Papers at Chi 2009!

Yeah!! The two papers I wrote for CHI 2009 were accepted this year! One paper is entitled Design of Haptic Interfaces for Therapy the second one, a work in progress, is called Cost-effective Wearable Sensor to Detect EMF

Design of Haptic Interfaces for Therapy
Abstract
Touch is fundamental to our emotional well-being. Medical science is starting to understand and develop touch-based therapies for autism spectrum, mood, anxiety and borderline disorders. Based on the most promising touch therapy protocols, we are presenting the first devices that simulate touch through haptic devices to bring relief and assist clinical therapy for mental health. We present several haptic systems that enable medical professionals to facilitate the collaboration between patients and doctors and potentially pave the way for a new form of non-invasive treatment that could be adapted from use in care-giving facilities to public use. We developed these prototypes working closely with a team of mental health professionals.

Download the .pdf ->here<-



Cost-effective Wearable Sensor to Detect EMF .
This other paper is a work in progress, based on a circuit design that I did for the class of Joe Paradiso (co-author). Even though many designers have explored wearable EMF displays, I implemented an electric field sensor that is low-cost, this to democratize EMF reading.

Download the .pdf ->here<-



Chi will be in Boston this year, so that means lots of visits and parties and hang out with old friends!

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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This silent language ...

In his book The Silent Language, anthropologist Eward T. Hall analyzes the many aspects of non-verbal communication. He analyzes the way people "talk" to one another without the use of words. He proposes that the concepts of space and time are tools with which all human beings may transmit messages.



As I focused on the chapter "how space communicates", I find intriguing the way Hall compares cultures and their reading of non verbal communication cues. He particularly states that the distance between individuals differs and can drastically affect the dynamics of space interaction. For instance, an American needs to take between 20 inches to 36 inches in a neutral conversation for a personal subject matter. Apparently in Latin America the interaction distance is much less. This claim was also proposed in his other book, The Hidden Dimension. This seems like a pretty large distance to me!

I was wandering, as we are becoming nomads, or neo-nomads --term created and analyzed by Dr. Yasmine Abbas, now that we travel constantly, I wander how these distances of interaction and non verbal communication cues have evolved. Is it possible that we absorb most of these social interactions in our everyday routines, and that after each travel, each interaction, we come back "socially transformed"? Would these non verbal communication cues become more obvious to us?



In one of his other book, The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time, Hall explores the way humans are intrinsically linked to the rhythm of life, how being unsynchronized can disturb them and even bring them into depression! He explains, based on observations, how people are tied together and yet isolated by hidden threads of rhythm and walls of time. Time is treated as a language, organizer, and message system revealing people's feelings about each other and reflecting differences between cultures. He claims that repetition is not appreciated or that Americans are not trained to appreciate repetition. Through repetition comes learning, comes depth of understanding, comes rhythm. He proposes that the invisible rhythm is not widely recognized, that rhythms are only presented on stage by talented performers! Hall assumes there is a relationship between rhythm and love. Basically it affects our entire being. Synchrony in life seems strangely related to rhythm in music. The pattern of our movements can translate into a beat. Without this rhythm, we are not synchronized and we loose our contact with life ...

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

How to design a reconfigurable artificial sensate skin?

For the technical area of my general exams lead by Dr. Joe Paradiso, I read Gerardo Barroeta Pérez's very inspiring thesis in which he presents S.N.A.K.E.: A dynamically reconfigurable artificial sensate skin as well as a series of related work.

The idea is to design a device that inherits the characteristics of human skin. Surveying prior work in materials, flexible electronics, sensing matrices and sensor networks, Gerardo presents a new type of artificial sensate skin: low power, scalable, mechanically flexible, and that extracts a rich set of multi modal sensor data. Also each node in SNAKE is capable of changing its behavior by changing its code. One can use SNAKE as a scalable smart material that covers interactive surfaces!

This Skin is composed of one or many Skin Patches which in turn are composed of one or many Skin Nodes. Each node is able to measure Strain, Pressure, Ambient Light, Pressure, Sound and Mechano-reception. Each Skin Patch can either work as a stand-alone device or as a data extraction device if this is attached to a Personal Computer through a different type of device referred to as Brains. Each Skin Node and therefore each Skin Patch: is Dynamically Adaptable meaning that they can adapt to external stimuli by either modifying their behavior or by completely changing their code. Construction of a sensate skin in such a modular fashion promises intrinsic scalability, where peer-to-peer connections between neighbors can reduce local data, which can then be sent to the brain by the high-speed common backbone.

Paradiso observed two general trends in sensor networks: Either the individual sensors are routed to a central processing unit or as completely decentralized sensor networks. So in SNAKE, data can be processed locally because each node is given processing power. Each node can also be connected to each other to create a skin like surface to react to the same kinds of stimuli that our skin encounters. The idea of a communication link between nodes is inspired by how our cells communicate with one another. When stimulated they generate an electrical pulse, informing our brain, while also releasing neurochemical transmitters received by neighboring cells.

Each skin patch in SNAKE is a sensor network composed by sensor nodes. Each node is made of a multi layer, flexible circuit substrate that sense six physical quantities: Stain/Bending by using two orthogonal custom made strain gages. Proximity/Activity by using a piezoelectric cantilever. Absolute pressure by using a quantum-tunneling effect material. Ambient light by adding an integrated sensor. Audio by adding a MEMS microphone. Temperature by using an integrated temperature sensor.

Related work in the field

Paintable Computer designed by William Butera for his PhD thesis at MIT. Paintable Computing is: "An agglomerate of numerous, finely dispersed, ultra miniaturized computing particles; each positioned randomly, running asynchronously and communicating locally -Butera".

Tribble designed by Josh Lifton is a tactile reactive interface built by linked elements assembled in a sphere made up of tiles. The advantage of this work is to be a completely decentralized network; each node is capable of processing its own generated data without the need of a centralized processing unit. The cons is probably its shape, fixed, preventing it of being a scalable smart surface. Also it is power hungry!



Tribble

Pushpin Computing
The project developed by Josh Lifton & Michael Broxton consists of a hundred of peer-to-peer wireless sensor nodes freely distributed over a table-top interface.



Pushpin

Recreating the sense of touch have been explored by many other researchers, but all of them rely on a centralized processing unit to process the data extracted from the sensors. For instance, Lumelsky's sensitive skin, a prototype of a skin patch with infrared lights and receivers used as proximity sensors. Hakozaki created a flexible robot skin to cover wide robot surfaces. Rekimoto presents a capacitive "smart skin" sensor for use in interactive surfaces.

Also prior work as shown artificial sensate skins not implemented as sensor networks but as sensor matrices: each sensor must be individually routed to a central processing unit. This is the case for instance for Takao Someya and his large flexible sensor matrix with organic field effect transistors or for M. Sergio's textile-based capacitive sensor array that can be used as sensitive skin.



Takao Someya' sensor matrix

An artificial sensate skin needs to be flexible. The innovative work of Stephanie Lacour is probably the most prominent example. She has created a new conducting material that can be stretched and still retain their electronic properties this by depositing thin gold layers on elastic rubber substrates. Also one can refer to the work done on the e-paper by Jacobson, micro capsules, filled with electronically loaded white parts that were dissolved in a dark colored oil.

-> Link <- to the .pdf of Pérez thesis.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

Yard sale treasures

This summer is the perfect period for yard sales! I have a few secret collections that are building up! All of them related to my research of course. One of my recent find is this vintage electronic kit for children, "discover the magic and mystery of electronics in minutes". Working in a group that researches on a seamless and tangible relationship to digital information, I find this child's game particularly of interest.

Each block represents an electronic component. As the child assembles the blocks together, the child designs a circuit. All the pieces have a magnet underneath. They can be assembled on a metallic large plate, plate that works as the circuit ground. The game is about electronics, analog electronics, but the iteration process of electronics discovery is "tangible". The child can relate to the kit like a puzzle and by this is invited to experiment with each piece. Many authors have claimed that the understanding of electronics is hands-on. Making this process connected to the learning of electronic symbols + offering a puzzle based interaction to circuit design is very exciting! Now there is a consequence to the connection of the pieces, where the electronics knowledge starts and the children are empowered in the design, focusing essentially on their component and how they spatially fits. Later on they can move on to working directly with the components ...

I have a more recent version of an electronic kit that shows directly the components, not the symbols. The connection is made by inserting wires between each component. I much prefer the puzzle based approach that welcome easy improvisation and experimentation with circuit design.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

My contribution in the field of fashionable technology!

I had previously mentioned the book Fashionable Technology, edited by Sabine Seymour in which I present my work on fashion garments designed in the context of technology -including the Touch Sensitive apparel developed with Yasmine Abbas. The book is available on Amazon and I recently received my copy!

Here are the pages of my contribution and the book itself features outstanding designers. I will try to report about them soon !!!

Abstract: The interplay of electronic textiles and wearable technology, wearables for short, and fashion, design and science is a highly promising and topical subject. Offered here is a compact survey of the theory involved and an explanation of the role technology plays in a fabric or article of clothing. The practical application is explained in detail and numerous illustrations serve as clarification. Over 50 well-known designers, research institutes, companies and artists, among them Philips, Burton, MIT Media Lab, XS Labs, New York University, Hussein Chalayan, Cute Circuit or International Fashion Machines are introduced by means of their latest, often still unpublished, project, and a survey of their work to date. Given for the first time is a list of all the relevant information on research institutes, materials, publications etc. A must for all those wishing to know everything about fashionable technology.

->Buy the book<-

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

A journey for the foreigner

All foreigners who have made a choice add to their passion for indifference a fervent extremism that reveals the origin of their exile – Julia Kristeva

I recently read a book, depressing and fascinating, Strangers to Ourselves, by Julia Kristerva.
This book is a journey through the notion of the stranger (the foreigner, outsider or alien in a country and society), and explores the idea of strangeness within the self (a person’s deep sense of being). In this book Julia Kristeva distinguishes the inside from the outside appearance and the conscious idea of self. She explains mostly the point of view of the foreigner, how he feels and perceives others in his welcoming foreign country. She attempts to analyze him and shows how this exile is nurtured by a deep inside exile. I share my notes because I know many foreigners who will resonate with this book.

In the first chapter, “Tocata and Fugue for the Foreigner”, the author explains her attempt to not turn the foreigner into a thing, but rather to “brush it” with no permanent structure. She presents a happy foreigner to the eyes of others, while the foreigner is actually away from his homeland because most probably he has lost his mother. As in Camus, his Stranger reveals himself at the time of his mother’s death: “One has not much noticed that this cold orphan, whose indifference can become criminal, is a fanatic of absence”. The foreigner is a devotee of solitude.

In the eyes of the foreigner those who are not foreign have no life at all: barely do they exist, haughty or mediocre. In contrast, the space of the foreigner is a moving train! As for confidence, the foreigner has no self. An empty confidence, valueless, which focuses his possibilities of being constantly other: “I do what they want me to, but it is not me. Me is elsewhere, me belongs to no one, me does not belong to me, … does me exist?”. Julia Kristeva concludes that the foreigner is a dreamer making love with absence, one exquisitely depressed. Happy? No one knows better than the foreigner the passion for solitude. “The paradox is that the foreigner wishes to be alone but with partners, and yet none is willing to join him in the torrid space of his uniqueness”.

The author proposes two categories of foreigner. The one who agonizes between what is no longer and what will never be, the advocate of emptiness, usually the best ironist, and the one who transcends, living neither before nor now but beyond, a believer and sometimes ripens into a skeptic! She explains how meeting balances wandering for the foreigner. The banquet of hospitality is the foreigner’s utopia with the brotherhood of guests who soothe and forget their differences … the banquet is outside of time!

The author shows how the foreigner constantly feels the hatred of others and how living with the foreigner (with the other) confronts people with the possibility or not of being an other, as in being in his place. Rimbaud’s psychotic ghost Je est un autre (I is an other) is the acknowledgment of this exile: to be foreign and live in a foreign country.
“Being alienated from myself, as painful as that may be, provides me with that exquisite distance within which perverse pleasure begins, as well as the possibility of my imagining and thinking, the impetus of my culture.” Split identity? Should we recognize that one becomes a foreigner in another country because he is already a foreigner from within?

How strange is Camus’ Meursault (The Stranger, 1942), so anesthetized, lacking emotions, all passion having been eradicated, and not a scratch to show for it. One could easily take him for a borderline case, or a fasle self, in short for a quasi-psychotic, rather than for a prototype of the foreigner.

Julia Kristeva brings language into this exile. The foreigner does not speak his mother tongue nor he is filled with resonance from the body’s memory! The resurrection through a new language slowly appears superficial and meaningless. This new language appears like a prosthesis, it is superficial.

Apparently, nobody listens to the foreigner, because the foreigner is only tolerated. As the author explains: “Those who have never lost the slightest root seem unable to understand any word liable to temper their point of view”. And the foreigner’s friends, aside from bleeding hearts who feel obliged to do good, could only be those who feel foreign to themselves.

Nowhere does one find better somatization than among foreigners, so much can linguistic and passional expression find itself inhibited

The realm of the foreigner slowly becomes silence. “It is the silence that empties the mind and fills the brain with despondency, like the gaze of sorrowful women coiled up in some nonexistent eternity.” Instead of approximating words, the foreigner no longer says them. The foreigner has lost his own language in a foreign land …

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

A Health-Obsessed Robot for Health Obsessives

After leaving us for London, Daisy Ginsberg now designs health obsessed robots at RCA! Daisy uses her Bio Spy concept to express that we develop irrational relationships with machines, mourning dead appliances or resisting unfamiliar replacements. How will we behave when robots are trusted with the most intimate moments of our personal lives? Will the master/slave relationship survive? Is symbiosis with a robot possible? And what are the consequences of offering our most personal data for surveillance? Her questions remind me of my post on jealous computers and the 80's electric dreams movie, with a special RCA's touch!



For the hypochondriac, the BioSpy offers reassuring constant health surveillance, removing the nagging fear of illness. But would such a health aid induce unhealthy behaviour? The user and robot develop obsessive mutual dependence: the user only feels healthy when accompanied by the robot, sharing her most intimate information with it. Meanwhile, recording, storing and analyzing every physical change 24/7, the robot is dependent on its user's health for its existence.



After a period of domestic harmony, the robot captures data that indicates serious illness. ‘Fearful’, it mirrors its user's own neurosis. It logically computes that if it records any more data, it might ultimately result in unplugging. The robot’s erratic behaviour confuses the owner – is it behaving autonomously or malfunctioning? Is the user really ill or is it imagined?

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

International PhD Studentship in Tectonic Textiles!

An announcement for the good cause. I know how hard it is to find a great PhD in a field that you love! Here is a call for an international PhD studentship in tectonic textiles between the Centre for IT and Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, and the Textiles Future Research Group, Central Saint Martins, College of Art and Design.

The position will be based in both research environments so as to make full use of the expertise and equipment available. The applicant will be expected to move between the institutions placed in Copenhagen and London, respectively. The position is offered as a 3-year contract under the regulations of the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Federation of Professional Associations, AC.

This Ph.D. application will be administerd by CITA.
Click ->here<- for further information

The deadline for application is 23 May 2008. Material received by CITA after this time will not be taken into account.


A bit of research context for the studentship
The last decade has seen an extensive development in the textile industry. The invention of new high technology fibres and yarns as well as new fabrication techniques for weaving, knitting, pleating, welding or laminating of materials, is causing an increase in the use of textiles across multiple disciplines. From the miniature detailing of knitted arteries inserted into the body to the extreme scales of geotextiles, textiles are entering new fields of fabrication, hybridising existing technologies and inventing new ones. In architecture, the metaphor of textiles is increasingly informing design practice. Whereas textiles have always been used in tensile structures and within the interior, the idea of weaving, pleating or knitting a building is challenging traditional construction techniques. The idea of a curtain wall, an independent and self-supporting membrane of steel and glass that wraps around the building, is now being explored through the metaphor of fabric.

One of the key developments in this technological innovation has been the emergence of smart textiles, or intelligent textiles, that embed digital technology in woven, pleated or knitted surfaces. These materials enable wiring or circuitry to become a direct part of the material. Intelligent clothes, wearables and soft computing are research fields that have been receiving huge amounts of international interest during the last decade. The use of conductive threads and fabrics and the embroidery of standard electronic components as well as stand-alone microprocessors have allowed the imagining of a material that holds its own capacity for sensing and actuation. Here, state-changes: the intensification of colour, the emergence of light or the stirring of movement, allow the material itself to become a reactive surface that engages with its occupant or wearer. These materials have mostly had their application in the development of smart uniforms for the military, but have also lead to more experimental and probing explorations allowing for a new conditioning of technology as something soft, pliable, adaptive and mobile. Questioning the idea of a fixed user behind a standard terminal within a rigid office environment, these investigations propose a flexible technology that ultimately is ported and changed by its usage.

The International PhD Studentship will focus on the siting of these technologies within an architectural research context. Investigating the embedding of soft technology within the interior, the project will seek to define new means by which a dynamic and user-controlled architecture can be imagined. It is the intention that the candidate will work in a practice-based and experimental manner where direct experience and engagement with materials and technologies will create the foundation for innovative research.


Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Keep in touch: a tactile-vision intimate interface

Keep in Touch designed by Nima Motamedi at Simon Fraser University, Canada, is a networked fabric touchscreen designed to support and maintain intimacy for couples in long distance relationships. To achieve this she created a novel sensorial interface by combining the visual and tactile senses together. Each partner is presented with a blurred digital projection of their lover. When they touch their partner's body, the image comes into focus revealing their features.

In the paper presented at TEI in 2007, the authors describe how this sensory mapping creates an expressive and emotional interface allowing couples to communicate through touch, gestures, and body language.

See also her paper: The aesthetics of touch in interaction design!



See also Mutsugoto by Tomoko Hayashi, Stefan Agamanolis and Matthew Karau.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Three days in Vancouver, Canada …

Granville Island



I was off for a few days to Vancouver city, the town that brings together the mountain, the ocean and the forest. I was here to give a talk at Simon Fraser University for the 25th Anniversary of the Faculty of Business Administration. The department will make a DVD of the talk (for education purposes only).

My trip to Vancouver was delightful! My hosts: Dr. Judy Zaichkowsky (Research Director and Marketing Area Co-ordinator) and Dr. Olga Volkoff, professor MIS, were fantastic. From my stay in a lovely hotel (Four Seasons Hotel), walking, driving trips throughout Vancouver, boat tour to reach the Island where all you find is handmade craft work as well as houses floating on the water, to the most delicate restaurant: Le Crocodile, I never felt so empowered in giving a talk!!! The crowd was enthusiast and receptive: a combination of business & art & tech professors and students with business attendees. The research we do in our group was embraced and according to many comments and emails after the talk: inspiring. Nothing better than being inspiring!! So I go back home with wonderful souvenirs, great contacts, cute pictures (I had my iPhone so took a tone!!).


The Surrey Campus, Simon Fraser University.

I felt in love with the Simon Fraser University, the business department and ... the city!!! I recommend to any of you who have never been to Vancouver to immediately jump in the first flight/train. You might have to discover by yourself, but the city is so people friendly that I don't think you will have any difficulty exploring around.

I recommend (in any order)
. Granville Island : take a boat, that comes every 5 min, to go to the island. The prettiest collection of craft boutique and floating houses!
. The museum of archeology: outstanding collection of native Canadian art.
. Winners : great shopping for students, dixit Judy. I found a special edition of Addidas
. Holt Renfrew: great shopping to find designers and tailored clothing. I found a Burberry white trench coat (sold out anywhere else) and tailored trousers. I must admit that Canadians in Vancouver are particularly sweet, gentle, helpful and smiling!
. Le crocodile restaurant: a special recommendation, the French food there is excellent.
. Stanley Park
. Gastown
. Take the Skytrain to have an idea of the scope of the city!!
and dont forget to check out the inspiring talks and series at SFU!!!



A special thank to Pet Nilsson for his great comments and thoughtful blog!

Voilà!

More about inspiring research in interaction design SOON ...

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Attachments to artifacts: Collect to connect to construct

I am thrilled! My proposal for book chapter titled Attachments to artifacts: Collect to connect to construct has been accepted! It will be part of the first Franco-English book that will tell you all you ever wanted to know about new technologies of the self, mobilities and (co-)constructions of identities.

In this book chapter, I explore the psychological trade-off between what we call virtual and tangible “attachments”: I focus on people’s attachments to things, and through things, their relations to people (virtual and digital). I address the digital object collection mechanism in relation to the way we gather artifacts in the physical world.

Edited by Fred Dervin, Senior Lecturer, Department of French Studies, University of Turku, Finland and partner in crime Yasmine Abbas, Doctor of Design, Harvard, USA, ReD Associates, Denmark. The book will be published in Autumn 2009.
More info ->here<-

SYNOPSIS extraits/excerpts, in both French and English
L’hypermobilité physique comme virtuelle qui touche les individus contemporains conduit à multiplier les récits et discours sur les rencontres avec les autres, mais aussi avec soi-même. Qu’ils soient issus de migrants, membres de diasporas, réfugiés, personnes en mobilité à court ou long-terme, résidents virtuels, internautes, etc., ces témoignages sont transmis à travers différents média et espaces personnels et publics: du simple coup de téléphone au site internet et à l’e-mail, ou à travers des autobiographies, des témoignages écrits et oraux, des articles de presse, des documentaires, etc. L’avènement de nouveaux espaces relationnels tels que ceux proposés par les Webs 2.0 et 3.0 (weblogs, podcasts, vidéocasts, Facebook, Second Life, Youtube…) offre la possibilité à la fois de faire partager ses expériences de mobilité au quotidien et de construire son soi face à/avec des millions d’interlocuteurs potentiels et ce, de manière multimodale. La présence de ces témoignages de mobilité, qui s’apparentent à des actes de confession, donne accès à des données intéressantes et inédites dans plusieurs langues et cela, de façon illimitée…

The new interpersonal spaces created by web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies seem to correspond to the technologies of the self that Michel Foucault (1988) has addressed in his lectures at the Collège de France at the beginning of the 1980s. These new technologies enable the individual’s self to emerge publicly and to be worked upon with its “disciples”: be they companions in Second Life, readers (for example on a blog) or listeners (Podcasts). With high speed Internet access and increasingly generous capacities of storage (mp3, USB keys, iPhone, portable computers…), the opportunities for staging the self have become unlimited…

MEDIA TREATED blogs, forum, Life Forms, MMS, moblogging, mondes virtuels, photo et vidéo, photos et vidéos mobiles, robots de compagnie, sites Internet, téléphones portables. | Craigslist, digital artifacts, Del.ici.ous, World of Warcrafts, Facebook, Gaming, Geolocalisation, MMORPG, retail surveillance devices, SilkRoad online, Social Networking, YouTube, WWOOF, Second Life.

THEMES Photographies en mobilité, espaces relationnels, hétérogénéité culturelle, industries culturelles, identités migratoires, identité hmong, diaspora, NOTICs (Nouveaux Objets issus des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication), infoguerre, mouvement en danse, personnage virtuel, avatars, Autre imaginaire, voyage réel et virtuel | Attachment, backpacking, collection, collective identity, participatory culture, politics, rhythm, second self, tourism, tribalism, virtual nomadism. Attachment, backpacking, collection, collective identity, participatory culture, politics, rhythm, second self, tourism, tribalism, virtual nomadism.



I could not help but join this picture sent to us by Edith Ackermann, also selected by Yasmine Abbas, because it directly refers to the ideal of mobility and its beautiful sacrifice. Edith says:" i am in Switzerland moving out from my apartment: a sweet dump i had rented since i am a student, filled with paintings from my grand father, mom’s carpets, and leather coated books. i never had to let go of so many evocative objects at once. a bit overwhelming really, but i guess i will feel lighter once i am done. good i have my “final home” coat, a gift from my japanese friend noboyuki…. objects come, objects go! and so do people :) " Edith tells us all about it ->here<-



Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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