Sensory Engagement & The Haptic

Sensory Engagement & the haptic is using your senses to engage or interact opening up, with different parts of the body to get information to us.
Our bodies interact in many ways:
The haptic senses -smell, touch (tactile) use certain information to trigger an image in your head, or distinguish between different forms.

Interaction can also be seen by using our bodies to interact with a computer, but interaction can be limiting.

GESTURE & THE SCREEN:

This is all about the information and how we receive it from the screen. Both content and form are equally important.

‘What we need is a reconsideration of spatial paradigms in an immaterial world.’ Jessica Helfand ‘Dematerialization of Screen Space’ 2001 (Graphic Design Theory p.119-23) Here Helfand states that we should reconsider designing things, which limit our senses. The computer screen, limits the way we can interact with design.
Helfand talks about the ‘Efforts to break out of the box.’ Helfand p.122. and her desire to get away from the screen.

The video below is an example of design 'efforts to break out of the box':

Paola Antonelli
‘Designers have also matured beyond the first moments of irresistible and immoderate enthusiasm for the new mediums, and learned to control their touch and to wear technology, instead of letting technology wear them. Digital By Design’ forward p9 2008

Antonelli, a creator also looked at the relationship between technology, and human interaction. He believed that designers because of the latest new technology were dominating the forefront.

Watson with Emily Gobeille Theo Watson ‘Boards Interactive Magazine’ 2010
–created a interactive front and back cover for Boards magazine, which tells a story by holding the magazine up, based on rise and fall. The magazine is detected by a camera, based on how you hold the magazine at the camera, using printed media & the computer space to create an interactive cover experience.

GESTURE & THE INTERFACE:

Balmer sees 2010 as being the key turning point of digital media.

"I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year we expanded beyond the mouse and keyboard and started incorporating more natural forms of interaction such as touch, speech, gestures, handwriting, and vision--what computer scientists call the "NUI" or natural user interface".
--Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft
Ballmer, S. "CES 2010: A Transforming Trend -- The Natural User Interface." The Huffington Post, January 12, 2010, from

Mehmet Akten 2009 ‘Body Paint’ allows users to paint on a virtual canvas with their body, interpreting movement to create a new interface for creating static paintings.

Alexandre Alapetite, John Paul Hanson & I. Scott MacKenzie 2012.

This video shows a demonstration of how the user’s gaze is determined by an eye tracking apparatus to control the drone.

Donald Norman (voice of interaction)
‘Natural User Interfaces are not Natural’

Gestural systems are no different from any other form of interaction. They need to follow the basic rules of interaction design, which means well-defined modes of expression, a clear conceptual model of the way they interact with the system, their consequences, and means of navigating unintended consequences.

REACTIVE ENVIRONMENTS:

‘Artworks have left the screen, to manifest the virtual sphere in palpable spatial experiences’ Joachim Sauter ‘A Touch of Code’ p.5
Sauter states how pieces of work are no longer on the screen but are in space. For interaction, the user has to rely on touch/feel to interact with these designs.

Jason Bruges Studio 2010 creates a piece using Lumiblade OLEDs. Mimosa – a piece mimicking responsive plant systems.

Jessica Helfand ‘Dematerialisation of Screen Space’ 2001

‘In interactive environments, the promenade - and its implicit digressions - are as important as the destinations’ p122 (Graphic Design Theory - readings from the Field).

Helfand believes walking is just as important as the reached destination.
By physically moving around the interactive environment, the user makes more information within this space.

The Wimbledon App is there to provide the user information on everything that is going on at Wimbledon making it simpler to find exactly what you need at the Wimbledon grounds

‘The spectator is no longer chained, immobilised, anesthetized by the apparatus that serves her ready-made images; now she has to work, to speak, in order to see’ p.109

Kenya Hara
Designing Design 2007

Quality of information offered when senses have been mobilised-
‘Haptic’ senses
Having the image permeate the 5 senses
P126 (Graphic Design Theory - readings from the Field)
UVA ‘Arctic Field’ 2011

ACTIVE OBJECTS:

‘Thus far, 21st-century culture is centered on interaction: “I communicate, therefore I am” is the defining affirmation of contemporary existence, and objects and systems that were once charged only with formal elegance and functional soundness are now also expected to have personalities.’ Paola Antonelli 2011

The hand ax reminds us that design has always been about interaction, and interaction has always been tangible. What’s new is that physical interaction is becoming computationally mediated-or conversely, that computational media are becoming physically embodied.
Tangible Interaction = Form + Computing

Tom Jenkins, Audio Shaker, 2004. The Audio Shaker explores the understanding of the physical form of sound The Audio Shaker records sound, and when it is shaken, the sound bounces back out of the Audio Shaker. The audio shaker relies on the user being active.

HUMAN COMPUTER BALANCE:

Kunzru, Hari. "You Are Cyborg", in Wired Magazine, 5:2 (1997) 1-7. Critiques the impact of machine/human integration, based upon this
idea of being more reliant on machines.

Human Error is an exhibition commissioned by Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester, that fully engages with the public. It highlights the role technology has made on our lives. Household 2010 ‘Human Error’