TOWARDS EMBODIED INTERACTION

Andrew Morrison & Synne Skjulstad

Extending performanceTechnology enhanced performanceAugmented spaces, actions & actors

Audiences as participantsSystems as responsive

Activity Theory as a conceptual frame: the mediating artifact

From digital scenography towards embodied

interactionUsers’ increased control over management of a work

User interaction as informal assemblage of stepsImmediate circumstances of a work are made more

visibleSystem responds momentarily to actions & needs

(Dourish 2001: 160)

Embodied interactionPossessing and acting through a physical manifestation in

the worldEmbodiment phenomena occur in real time and space

Our engagement in the world of mediating artifactsA phenomenological presence

(Dourish 2001:)Our approach is from socio-cultural learning and

developmental view

Embodied interactionEmbodied interaction is the creation, manipulation,

and sharing of meaning throughengaged interaction with artifacts

(Dourish 2001: 126)

Embodied interactionDuality between action & meaning

Practice unites action & meaning in contextIncorporating the physical & symbolic

Embodiment as participative not physical reality(Dourish 2001)

Dance & digital media

Media as actors (Sparacino et al.)Digital scenography (ars 2004)

Experimental creative design

Learning designs & designs for learningConvergences between dance & digital media as

performanceCollaboration between Statens ballethøyskole &

InterMedia3 projects on creative educational practice &

research2 projects on designing embodied interaction &

kinesis

Ballectro

Socio-cultural approach to designing & learning the arts

Situated technology: live & mediatisedContexts of creative co-constructionMediating and articulating research

Extended

Collaborative inquiryChoreography and digital media

Student performance and reflection

Extended +

Adaptive redesign processConsultative, constitutive

The body as enculturated screener

Embodied interactionContextualising & explaining design practice via theory

Building vocabulary & conceptual apparatusRelating different elements of embodied interactionProviding principles for the design of new artifacts

Meaning via intentionality, ontology, intersubjectivityActing on but also through technologies

(Dourish 2001)

Embodied interactionLinks between tangible & social computing

How the everyday world works, how we experience the world

Things are embedded in the world, realities as embedded in settings

Artifacts can have multi-level roles & inscriptionsEmbodiment and phenomenology, experiential, being

with actingNew spatial and locative design challenges: activity,

practice, community(Dourish 2001)

Tapet

Tgarden (FOAM Sponge)Designing embodied movement

Audience as actors: Experiments with MPEG, sensors, spatial

irony(Sem 2004)

Karakuri

Anticipatory interactionSimulated space for user engagement

(Penny 2004)Trialling into extended use

(Westvang 2004)

‘Where the action is…’… the design and analysis of systems based on tangible interaction needs to

encompass more than simply their ‘tangible’ characteristics, and to

understand how they are caught up in larger systems of meaning that connect the physical to the symbolic rather than

separating them. Dourish (2001: 207)

Through the mediating artifact

Idunn Sem on Activity Theory and multimediated dance

Dourish’s principles for embodied interaction (2001: 161ff):

Computation as medium, Meaning on multiple levels

Users create meaning from and on the designed

Embodied technologies participate in world they represent

Embodied interaction moves action into meaning

Related references(For InterMedia dance and technology projects, see: www.intermedia.uio.no)deLahunta, Scott. (2002): Virtual reality and performance'. Performing Arts Journal. 70. 105-114.Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is. The MIT Press: Cambridge.Morrison, A. 2003. ‘Dancing with postcolonial theory: digital scenography and the performance of local culture'. Norsk medietidsskrift. Vol. 10. No 2. 28-56. At: http://www.medieforskerlaget.no/nmt_arkiv/2003-02/index.htmMorrison, A., Skjulstad, S. & Smørdal, O. 2004. ‘Choreographing augmented space’. Future Ground Conference, Melbourne Australia, 17-21 November (to appear in proceedings)Penny. S. 2004. ‘Representation, enaction and the ethics of simulation’ In Wardrip-Fruin N. & Harrigan, P. (eds) First Person. The MIT Press: Cambridge. 73-84.Sha, X:W. & Kuzmanovic, M. 2000. ‘From representation to performance: responsive public space.’ DIAC 2000. At: www.fOam/publications/2000_diac/index.htmlSkjulstad, S., Morrison, A. & Aaberge, A. 2002. ‘Researching performance, performing research’. In Morison, A. (ed.) Researching ICTs in Context. InterMedia/UniPub: Olso. 211-248.Sparacino, F., Davenport, G. & Pentland, A. (2000): 'Media in performance: Interactive spaces for dance, theatre, circus, and museum exhibits'. Systems Journal. Vol. 39, Nos 3 & 4. At: http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/393/part1/sparacino.htmlWestvang, E. 2004. ‘Karakuri: shadows working on the world’. VSMM Conference, Ogaki City Japan, 17-19 November. pp. 1106-1115.