‘Squeaky/Pain’: Cultivating Disturbing Experiences and Perspective Transition for Somaesthetic Interactions

Main Article Content

Arife Dila Demir
Nithikul Nimkulrat
Kristi Kuusk

Abstract

Through an exemplary design case study, we look at how mediating bodily disturbances and cultivating perspective transition from first-to second-person perspective amplifies somaesthetic awareness. The paper focuses on the less explored aspect of soma design, which is the mediation of disturbing experiences that disrupt the everyday flow i.e., pain. The design process illustrated a transition between first- and second-person perspectives to cultivate and externalize the experience with pain as a wearable bodily interaction. The externalized pain experience was translated into an interactive wearable, ‘Squeaky/Pain’, that augments the wearer’s somaesthetic awareness via sound, tactile, and kinesthetic sensations. This paper makes two main contributions to soma design: introducing the implications of disturbing experiences for augmenting somaesthetic awareness and exemplifying how inner bodily disturbances can be materialized through the cultivation of first-and second-person perspectives.

Article Details

How to Cite
Demir, A. D., Nimkulrat, N. ., & Kuusk, K. . (2022). ‘Squeaky/Pain’: Cultivating Disturbing Experiences and Perspective Transition for Somaesthetic Interactions. Diseña, (20), Article.2. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.20.Article.2 (Original work published January 31, 2022)
Section
Original articles
Author Biographies

Arife Dila Demir, Estonian Academy of Arts, Art and Design Doctoral School

MA in Textile Design. Doctoral student at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her research focuses on soma design, somaesthetics, aesthetics of bodily engagements, movement-ba­sed interactions, interactive textiles, and critical and speculative design. She was a contractual lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She worked as an e-textile costume designer for a project executed between an artist and Tallinn University, funded by Vertigo STARTS Residency. Recently she was in the STARTS.EE Residency program as an artist and researcher, which was carried out by the HCI Group at the Tallinn University in collaboration with elektron.art. She is the author of ‘AURA: Altering Self-Per­ception Through Interactive Light Emitting Textiles’ (Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction).

Nithikul Nimkulrat, Ontario College of Art & Design University, Faculty of Design

Industrial Designer, Chulalongkorn University. MA in Textile Art and Design, Aalto University. D.Arts in Design, Aalto University. Associate Professor and Chair of the Material Art & Design program at OCAD University. She served as lead editor of the CoDesign special issue ‘Knowing Together – Experiential Knowledge and Collaboration’ (Vol. 16, Issue 4). Some of her latest publications include: ‘Experiential Craft: Knowing through Analogue and Digital Materials Experience’ (in Materials Experience 2; Elsevier, 2021); ‘Decoloniality of Knowing and Being: Artistic Research Through Collabora­tive Craft Practice’ (in Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research; Routledge, 2021); and ‘Translational Craft: Handmade and Gestural Knowledge in Analogue-Di­gital Material Practice’ (Craft Research, Vol. 11, Issue 2).

Kristi Kuusk, Estonian Academy of Arts, Design Research Group

BA in Informatics, Tallinn University of Techno­logy. MA in Fashion Design, Estonian Academy of Arts. Ph.D. in Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology. Senior researcher at the Design Research Group in Estonian Academy of Arts. She is interested in finding alternative futures for clothing and textile design via implementation of technology. She has collaborated as selected laureate in the EU projects ‘STARTS Resi­dencies’ and ‘WORTH Partnership Project’. Her latest publications include: ‘A Transdisciplinary Collaborative Journey Leading to Sensorial Clothing’ (with A. Tajadura-Jiménez and A. Väljamäe, CoDesign, Vol. 16, Issue 4); and ‘Altering One’s Body-perception through E-Textiles and Haptic Metaphors’ (with A. Tajadura-Ji­ménez and A. Väljamäe; Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Vol. 7).

References

Aslan, I., Burkhardt, H., Kraus, J., & André, E. (2016). Hold my Heart and Breathe with Me: Tangible Somaesthetic Designs. Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Article 92. https://doi.org/10.1145/2971485.2996727

Aslan, I., Seiderer, A., Dang, C. T., Rädler, S., & André, E. (2020). PiHearts: Resonating Experiences of Self and Others Enabled by a Tangible Somaesthetic Design. Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, 433–441. https://doi.org/10.1145/3382507.3418848

Benford, S., Greenhalgh, C., Giannachi, G., Walker, B., Marshall, J., & Rodden, T. (2012). Uncomfortable Interactions. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2005–2014. https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2208347

Desjardins, A., & Ball, A. (2018). Revealing Tensions in Autobiographical Design in HCI. Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 753–764. https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196781

Devendorf, L., Andersen, K., & Kelliher, A. (2020). Making Design Memoirs: Understanding and Honoring Difficult Experiences. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376345

Ehn, P. (2008). Participation in Design Things. Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Participatory Design. https://doi.org/10.1145/1795234.1795248

Gastaldo, D., Rivas-Quarneti, N., & Magalhaes, L. (2018). Body-map Storytelling as a Health Research Methodology: Blurred Lines Creating Clear Pictures. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 19(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-19.2.2858

Given, L. M. (Ed.). (2008). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. SAGE.

Haines, S. (2015). Pain is Really Strange. Singing Dragon.

Hendriks, S., Mare, S., Gamboa, M., & Baytaþ, M. A. (2021). Azalea: Co-experience in Remote Dialog through Diminished Reality and Somaesthetic Interaction Design. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Article 261. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445052

Höök, K. (2018). Designing with the Body: Somaesthetic Interaction Design. MIT Press.

Höök, K., Caramiaux, B., Erkut, C., Forlizzi, J., Hajinejad, N., Haller, M., Hummels, C. C. M., Isbister, K., Jonsson, M., Khut, G., Loke, L., Lottridge, D., Marti, P., Melcer, E., Müller, F. F., Graves Petersen, M., Schiphorst, T., Segura, E. M., Ståhl, A., … Tobiasson, H. (2018). Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design. Informatics, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics5010008

Höök, K., Ståhl, A., Jonsson, M., Mercurio, J., Karlsson, A., & Johnson, E.-C. B. (2015). Somaesthetic Design. Interactions, 22(4), 26–33. https://doi.org/10.1145/2770888

Loke, L., & Robertson, T. (2013). Moving and Making Strange: An Embodied Approach to Movement-Based Interaction Design. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 20(1), Article 7. https://doi.org/10.1145/2442106.2442113

Maranan, D. S., Grant, J., Matthias, J., Phillips, M., & Denham, S. L. (2020). Haplós: Vibrotactile Somaesthetic Technology for Body Awareness. Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, 539–543. https://doi.org/10.1145/3374920.3374984

Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke University Press.

McCracken, L. M., Sato, A., & Taylor, G. J. (2013). A Trial of a Brief Group-Based Form of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for Chronic Pain in General Practice: Pilot Outcome and Process Results. The Journal of Pain, 14(11), 1398–1406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2013.06.011

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception (C. Smith, Trans.). Routledge.

Neustaedter, C., & Sengers, P. (2012). Autobiographical Design in HCI Research: Designing and Learning through Use-it-yourself. Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 514–523. https://doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2318034

Newton, K. M. (1997). Victor Shklovsky: ‘Art as Technique.’ In K. M. Newton (Ed.), Twentieth-Century Literary Theory: A Reader (pp. 3–5). Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25934-2_1

Núñez-Pacheco, C., & Loke, L. (2020). Getting into Someone Else’s Soul: Communicating Embodied Experience. Digital Creativity, 31(4), 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2020.1835987

Savic, S., & Huang, J. (2014). Research Through Design: What Does it Mean for a Design Artifact to be Developed in the Scientific Context? 5th STS Italia Conference: A Matter of Design. Making Society through Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.4306.6729

Schiphorst, T. (2009). Soft(n): Toward a Somaesthetics of Touch. CHI ’09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2427–2438. https://doi.org/10.1145/1520340.1520345

Schiphorst, T., & Seo, J. (2010). Tendrils: Exploring the Poetics of Collective Touch in Wearable Art. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, 397–398. https://doi.org/10.1145/1935701.1935798

Schön, D. A. (1995). Knowing-in-action: The New Scholarship Requires a New Epistemology. Change, 27(6), 26–34.

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2010). Kinesthetic Experience: Understanding Movement Inside and Out. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 5(2), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432979.2010.496221

Shusterman, R. (2006). Thinking through the Body, Educating for the Humanities: A Plea for Somaesthetics. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 40(1), 1–21.

Shusterman, R. (2019). Pleasure, Pain, and the Somaesthetics of Illness: A Question for Everyday Aesthetics. In O. Kuisma, S. Lehtinen, & H. Mäcklin (Eds.), Paths from the Philosophy of Art to Everyday Aesthetics (pp. 201–214). Finnish Society for Aesthetics.

Smeenk, W., Tomico, O., & van Turnhout, K. (2016). A Systematic Analysis of Mixed Perspectives in Empathic Design: Not One Perspective Encompasses All. International Journal of Design, 10(2), 31–48.

Svanæs, D. (2013). Interaction Design For and With the Lived Body: Some Implications of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 20(1), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1145/2442106.2442114

Swann, C. (2002). Action Research and the Practice of Design. Design Issues, 18(1), 49–61. https://doi.org/10.1162/07479360252756287

Tennent, P., Marshall, J., Tsaknaki, V., Windlin, C., Höök, K., & Alfaras, M. (2020). Soma Design and Sensory Misalignment. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376812

Trompetter, H. R., Bohlmeijer, E. T., Fox, J.-P., & Schreurs, K. M. G. (2015). Psychological Flexibility and Catastrophizing as Associated Change Mechanisms During Online Acceptance & Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 74, 50–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2015.09.001

Tsaknaki, V. (2021). The Breathing Wings: An Autobiographical Soma Design Exploration of Touch Qualities through Shape-change Materials. Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021, 1266–1279. https://doi.org/10.1145/3461778.3462054

Tsaknaki, V., Cotton, K., Karpashevich, P., & Sanches, P. (2021). “Feeling the Sensor Feeling You”: A Soma Design Exploration on Sensing Non-habitual Breathing. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Article 266. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445628

Wilde, D., Schiphorst, T., & Klooster, S. (2011). Move to Design/Design to Move: A Conversation about Designing for the Body. Interactions, 18(4), 22–27. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978822.1978828

Wilde, D., Vallgårda, A., & Tomico, O. (2017). Embodied Design Ideation Methods: Analysing the Power of Estrangement. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 5158–5170. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025873

Zhang, X., & Wakkary, R. (2014). Understanding the Role of Designers’ Personal Experiences in Interaction Design Practice. Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 895–904. https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598556

Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J., & Evenson, S. (2007). Research Through Design as a Method for Interaction Design Research in HCI. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 493–502. https://doi.org/10.1145/1240624.1240704