Yesterday, I did work at the prototyping lab on making the accordion move with a motor that is more effective than the servo I had. But I also had a tutorial with Tobias to talk about how I stand as the interaction designer in this project, which goes onto my worries about becoming technician for the costume and performance and not having a part that is solely mine. So I need to think about the contextual idea behind this as well and I’m going to spend some time on that tomorrow. With the help of Pipe, we made a little… More

Yesterday, I was in the studio with Hana trying to make up the shapes of the costume and which parts will move and how so I can get a better idea of what to work on next week. We decided the accordions are going to be the major movement piece because it’s seems the easiest to work with and creates some interesting shapes. Then we added some small details with these mesh ribbons which we plan to attach to muscle wire and have them go from long hanging pieces to shrivelled up bunches of detail. Below are images of how… More

The final goal: Using camera for gesture recognition, and machine learning a number of gestures will trigger movement in the costume through motors.   So far, I’ve been working with Hana on the costume and what textures to use that can have a range of transformation. Photo from Hana Zeqa, trying accordion like shapes that would open and close like living organisms Photo from Hana Zeqa, trying placement of accordion pieces   I had to figure out if it was even possible with all the motors, batteries, etc. needed to make this costume transform so I asked Tom and Adam who gave me… More

My research into gesture and emotions of love led me into looking at the works of Nadia Berthouze, professor at UCL affective computing. She uses the body as a means for emergence in emotion expression. Her research is very relevant to my thesis because it is focused on how the body affects emotions. But in addition to this, she is also thinking about how we can teach technology to recognize emotions so that it can support and amplify people’s emotions. Can we actually train machines to be empathetic. She says that the reason why body expression is so important is… More

Hana and I have been working on the texture and shape that we want to create for the costume while keeping in mind how these forms can change and transform during performance. The image above shows the sketches I did about how fabric and materials could be manipulated. Mostly, we will need a few motors. Faulhaber makes mini motors and mechanics. A jewellery maker used this in his moving accessories. It looks like the battery and motor are all small enough to be used on the body. Also, I found this technique of making flipping textiles on an embroidered piece… More

“Artificial Intelligence – the Other I”, or the connection between AI and humans was the main topic at the 2017 Ars Electronica Festival, which turned POSTCITY Linz into a hotspot of media arts for the third time in a row this year. There were over 100.000 visits to over 600 different events, conferences and lectures, exhibitions and projects, concerts and performances, animations and award ceremonies, guided tours and workshops between September 7 and 11, 2017. More than 1000 artists presented their works for five days straight at 12 different festival locations – a festival which was really filled to… More

I wanted to get more insight about how touch and gestures are being used by therapy to help with intimacy between lovers. So I contacted Martin Dragan, Clinical Sexologist in Canada who originally introduced me to the works of Ray Birdwhistell. Interview with Martin Dragan, Clinical Sexologist, September 5, 2017 B: Can you tell me more about sensate focus relating to gestures and how you code it in your practice? Context of the meaning of gesture – Birdwhistell M: It’s interesting the cases that I usually have, because gesture is so subjective in a lot of the work that… More

One of the reasons I chose to base my thesis around gestures is because I have this fascination with dance, and most recently, movements that are more human-like rather than choreographed dance routines. There are as many dance routines as people describing emotions in love, such as this one. This video makes me feel emotional every time because it does an amazing job of telling a story and evoking various emotions. I would like to create this kind of relationship with the audience through interaction.   I decided to interview one of the dancers I worked with during the… More

In the sex industry, physical stimulation and sexual intimacy are main business drivers. Though lifestyles of younger generations reflect a need for more emotional intimacy. For example in Japan, people are already having virtual relationships rather than real encounters with other humans (‘The Japanese Love Industry’, 2017). They begin feeling connected more to the technology rather than human to human bond. Love is such an intimate and innate part of humanity but this shows that physical intimacy isn’t always the answer. Technology may be able to provide resources; though it is not yet sophisticated enough to care for humans from… More

As part of my research about love and gestures, I decided to interview couples to get to know them and also how they met, how they felt, and how they fell in love. I recorded interview on video and paid close attention to their gestures during the interview, they are transcribed below.   Christine & Oleg, August 13, 2017 Relationship: currently dating each other, and Christine is my flatmate Sep 2016-present Prior to the interview no specific questions were told to them. How did you meet? Oleg: I swiped right on Tinder. (swiping right in the air with the index… More