[ISEA2015] Paper: Emily Ip, Sunmin Lee, Wynnie Wing Yi Chung & Thecla Schiphorst – A Wearable Experiment to Radiate Prosocial Wellbeing Through Psychophysiological Mirroring of Laughter

Abstract (Short paper)

Keywords: Wearable Technology, laughter, responsive wearable, psychophysiological mirroring, social mimicry, emotion contagion, prosocial behaviour, social convention

Based on a practical somaesthetics framework emphasizing the values of self experiences, this paper presents the design rationale of a responsive dress, Laughing Dress, which employs laughter as an agent to highlight the unobvious and unspoken social distance between strangers and inverting our cultural notion of public selfcontainment. The proposed wearable dress is used to investigate the concept, “disruption for reformation”. Throughout the design process, the prototype addressed the research question, “Can exposing self-representations through synthetic sound as inner voice and rhythmic light as somatic energy rattle and provoke reposition of us against existing social norms of private-public space?” The research instrument aims to break personal boundaries by magnifying wearer’s self-presence, enticing a psychophysiological mirroring of laughter in another entity, and evoking a sense of curiosity through a display of visual aesthetics. The unusual display and magnification of self-presence within public setting contributes to disruption of social expectation on selfcontainment in public, reflection upon the organic form of human-to-human interaction, and initiation to realign our behaviour.

  • Emily Ip, Graduate Student / Researcher, Simon Fraser University, Canada
    Emily is currently a MA candidate at the School of Interactive Arts + Technology at Simon Fraser University. She is interested in the application of practical somaesthetic within bio-responsive wearable interface for awareness and reflection upon self’s state. Her current research focuses on affective haptic interface within wearable system to foster social richness in the mediated presence between parents and their baby.
  • Sunmin Lee, School of Interactive Arts + Technology Simon Fraser University, Surrey, B.C., Canada
  • Wynnie Wing Yi Chung, Graduate Researcher, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. Wynnie Chung is pursuing her Master of Arts at the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University. Her research interest surrounds the application of somatic based reflections towards designing quality in wearable embodied interaction. Her current research explores the use of somaesthetic reflection for wearable soft user interface design to enrich the somatic understanding of passenger’s in-flight emotional and mental well-being.
  • Dr. Thecla Schiphorst is Associate Director and Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Her background in dance and computing form the basis for her research in embodied interaction, focusing on movement knowledge representation, tangible and wearable technologies, media and digital art, and the aesthetics of interaction. Her research goal is to expand the practical application of embodied theory within Human Computer Interaction. She is a member of the original design team that developed Life Forms, the computer compositional tool for choreography, and collaborated with Merce Cunningham from 1990 to 2005 supporting his creation of new dance with the computer. Thecla has an Interdisciplinary MA under special arrangements in Computing Science and Dance from Simon Fraser University (1993), and a Ph.D. (2008) from the School of Computing at the University of Plymouth.Thecla Schiphorst is the recipient of the 1998 PetroCanada Award in New Media, a biennial award presented to a Canadian Artist for their contribution to innovation in art & technology in Canada. Her media art installations have been exhibited internationally in Europe, Canada, the United States and Asia in many venues including Ars Electronica, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival (DEAF), Future Physical, Siggraph, the Wexner Centre for the Arts, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, and the London ICA. Thecla Schiphorst leads the whisper[s] research group an acronym for: wearable, handheld, intimate, sensory, personal, expressive, responsive systems, and is the Director of MovingStories: Digital Tools for Movement, Meaning and Interaction, a SSHRC funded International Institutional Research Partnership.

Full Text (PDF) p.  43-46