Kinetic Body Extensions for Social Interactions

ABSTRACT

This studio invites participants to explore ways of extending physical expressivity through a combined use of wearable electronics and structural textile design. Participants are introduced to an electronics and material prototyping method developed by Social Body Lab for constructing kinetic textile body extensions intended for use in social interactions.

Participants will learn to use a servo motor in combination with folded and pleated paper, textiles, and structural materials to create a kinetic wearable module that can expand and contract in form. These kinetic modules can vary in size, form, complexity, and placement on the body, depending on the intended application. Pressure, flexion, ambient light, and electromyography (EMG) are sensors that will be explored as possible triggers for these modules using body movements and gestures. Through prototyping, testing, wearing, and group discussion, participants will explore ways in which their kinetic body extensions can amplify, extend, or subvert existing body language.

References

1. Joanna Berzowska. 2005. Electronic Textiles: Wearable Computers, Reactive Fashion, and Soft Computation. Textile 3, 1 (2005), 2--19.
2. Jonathan Best. 2012. Control a Servo Motor Without Programming. (Dec 2012). Retrieved January 13, 2018 from https://makezine.com/projects/control-a-servo-motor-without-programming/
3. Leah Buechley, Mike Eisenberg, Jaime Catchen, and Ali Crockett. 2008. The LilyPad Arduino: Using Computational Textiles to Investigate Engagement, Aesthetics, and Diversity in Computer Science Education. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 423--432.
4. Leah Buechley and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2010. LilyPad in the Wild: How Hardware's Long Tail is Supporting New Engineering and Design Communities. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 199--207.
5. Kate Hartman, Jackson McConnell, Boris Kourtoukov, Hillary Predko, and Izzie Colpitts-Campbell. 2015. Monarch: Self-Expression Through Wearable Kinetic Textiles. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 413--414.
6. Paul Jackson. 2011. Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form. Lawrence King Publishing, London, United Kingdom.
7. Colette Wolff. 1996. The Art of Manipulating Fabric. Krause Publications, Iola, WI, USA.

Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Arts and humanities

    • Media arts

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • Interaction techniques

      • Gestural input

  • Interaction design

    • Interaction design process and methods

      • Interface design prototyping

      • Participatory design