Hello, and welcome to this video presenting my work on "The
Bodies of TEI -- Investigating Norms and Assumptions in the
Design of Embodied Interaction. My name is Katta Spiel, and my
sign name is [KATTA].
My current affiliation is with TU Wien within the Faculty of
Informatics. Within the last few years, but definitely since the
inception of the TEI conference in 2007, embodied computing and
embodied interaction has garnered increasing interest
from researchers and designers. A sentence we hear over and over
again, is, technologists are moving on and even into the
body. But what are those bodies in the focus of embodied
interaction? Who do we account for when we talk about the body?
In embracing the what is also called somatic turn, we research
and design personal artefacts.
But for whom?
To answer this question, I conducted a feminist critical
discourse analysis with methodological implementation
according to feminist content analysis on 45 papers, published
at TEI since 2007. I had started my corpus assembly with an
initial sample of 566 papers, which are filtered according to
general topical fit, length and content. Over the years, I
noticed the steady increase on papers and embodied interaction
with a noticeable dip in 2019 and a vibrant reinvigoration in
2020.
It was early in the year.
On a side note, the conference only adopted the term embodied
to its title in 2009. All in all, I identified four types of
contributions within this corpus: material investigations,
design explorations, technological artefacts, and
theoretical analysis. Most of the papers presented
technologies followed by design, theory and material; material
also being the newest contribution type, only
consisting of papers published within the last five years.
Papers with the material contribution tend to only
illustrate and concern themselves with body parts. And
yet there is a generalisation to the body as an abstract ideal,
though the abstract becomes very concrete very fast. In one
paper, bodies are themselves becoming materials,
specifically, the hair.
Though, the authors only refer to white people's hair as human
hair, which ignores the racist and oppressive politics around
black hair and renders black people's hair, essentiall,y as
less than human.
And it will be easy to say 'But Katta, this is only one paper!"
But it's not. I noticed how visible bodies or body parts in
basically all papers are light skinned or white, and appear
youthful. Should the bodies we attend to in embodied
interaction really only be the bodies of white people?
Similar to this example, designerly assumptions generally
default to implicit norms largely by what remains
unaddressed.
By focusing on the joy and the positive experiences we aim for
in our designs, we conveniently ignore conversations we need to
have about trauma in class, for example, in delineating the
potential of and body computing for playful eating experiences.
The authors of another paper presume that eating and food is
inherently related to joy, implicitly disregarding the high
and increasing prevalence of eating disorders, as well as the
problems faced by people in poverty regarding food security.
Temporarily constrained limitations on food, comprise
positively connotated experiences only for those who
did not have to face these limitations outside of their own
volition.
Should we really design embodied interaction just for the middle
and upper classes?
Now, the technological contributions made spanned from
wearables to play scenarios, music and art as well as
artefacts for reflection.
So,
in that, authors rarely specify the required skills relevant to
engage with a specific technology.
If disability is at all accounted for it is as the
other, the novelty, and the isolated special case. Disabled
bodies are further embedded in medical context and embodied
computing technologies aim to 'fix' or 'correct' them.
Considering the many contributions oriented on
allowing people to explore their creativity and appreciate their
bodily feats, not considering disabled people in these
contexts makes me wonder: Should technologies facilitating
embodied interaction really just be for people without a
disability?
And when we think
about bodies – I mean, as might be understandable in theoretical
explorations around the bodies, they are talked about in the
abstract without attention to details and differences.
However, this is also a choice. European and North American
white men dominate the reference space in this realm,
particularly regarding phenomenology, even though
alternatives exist, but also in other regards. Theoretical
explorations tend to be inherently oriented on assumed
and implicit notes. For example, if walking is established as a
mode of supporting creativity, as suggested in one of the
papers, this has damning implications for people moving
by using wheelchairs, crutches, scooters or other aids. The only
time disabled people in their minority bodyminds are referred
o, they serve as a thought experiment for non disabled
people.
Their, respectively our, lives are only relevant to theories
that centre their, respectively our, differences as deviating
from an abstracted norm. And in a similar vein, children,
elderly, trans people and black people are all loudly made
absent as well, as their lived bodies comprise special cases
for theoretical explorations, but never the base.
Should the bodies we think about in embodied interaction really
all just represent a tiny, privileged minority?
So, let's talk about the bodies, the bodies of TEI. One thing I
found quite curious is that there is a notion of talking
about bodies in the singular; as in, most publications, talk
about the body. So much so I had to edit this paper several times
to not fall into the same writing pattern myself. It seems
deeply ingrained and it required really a lot of intensive
unlearning for me.
Anyway, speaking on the body in the singular and I quote, di
Paolo, Cuttari and de Jaeger "hides the intricate complexity
and diversity of bodies under a false universality ("the"),
and singleness ("body").
Thus, the image the phrase invokes is that of an abstract,
adult, healthy, isolated, nondescript, typically male,
typically white body. If we speak of bodies, instead, we
immediately cannot relations and plurality, at least leaving the
door open to think them." end quote.
Hence, I urge researchers in embodied computing a TEI and
beyond to start talking about bodies as a plural as a first
step towards accountability for a plurality of bodyminds.
Embracing such an accountability does require us to also attend
to the material consequences of our research and design works.
If the integrity of papers and embodied computing in the TEI
community excludes such marginalised experiences and
others, we need to collectively reflect on how our work might
contribute to these material effects. To not just demand that
reflection, but also help guided I close the paper and here with
a set of hopefully productive provocations.
For one, I suggest we update theories, in that we expand the
current set of theories informing our work, and
convinced that drawing in complementary perspectives and
thickening our theoretical background will strengthen the
contributions our field can make.
And not just rely on phenomenology.
Further, forcing ourselves to be open to plurality has the
potential to consciously train us to think beyond static and
singular norms. If from the start, we think about bodies, we
think about interactions, we think about technologies in
multiplicity, we might account for differences in embodied
experiences as well.
Another step lies in checking our privileges. If the ideal
body is the designers body, as long as they are light skinned,
slim and flat chested, we need to reflect on our own
embodiments and how they play a role in creating technologies
for embodied interactions. I ask, where are the trans, the
crip, the fat, the queer, the black, the mad, the damaged, the
sick, the old, the young, the dead, the sexual bodies in
embodied computing?
Same counts for me. I mean, I dare researchers and designers
in embodied computing to disregard our intent, listen to
critique appreciatively and focus on the material effects of
our work.
So even if we tried our best, perfect work is not possible
either way. Hence, we need to acknowledge the imperfections
within, since only acknowledging that we have a problem, that our
beings, our embodiments, and with it our work and our actions
are shaped by strong and dominant social – societal
biases,
we may start being accountable to them, and exploring how to do
things differently, maybe better.
Another suggestion is to name the norms that govern our work.
In searching for and naming the normative tendencies,
expectations and assumptions, shaping our designs,
And within that imperfection, I finally suggest that we embrace
the inherent mess of our living, sweating, stumbling, swearing
bodies. Embodied computing is full of politics, which are
currently shaped more normatively and abstracting away
from the inherent messiness of living. But living is exciting,
and so are the messages we have.
And in that, I return to di Paolo, Cuffari and De Jaegher,
who state, I quote, "There are literally billions of different
human bodies. We should be aware of drawing general conclusions
from the apparent universals." end, quote. There are so many
more opportunities we may take up, so much more to do. There
are so many more bodies we might attend to in embodied
interaction, we just have to do it.
So let me close by thanking you for having made it to the end of
this video, which asks some uncomfortable questions. So
truly, thank you for the time to sit with this discomfort and
with that. And it's the first step anyone can do for holding
ourselves accountable for the work that we do, and the
unintended but nevertheless impactful ramifications it might
have. I'm looking forward to your ideas and how we might
tackle these issues in embodied interaction going forward. Thank
you.