossover point between consciousness and dreaming.
The interactive device uses muscle sensors, pressure sensors and accelerometers that feed an A.I. system which translates the movements of the performer into a control/decontrol over the sound material. This performance explores different sound materials,
for this occasion, the audios are texts read from the performer’s dream diaries and psychoanalysis sessions. This archive has been collected over a period of 4 years.
The Joakinator is an electro-shamanic device which helps to materialize inner worlds into the movements of the artist’s body. The performer becomes a shamanic cyborg that translates these inner worlds with his movements, serving as a hatch for the audience to get a glimpse of these worlds.
Original idea:
Joaquín R. Díaz, Mexico (Interactive design, Robotics
and Performance)
Performance (still work in process):
Joaquín R. Díaz & Franccesca Vantù
Raffaella Menchetti, Italy (Dramaturgist, Performer,
actress and visual artist)
Technological Research:
Marta Timon, Spain (Computer Scientist, and
biometric signal acquisition)
Pedro López, Spain (Reactive Shaders and
Electronic Engineering)
These projects have been funded and supported by: Sneo.es, Hamlet.Love and BODYinTRANSIT ERC project
Our talk Hacking the senses: body transformation experiences with wearables will be part of the t3chfest 2023 program on March 3rd!
The way we perceive our body, its appearance and capabilities, determines how we move, our social and environmental interactions, and our physical and emotional health. But this perception is not fixed, it is updated all the time through the sensory signals our brain receives. In our projects Magic outFit and BODYinTRANSIT we study how to hack the senses through wearable sensory technologies. With them we create Body Transformation Experiences, changing the perception of people’s bodies and also their behaviour, emotion and health.
In this talk, we will present the basis of our research including key neuroscientific concepts to understand body perception and innovative and participatory methods of research and design with users, such as design thinking and embodied methods that use the body in movement inspired by theatrical/scenic techniques. We will invite the public to try out our technological prototypes and discuss the opportunities that these technologies open up for wellness and health, smart clothing that adapts to people’s perceptions and even the design of avatars and robots.
More info in Spanish: Hackear los sentidos: experiencias de transformación del cuerpo con wearables
Friday, March 3rd, 2023
11:30 – 12:20H
Auditorio Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
