nike i'm an assistant professor at the
iit university of copenhagen in denmark
and i will present my pictorial titled
the breeding wings
and autobiographical soma design
exploration of touch qualities through
shape change materials
pictorial presents an autobiographical
exploration grounded on some design
methods
it offers a detailed account of opening
the space of designing with shape change
actuation
through some aesthetic approach to
exploring touch experiential qualities
on the area of the upper back and
shoulder blades
this is a somewhat neglected area on our
bodies
not as familiar as others that we can
easily see or touch
thus i wanted to raise awareness and put
attention to this body part
while building on previous research on
investigating boundaries
and entanglements between materials body
and technologies
this process resulted in the breeding
wings wearable wrapped around the front
and back of the torso
offering a dynamic embracing experience
experience created through
soft shape-changing technology
the soma design method lasted for one
year
and was grounded on my first person
experiences articulations and
reflections
by attuning to their soma a designer can
materially engage with how their body
dynamically participates participates
in interactions as a lively mess of
mechanisms
that are social political biological and
that can be designed with
autobiographical approaches are common
in someone design methods
since the designer soma and their first
person reflections
are used as a guide to judge validate
and iterate throughout the process
with the ultimate goal to design for
others
several steps and creative methods were
used in this project as i will soon
present
in detail the initial point of departure
was to find
ways of connecting to the area of the
upper back and shoulder blades
aiming to sensitize it by zooming into
and becoming attentive to it
i invited a close colleague to trace the
outline of my shoulder blades
on a thin paper that she placed on top
of them
through the felt experience of the thick
pen touching my back
whilst it was tracing the outline of my
shoulder blades
i could feel their shape and imagine
their size
then i transferred the outline of my
shoulder blades on a blouse i wore
recorded different movements i performed
and viewed this material
combining first-person experiences and
an outside view of my body
i slowly started to become more
attentive to the three-dimensional shape
and form of my upper back
as i could almost see my bones
protruding and
feel how the shoulder blades expand to
my arms
moving from becoming sensitized to the
area of the back
and from gaining a deeper understanding
of its anatomy i seek to identify what
particular touch experiences would be
vocative to design for
i used the wings as a metaphor and
guidance for identifying the
experiential qualities of interaction i
was after
i made the war a pair of custom made
wings aiming to reflect on the somatic
experiences evoked through having this
unusual
material object attached to my back this
defamiliarizing process helped me to
identify the design
qualities that should be put into focus
i documented my autobiographical
reflections through sketches diary notes
and sort
written stories i used xeroxr to
document
in a visual form the experiential
qualities identified
which helped me to stay with these
qualities while creating
an effective connection between body and
qualities
the quality of being embraced embraced
emerged through feeling the wind's
wings touching my back expanding from
the middle to the outer area of the
shoulder blades
aiming for an embracing experience
through shape change
could arise through the shape and size
of the materials and the degree of
pressure
applied against the skin being taken
care of refers to the experience of
slowly building trust
through touch this quality was deemed
rather abstract and subjective
but was there to remind me of aiming for
to design for trust and intimacy
resonating from my experiences finally
when touch was applied to smaller areas
on the back
the pressure and warmth contributed to
an evocative touch
experience of holding a bone or a muscle
the design process moved to exploring
how to evoke such
qualities through shape change materials
on the
shoulder blades initially i made a pair
of rather flat
and big inflatable shapes with latex to
explore further the qualities of being
embraced and being taken care of
these shape change materials can be
manually inflated and deflated with an
arduino pneumatics microcontroller
connected to air pumps through an
application developed on a mobile phone
here is a first piece of vignette from
my diary notes
i felt their subtle inflation and
deflation almost as a stroke against my
skin
an immediate reflection was that the
slower inflation and deflation
felt much nicer than a quick one
contributing to a soothing sensation
a slow but steady inflation until both
shapes were fully inflated
followed by a slow and steady deflation
until both shapes were fully deflated
contributed to an increased awareness of
my shoulder blades shape
and structure i felt a strong presence
of the muscles and bones located on this
area of my body
like being embraced by these big shapes
even though not intended i also felt
like being held by these materials and
the pressure
felt against my back
parallel to experiencing touch through
shape change latex materials
i started developing different versions
of the wearable
the main form of the wearable resembles
a vest
but which has to be strapped on the body
slowly
by dying by tying two long pieces of
textile around the waist
and knotting them together in the end i
designed the experience of wearing it
almost like a ritual
and i imagined that it would take some
time to wear the breathing wings
as a way of being initiated to the touch
experience it offers
version one has pockets for two large
shape change materials
and evoke evokes experiences of being
held
and being taken care of through touch
the wearer starts by inflating both
shapes simultaneously
to create an embracing experience evoked
through the actuation
slightly squeezing the skin then its
shape should be inflated and deflated
slowly
resembling a breathing pattern version 2
has force has also four small latex
shapes
two for the left and two for the right
side of the back
and evokes experiences of being embraced
through touch
the weather starts by slowly inflating
the bigger shapes simultaneously
followed by pausing the inflation while
starting inflately
inflating firstly the two smaller shapes
on the left shoulder blade
and then the two smaller shapes on the
right shoulder blade
this is followed by a similar deflation
pattern
poetry and storytelling were used
throughout the design process as
speculative approaches for reflecting
on the encounter between body and
wearable arising through my experiences
of wearing and interacting with it but
going beyond those to imagine how it
would be part of my everyday life
i also use speculative collages and
sketches to imagine the breathing wings
on other bodies
here is a poem included in my pictorial
it is a kind of ritual
it is an intimate and sacred space for
me where i can
enter to hide to be to exist this memory
of my wings
the body this remembers the tired
shoulder blades
forgotten and then i long to wear my
breathing wings
they can help me remember they can help
me re-experience
a touch a stroke i push my lost wings
reflecting on the design process and the
experience the wearable evokes two
themes were identified
experiencing caring and creepy feelings
of aliveness and evoking effective
engagements with the other material body
that breathes
through the embracing qualities of the
wearable wrapped around my body
and through the breathing of the shape
change materials i started caring about
this non-human soft body attached to
mine
i also felt comforted by it wrapped
around me and gently touching my back
giving me almost like a soothing massage
on my tired shoulder blades
additionally when experiencing the
breathing wings
the movements flesh breathing materials
breathing materials and breathing body
created an entangled new body as a
combination of multiple actins
collaborating and cooperating together
the material vibrancy of this other
material body is highlighted through the
latex materials
having both visual and tactile organic
qualities
and through their perform act of
breathing when inflating and deflating
to sum up the contribution of this
pictorial is twofold
on the one hand it offers an
articulation of how the space of
designing with shape change actuation
was opened
through an autobiographical some
aesthetic approach to materials and felt
somatic experiences
it shows a path that other researchers
can follow
when designing with bodies aiming to
serve as novel somatic experiences of
smart materials
the second contribution is the
presentation of the breathing wings
wearable
that examines the shared agency between
wearer and wearable
the wearable in combination with the
shape change actuation
imposes its own alien rhythm of
pneumatic inflating deflating breathing
in this way it creates a strange change
of independent machinic
agency that blurs boundaries between the
human
and the other material body surrounding
the wearer
thank you for listening please please
read the pictorial and i'm looking
forward
to your comments feedback and questions