Enabling augmented sense-making with wearable technology
Just found this interesting research on wearable technology, which has a lot of interesting connections to my research
Michel Wittmer of Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (Avans University of Applied Sciences)
His research embodies enabling augmented sense-making with wearable technology. Together with Thomas (Huster Academy of Communication and User Experience (Avans University of Applied Sciences)), Licia Calvi (NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences) and Marloeke van der Vlugt (lectoraat Performative Making Processes (HKU University of the Arts)) they are exploring how a post-cognitive approach to human perception can help the design of wearable technologies that augment sense-making. Their research relies on the notion of pure experience to understand how we can make sense of the world without interpreting it, for example through our body, an approach that is claimed by phenomenology.
This interactive (belt) system is designed to induce tactile sensation of virtual objects in space in order to capture the subjects’ responses. Their aim is to also measure biometrical responses according to the wearer’s experience. The system displayed consists of a Pozyx object tracking system, a Unity setup including a reference 3D space and objects, Arduino board with wifi shield and PWM driver, and an elastic belt holding eight vibration motors.
The paper they have written explores how a post-cognitive approach to human perception can help the design of wearable technologies that augment sense-making. This approach relies on the notion of pure experience to understand how we can make sense of the world without interpreting it, for example through our body, as claimed by phenomenology. In order to understand how to design wearable technology for pure experience, we first held interviews with experts from different domains, all investigating how to express and recognise pure experience. Subsequently, we had a focus group with professional dancers: given their heightened sense of bodily cognition in their experience, we wanted to verify the extent to which the experts practice could be claimed back into the dancers' experience.
