Workshop paper Taking an embodied perspective, we report on the design of two interactive products aimed at empowering people with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder in coping with challenges of everyday life. Our Research-through-Design study combined theory with hands-on co-design work and in situ user observation, in close collaboration with clients and their professional caretakers, constructing experienceable prototypes as tangible anchors for reflection. Reflection resulted in guiding principles addressing the design potential of designing for Embodied Empowerment, centering on the client’s embodied-being-in-the-world.
from the article: "We present a case study as part of an investigation into the value of Embodied theory for the design of mixed physical digital interactive products. An interactive light system was designed that empowers an independent living person with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in managing domestic activities. Reflecting on the case we develop our vision of Embodied Functionality (EF). Designing for EF goes beyond ‘distributing’ information technology in the environment. It aims at creating interactive physical digital products that play a functional role (i.e. become part of) a person’s embodied being‐in‐the- world, involving a person’s identity. It does so by utilizing existing structure and by supporting action ‐perception couplings, reflection in- and on action and autonomy in social coordination. EF opens up an alternative design space holding the promise of a more successful appropriation of interactive (assistive) products into people’s everyday lives. "
In an event related potential (ERP) experiment using written language materials only, we investigated a potential modulation of the N400 by the modality switch effect. The modality switch effect occurs when a first sentence, describing a fact grounded in one modality, is followed by a second sentence describing a second fact grounded in a different modality. For example, "A cellar is dark" (visual), was preceded by either another visual property "Ham is pink" or by a tactile property "A mitten is soft." We also investigated whether the modality switch effect occurs for false sentences ("A cellar is light"). We found that, for true sentences, the ERP at the critical word "dark" elicited a significantly greater frontal, early N400-like effect (270-370 ms) when there was a modality mismatch than when there was a modality-match. This pattern was not found for the critical word "light" in false sentences. Results similar to the frontal negativity were obtained in a late time window (500-700 ms). The obtained ERP effect is similar to one previously obtained for pictures. We conclude that in this paradigm we obtained fast access to conceptual properties for modality-matched pairs, which leads to embodiment effects similar to those previously obtained with pictorial stimuli.
Society continues to place an exaggerated emphasis on women's skins, judging the value of lives lived within, by the colour and condition of these surfaces. This artistic research will explore how the skin of a painting might unpack this site of judgement, highlight its objectification, and offer women alternative visualizations of their own sense of embodiment. This speculative renovation of traditional concepts of portrayal will explore how painting, as an aesthetic body whose material skin is both its surface and its inner content (its representations) can help us imagine our portrayal in a different way, focusing, not on what we look like to others, but on how we sense, touch, and experience. How might we visualise skin from its ghostly inner side? This feminist enquiry will unfold alongside archival research on The Ten Largest (1906-07), a painting series by Swedish Modernist Hilma af Klint. Initial findings suggest the artist was mapping traditional clothing designs into a spectral, painterly idea of a body in time. Fundamental methods research, and access to newly available Af Klint archives, will expand upon these roots in maps and women’s craft practices and explore them as political acts, linked to Swedish Life Reform, and knowingly sidestepping a non-inclusive art history. Blending archival study with a contemporary practice informed by eco-feminism is an approach to artistic research that re-vivifies an historical paradigm that seems remote today, but which may offer a new understanding of the past that allows us to also re-think our present. This mutuality, and Af Klint’s rhizomatic approach to image-making, will therefore also inform the pedagogical development of a Methods Research programme, as part of this post-doc. This will extend across MA and PhD study, and be further enriched by pedagogy research at Cal-Arts, Los Angeles, and Konstfack, Stockholm.
What if living organisms communicated signals from the environment to us and thereby offered a sustainable alternative to electronic sensors? Within the field of biodesign, designers and scientists are collaborating with living organisms to produce new materials with ecological benefits. The company Hoekmine, in collaboration with designers, has been researching the potential of flavobacteria for producing sustainable colorants to be applied on everyday products. These non-harmful bacteria can change their form, texture and iridescent color in response to diverse environmental factors, such as humidity and temperature. Here, billions of cells are sensing and integrating the results as color. Therefore, Hoekmine envisions biosensors, which would minimize the use of increasingly demanded electronic sensors, and thus, the implementation of scarce and toxic materials. Developing a living sensor by hosting flavobacteria in a biobased and biodegradable flexible material offers opportunities for sustainable alternatives to electronic sensors. Aiming to take this concept to the next level, we propose a research collaboration between Avans, Hoekmine and a company specialized in biobased and biodegradable labels, Bio4Life. Together with this interdisciplinary team, we aim to bridge microbiology and embodiment design, and contribute to the development of a circular economy where digital technology and organic systems merge in the design of Living Circular Labels (LCLs). Throughout the project we will use an iterative approach between designing and testing LCLs that host living flavobacteria and additionally, methods for the end user to activate the bacteria’s growth at a given time.
Taking artistic, creative and pedagogic experience as perspectives, the research will consider the embodiment of rhythm and duration as experienced by practicing musicians and utilized by composers, exploring neurophysiological questions such as how temporal resolution relates to human physiology, the relationship between speed and emotion and how musicians keep track of time. The expressive qualities of speed in music will be explored, taking into account practices of performance, composition and notation.
