During the 2023 CHI conference, we ran a one-day workshop to consider the design space at the intersection of the body and materials [1]. The workshop gathered designers, makers, researchers, and artists to explore current theories, approaches, methods, and tools that emphasize the critical role of materiality in body-based interactions with technology. We were motivated by developments in HCI and interaction design over the past 15 years, namely the “material turn,” which explores the materiality of technology and computation and methods for working with materials, and “first-person” approaches emphasizing design for and from lived experience and the physical body. Recognizing the valuable contributions of approaches that foregrounded materiality [2] and the body [3] in HCI, we proposed to explore the intersection of these two turns.
¿Te gustaría probar y entender cómo se pueden diseñar nuevas tecnologías que cambien tu forma de moverte? ¿O que cambien la percepción de tu cuerpo y cómo te sientes con él, p.ej. tecnología que te haga sentir más ligero/a, más ágil o más feliz? En este taller participativo os invitamos a probar los materiales y herramientas que usamos en nuestros proyectos de investigación Magic outFit, BODYinTRANSIT y MovIntPlay Lab para diseñar tecnologías sensoriales vestibles que hackean nuestros sentidos, impactan la percepción de nuestro cuerpo, comportamiento, emoción y salud. Te invitaremos a que elijas un movimiento (p.ej. caminar) y que pruebes en primera persona distintos materiales y herramientas de nuestro laboratorio para cambiar cómo realizas ese movimiento, o cómo te sientes y percibes cuando lo realizas. Probarás herramientas tales como siliconas blandas que se engrandecen y se mueven con aire, sonidos que cambian dependiendo de cómo te muevas, o vibraciones en distintas partes del cuerpo. También te invitaremos a que nos compartas tus ideas para futuras tecnologías que te gustaría que diseñemos.
Taller impartido por Joaquín Díaz Durán, José Manuel Vega Cebrián, Ana Tajadura Jiménez y Elena Márquez Segura, investigadoras del Dpto. de Informática de la UC3M en colaboración con Laia Turmo Vidal, investigadora de KTH Royal Institute of Sweden
17 de noviembre a las 17h Aula Puerta de la Cultura, UC3M Campus Puerta de Toledo
Reserva tu plaza en este formulario o en la siguiente dirección: jodiazd@pa.uc3m.es
Taller impartido por José Manuel Vega Cebrián, Elena Márquez Segura, Ana Tajadura Jiménez, Joaquín Díaz Durán y Judith Ley Flores, investigadoras del Dpto. de Informática de la UC3M.
En este taller participativo y divulgativo enseñamos al público a usar su propio cuerpo y el de otros/as participantes; tecnología y elementos cotidianos; y el espacio físico para pensar creativamente, y diseñar tecnología innovadora.
En concreto, usaremos una serie de “bodystorming baskets” o cajas de ideación corporal, que contendrán materiales cotidianos (juguetes, plastilina, cartulinas, ropa, estropajos, piedras, y plásticos, etc.), y materiales tecnológicos desarrollados por nuestro grupo de investigación para fomentar la creatividad e idear tecnología para el movimiento. Por ejemplo, un brazalete que se ilumina cuando te mueves rápido: un cinturón que vibra, o unas hombreras que suenan como si cayera agua al inclinarte para los lados.
Juntos/as, usaremos estas cajas de ideación corporal para encontrar un problema relevante para los/las participantes en el ámbito de la actividad física, el deporte y/o rehabilitación; y diseñar posible tecnología futura.
El taller está dirigido para el público general; no es necesario tener experiencia previa de diseño, ni con la tecnología. Se anima especialmente a la participación de educadores/as, diseñadores/as, o cualquier otro/a profesional al que le interesen los métodos innovadores para fomentar la creatividad e imaginar situaciones y tecnología futura.
Haptic technologies have long sought to simulate the tactile properties of materials for virtual or remote interactions. Although the engineering aspects of these technologies have been extensively studied, little is known about the sensory and experiential spaces they offer for design. The human experience of materials can extend beyond their immediate sensory attributes, such as roughness, to influence user emotion, perceptions of one’s body, or encourage human expression, reflection, or action. This workshop aims to bring together haptic device creators, perception scientists, and interaction designers to explore and map the user experience of materials across various technologies. Workshop participants will rotate through 4-6 stations featuring natural and programmable materials and document their experiences through notes. These notes are then used to create and compare experiential maps, identify design gaps, and guide future engineering and design in haptics.
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.
Ana Tajadura-Jiménez presented The Hearing Body: Sound-driven Body Transformation Experiences Applications for Emotional and Physical Health in the C4DM-CogSci Workshop on Body-centred perspectives on human-human and human-machine interaction. It occurred at the Queen Mary University of London, on February 8th, 2023.
The following was the abstract of the talk:
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.
We are holding a workshop to experience first hand and to explore how we can design multisensory interactions with immersive data representations in a different and innovative way, in particular, by using embodied design methods.
In the workshop, we will experience and explore a live installation of an immersive data representation, enacted by a dance group, who will respond to the presence and action of people in the room. Through our joint experience, we will reflect and ideate new ways of bodily interacting with immersive data representations.
When is the workshop? The workshop will be held next Thursday, January 26th at 15:00 (duration ~3h)
