How technology might be paired with the body to poeticise experience

Danielle Wilde (Australia)
LKL External Seminar Series
Location: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald Street
Date: Wednesday 24 June 2009, 2:00pm - 3:30pm

Physically engaging wearable interfaces offer a new means of self-expression. They help us move beyond our reliance on linguistics by supporting more open, dynamic and fluid forms of expression that are pre-verbal, that originate in the body. My research suggests that they also present untapped potential for learning about how different people learn. I investigate this idea through the learning process of the hipdiskettes, a group of performers working with the hipDisk wearable musical interface. Examples from the initial rehearsal periods are presented, noting the learning affordances provided by the interface, learning supports provided by the developer, and the different needs and approaches over time of the performers. Investigating learning was not the focus of the hipDisk research yet outcomes suggest that a consideration of how different people learn through, and about, their bodies is beneficial to the development of physically engaging wearables.

Danielle Wilde is an artist and design researcher at Monash University Faculty of Art and Design (Melbourne, Australia) and the CSIRO Division of Materials Science and Engineering (Belmont, near Geelong). She is undertaking practice-based doctoral research, investigating how technology might be paired with the body to poeticise experience, and what this might mean. Her research sits at the nexus of performance, fashion, fine art, critical (technology) and interaction design.

Her work, such as hipDrawing, combines vocal, visual and highly abstracted physical storytelling techniques to weave a strange, funny and highly poetic journey, told by a human etch-a-sketch. 

She will be featuring some of her latest work at the 'Surface Tension' event organised by the London Knowledge Lab in collaboration with the Science Museum's Dana Centre on June 23rd, at the Dana Centre (more info here).

Danielle is currently on a European research tour, including Visiting Fellowships and Artist Residencies at:

• The Open University, Pervasive Interaction Lab
• The Creative Systems Lab, Sussex University 
• Nottingham Trent University, TechTextiles Team and Centre for Smart Materials
• STEIM, Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam