OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT
Reimagining wearable technology was the project that I worked on for my Master’s dissertation. At the heart of that design-research was the fact that I, as a human and potential user, questioned what it means to be human in the face of evolving technology such as personal informatics and bionic wearable devices. The project explored the question of what kind of humanness are designers culturally imagining with the existing wearable technology? And how does it get translated through our making or designing?
Through this project, I resorted to reimagining the current approach towards developing state-of-the-art wearable technology through the lens of Soma (body) based design theories and processes. The project critiques the personal informatics wearable that relies heavily on information trope and glosses over the body’s role in cognition and its innate ability of experiential dimensions such as kinesthetic and sensorial appreciation to experience the world phenomenally.
It further challenges the reductionist status quo and speculates an alternate form of representing humanness such as natural bodily process, emotions, kinesthetic, sensory-motor, non-verbal communication and sensorial experience at the core of designing wearables for the body.
OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES
Two working prototypes were created in response to these tools and represented by kinesthetic-tactile experiences in wearable technology. These wearable prototypes, a pair of gloves, were also integrated with sensors to interact with the body’s tool to create aesthetic experiences of learning a skill and self-examining anxiety patterns. The gloves were worn by an artist and a novice simultaneously, and then the hand movement of the artist was captured and transferred to the other glove through the vibration modality provided by the vibrotactile sensors in the gloves. The second device was a fidget cube and a belt with vibrotactile sensors weaved on the belt and connected to the cube. The behaviour of fidgeting was associated with the patterns of vibration on the body of the wearer, who would infer his disturbing thoughts and identify patterns of anxiety with the help of this cube. The mechanisms of these technologies can travel to other different contexts-of-use and they are called Experiential Qualities in Somaesthetic design theory. Some of the contexts that these wearable technologies can be used are for yoga, rehabilitation, communication in cases of Parkinson’s diseases and many more. The output was a soma-deep model, a scaffolding for designers in the field of interaction design to design wearables with an affinity to the body. The outcome, however, was ironing out the relationship between wearable technology, aesthetic experience and soma-deep model that changes the conversation about the kind of humanness we are culturally imagining.
APPROACHES AND METHODS
The project was a combination of a traditional thesis and involved designing and making speculating but workable prototypes. The approaches and methods employed in the projects are new and have been derived from interconnected disciplines related to body and movements, especially dance movement therapy and acupressure to back the project with its a priori and the experiential aspect of the practices.
4.
The mega mapping of 16 exemplars were based on the following parameters: Concepts of the body, Theoretical & Philosophical lens, Three axis of Embodiment. Design Approaches & Methodology, Objectives, Functionality, Materials Used, Interaction Delivered, Design Implication and Design Process.
5.
A design space was created as a result, the five dimensions of the spaces were determined as: 1.Theoretical dimensions 2. Lenses at the Body 3. Axis of Embodiments 4. Experiential Relation 5. Socio-Digital Materials
3.
The theoretical framework was formulated with two distinct research papers from HCI. One divided embodiment into three broad categories and the other expanded on aspects of lived-body experiences in the field of Interaction Design.
2.
A mega mapping of 16 soma-based technological exemplars through a theoretical framework was transpired during the research.
1.
Many research papers and books were referred to understand the existing discourses. Philosophy and theories on corporeality