Haptic aesthetics & ethics

Haptic aesthetics and ethics is an ongoing area of research and critical inquiry. I have been working in the area of haptic media design since 2014, beginning with tactile data representations and then more recently (2022) transitioning my inquiry to also include haptic media design for live performance.

haptic media design for live performance

I am currently exploring how haptic design offers a new relational connections between dance performers and audiences through shared, felt experiences of vibration. My designs use audio signals to drive vibrotactile interfaces that can vary in size and strength. For example, I used Buttkicker LFEs to vibrate 3 tons of soil in Devil’s Shoestring. I used small, quarter-sized Tectonic Audio Lab exciters to vibrate cardboard boxes and transform them into audio speakers for Momento Mori.

In each work, I collaborate with dance artists to explore haptic media’s potential to augment choreographic concepts, amplify kinesthetic sensation, and heighten relational empathy between dancers and audiences. Thus far, I’ve worked with BAIRA / MVMNT PHLSOPHY (Contemporary Dance Theatre), Brother(hood) Dance! (Afro-Contemporary Dance), and members of Dirty Glove Bvck (Krump) to explore haptics in relation to their prospective movement philosophies.

As I move deeper into this research, I’m beginning to explore multichannel setups where I can move audio across an array of tactile transducers, giving the sense of movement across space, bodies, and collectives of people.

related projects

• Devil’s Shoestring

• Momento Mori

Tactile Data

I am particularly interested in designing interactive tactile interfaces for touching numerical data about people. This work folds into my critical practice of caring for data about people as a means of caring for people themselves. You can find more here…

related Projects

• Vibrant Lives

• Me, My Quantified Self, and I

Publications

2020. Designing Palpable Data Representations. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer.

2019. ’Bodying’ Digital Humanities: Considering Our Bodies in Practice. In C. Crompton, R. Lane & R. Siemens (Ed.) Doing More Digital Humanities: Open Approaches to Creation, Growth, and Development. London: Routledge.

2017. with Hayes, L. (2017) Towards an Aesthetics of Touch. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Movement Computing. ACM Press.

2017. with Wernimont, J., & Rajko, S. (2017) The Living Net: A Haptic Experience of Personal Data. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM Press.

2016. with Krzyzaniak, M., Wernimont, J., Standley, E., & Rajko, S. (2016) Touching Data Through Personal Devices: Engaging Somatic Practice and Haptic Design in Felt Experiences of Personal Data. Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Movement and Computing. ACM Press.

Presentations

2021. Adventures in Haptic Design II (links to full panel recording) Uncommon Senses III, Montreal, Quebec; a 2-part panel curated by David Parisi, and including Lauren Hayes, Mark Paterson, Dave Birnbaum, and Kerstin Leder Mackley

2018. “Towards an Aesthetics of Touch,” International Sociological Association’s World Congress of Sociology, Toronto, Ontario

2018. “Touching Data: Palpability, Ethics, and Embodied Agency in Consumer Wearables and Big Data Archives,” Invited lecture/demonstration at Harvard’s ArtTechPsych IV hosted by the Digital Futures Consortium, invited by Cole Crawford, Cambridge, MA

2018. “Catching Metadata in the Living Net: A Review of ‘Vibrant Lives,’” Invited guest lecture at University of Pennsylvania’s Price Lab for Digital Humanities, invited by Stewart Varner, Pennsylvania, PA

2018. “Touching Big Data,” Invited guest lecture and wearable tech workshop at Davidson College, invited by Alison Bory, Davidson, NC

2017. “Touching Data: What Does Big Data Feel Like?” Dance and Somatic Practices Conference, Coventry, UK

2017. “Toward an Aesthetics of Touch” with Lauren Hayes, 4th International Symposium on Movement & Computing, London, UK

2017. “Not My Data,” Invited guest lecture and wearable tech workshop at New Mexico University’s ART Lab, invited by Amanda Hamp (dance) and Lee Montgomery (visual art), Albuquerque, NM