I am a Professor of Interaction and Technology, UCL Knowledge Lab, University College London. My research interests are in digitally mediated communication, with a focus on touch, multimodal theory and innovative interdisciplinary research methods. I am PI of the InTouch project (an ERC Consolidator award) and I have led a number of other research projects, most recently:MIDAS: Methodological Innovations in Digital Arts and Social Sciences http://midas.ioe.ac.uk/MODE: Multimodal Methods for Researching Digital Environments (NCRM ESRC) http://mode.ioe.ac.uk/ Address: London Knowledge Lab
23-29 Emerald Street
London
WC1N 3QS
“Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased ... more “Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased automation to “extreme” touch practices and enhance productivity. This article presents an ethnography of touch in two industrial settings using fourth generation industrial robots (a Glass Factory and a Waste Management Center) to critically explore the social and sensorial implications of such technologies for workers. We attend to manifestations of dirt and danger as encountered through describing workers’ sensory experiences and identity formation. The contribution of the article is two-fold. The first is analytical through the development of three “filters” to grasp the complexity of the social and sensorial dynamics of touch in situ while tracing dispersed mediating effects of the introduction of novel technologies. The second is empirical, teasing out themes embedded in the sociosensorial dynamics of touch that intersect with gender, ethnicity, and class and relate to the technological mediation of touch.
Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user ... more Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user engagement and fostering feelings of presence and immersion, yet few qualitative studies have explored users' iVR touch experiences. This paper takes an embodied approach–bringing attention to the tactile-kinaesthetic body–to explore users' wholistic experiences of touch in iVR, moving beyond the cutaneous and tactile elements of “feeling” to elaborate upon themes of movement and kinetics. Our findings show how both touch connections and disconnections emerged though material forms of tactility (the controller, body positioning, tactile expectations) and through “felt proximities” and the tactile-kinaesthetic experience thus shaping the sense of presence. The analysis shows three key factors that influence connection and disconnection, and how connection is re-navigated or sought at moments of experienced disconnection: a sense of control or agency; identity; and bridging between...
Despite the importance of touch in human–human relations, research in affective tactile practices... more Despite the importance of touch in human–human relations, research in affective tactile practices is in its infancy, lacking in-depth understanding needed to inform the design of remote digital touch communication. This article reports two qualitative studies that explore tactile affective communication in specific social contexts, and the bi-directional creation, sending and interpretation of digital touch messages using a purpose-built research tool, the Tactile Emoticon. The system comprises a pair of remotely connected mitts, which enable users in different locations to communicate through tactile messages, by orchestrating duration and level of three haptic sensations: vibration, pressure and temperature. Qualitative analysis shows the nuanced ways in which 68 participants configured these elements to make meaning from touch messages they sent and received. It points to the affect and emotion of touch, its sensoriality and ambiguity, the significance of context, social norms an...
International Journal of Technology and Design Education
Digitally mediated touch is an emerging and significant area for technology and therefore for des... more Digitally mediated touch is an emerging and significant area for technology and therefore for design and design education. However, the design of digital touch is a challenge, especially for novice designers, compounded by low awareness and understanding of the sociality of touch and the complexity of communicating felt sensations. This paper presents a qualitative study of a two-part educational intervention on the design of digital touch using a design-based research methodology. Findings are presented and discussed on the design challenges faced by novice designers in relation to touch and digital touch (the focus of part one of the intervention) and the development and piloting of the Designing Digital Touch (DDT) toolkit (the outcome of part two). The paper discusses how the toolkit can be used to foster and support novice designers to respond to the future facing complexity of digital touch design.
This chapter contributes to debate on the body and method within qualitative research. It argues ... more This chapter contributes to debate on the body and method within qualitative research. It argues that social science engagement with the arts and the relatively unmapped terrain of the digital body has the potential to open up new spaces, questions and methods that can inform social science methodological innovation . I make this argument by exploring how the body in the context of digital technologies was understood and researched across the arts and social sciences, drawing on examples from the MIDAS project. The chapter shows how working across the arts and social sciences can be a catalyst for methodological innovation and explores how working across these boundaries can generate creative thematic synergies for researching the digital body.
This paper critically discusses the combination of creative and social research methods to genera... more This paper critically discusses the combination of creative and social research methods to generate a novel approach to explore the multimodal technoscape. This paper draws on an interdisciplinary exploratory case study on interactive skin—an emergent technology that augments and/or interacts with the skin. This paper shows how concepts from skin studies and the HCI literature can be used to draw on creative methods to think about and with the body. We describe the use of an online probe pack, a speculative research workshop and sensory research interviews using ‘proxy feelers’ to agitate the design space of interactive skin futures. We show how combining these methods provoked and expanded the scope of interactive skin from the technological to the sensory and the social. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of the research dialogues that this approach facilitated, make the case for creative methodological improvisation and exploration of emergent technologies and show how c...
Multimodal digital communication is the main theme of this conference meant to attract multidisci... more Multimodal digital communication is the main theme of this conference meant to attract multidisciplinary research on a wide range of issues from teaching and learning to analysing multimodal digital data appearing in multiple communication arenas.<br> <br> a-mode.eumade4ll.eu<br> <br> <br> Keynote speakers:<br> <br> Marina Bondi<br> Carey Jewitt<br> Rodney Jones<br> Gunther Kress and Jeff Bezemer<br> David Machin<br> Theo van Leeuwen <br> A-MODE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE<br> <br> Elisabetta Adami – University of Leeds, UK<br> Cristina Arizzi – University of Messina, Italy<br> Styliani Karatza – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,<br> Greece, and University of Leeds, UK<br> Ivana Marenzi – L3S Research Center, Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany<br> Ilaria Moschini – University of Florence, Italy<br> Sandra Petroni – University of Rome 'Tor Verg...
Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020
Touch is central to communication and social interaction. For both humans and robots touch is a m... more Touch is central to communication and social interaction. For both humans and robots touch is a mode through which they sense the world. A second wave of industrial robots is reshaping how touch operates within the labor process. Recent studies have turned their attention to the role of touch in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). While these studies have produced useful knowledge in relation to the affective capacities of robotic touch, methods remain restrictive. This paper contributes to expanding research methods for the study of robotic touch. It reports on the design of an ongoing ethnography that forms part of the InTouch project. The interdisciplinary project takes forward a socially orientated stance and is concerned with how technologies shape the semiotic and sensory dimensions of touch in the 'real world'. We contend that these dimensions are key factors in shaping how humans and robots interact, yet are currently overlooked in the HRI community. This multi-sited sens...
“Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased ... more “Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased automation to “extreme” touch practices and enhance productivity. This article presents an ethnography of touch in two industrial settings using fourth generation industrial robots (a Glass Factory and a Waste Management Center) to critically explore the social and sensorial implications of such technologies for workers. We attend to manifestations of dirt and danger as encountered through describing workers’ sensory experiences and identity formation. The contribution of the article is two-fold. The first is analytical through the development of three “filters” to grasp the complexity of the social and sensorial dynamics of touch in situ while tracing dispersed mediating effects of the introduction of novel technologies. The second is empirical, teasing out themes embedded in the sociosensorial dynamics of touch that intersect with gender, ethnicity, and class and relate to the technological mediation of touch.
Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user ... more Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user engagement and fostering feelings of presence and immersion, yet few qualitative studies have explored users' iVR touch experiences. This paper takes an embodied approach–bringing attention to the tactile-kinaesthetic body–to explore users' wholistic experiences of touch in iVR, moving beyond the cutaneous and tactile elements of “feeling” to elaborate upon themes of movement and kinetics. Our findings show how both touch connections and disconnections emerged though material forms of tactility (the controller, body positioning, tactile expectations) and through “felt proximities” and the tactile-kinaesthetic experience thus shaping the sense of presence. The analysis shows three key factors that influence connection and disconnection, and how connection is re-navigated or sought at moments of experienced disconnection: a sense of control or agency; identity; and bridging between...
Despite the importance of touch in human–human relations, research in affective tactile practices... more Despite the importance of touch in human–human relations, research in affective tactile practices is in its infancy, lacking in-depth understanding needed to inform the design of remote digital touch communication. This article reports two qualitative studies that explore tactile affective communication in specific social contexts, and the bi-directional creation, sending and interpretation of digital touch messages using a purpose-built research tool, the Tactile Emoticon. The system comprises a pair of remotely connected mitts, which enable users in different locations to communicate through tactile messages, by orchestrating duration and level of three haptic sensations: vibration, pressure and temperature. Qualitative analysis shows the nuanced ways in which 68 participants configured these elements to make meaning from touch messages they sent and received. It points to the affect and emotion of touch, its sensoriality and ambiguity, the significance of context, social norms an...
International Journal of Technology and Design Education
Digitally mediated touch is an emerging and significant area for technology and therefore for des... more Digitally mediated touch is an emerging and significant area for technology and therefore for design and design education. However, the design of digital touch is a challenge, especially for novice designers, compounded by low awareness and understanding of the sociality of touch and the complexity of communicating felt sensations. This paper presents a qualitative study of a two-part educational intervention on the design of digital touch using a design-based research methodology. Findings are presented and discussed on the design challenges faced by novice designers in relation to touch and digital touch (the focus of part one of the intervention) and the development and piloting of the Designing Digital Touch (DDT) toolkit (the outcome of part two). The paper discusses how the toolkit can be used to foster and support novice designers to respond to the future facing complexity of digital touch design.
This chapter contributes to debate on the body and method within qualitative research. It argues ... more This chapter contributes to debate on the body and method within qualitative research. It argues that social science engagement with the arts and the relatively unmapped terrain of the digital body has the potential to open up new spaces, questions and methods that can inform social science methodological innovation . I make this argument by exploring how the body in the context of digital technologies was understood and researched across the arts and social sciences, drawing on examples from the MIDAS project. The chapter shows how working across the arts and social sciences can be a catalyst for methodological innovation and explores how working across these boundaries can generate creative thematic synergies for researching the digital body.
This paper critically discusses the combination of creative and social research methods to genera... more This paper critically discusses the combination of creative and social research methods to generate a novel approach to explore the multimodal technoscape. This paper draws on an interdisciplinary exploratory case study on interactive skin—an emergent technology that augments and/or interacts with the skin. This paper shows how concepts from skin studies and the HCI literature can be used to draw on creative methods to think about and with the body. We describe the use of an online probe pack, a speculative research workshop and sensory research interviews using ‘proxy feelers’ to agitate the design space of interactive skin futures. We show how combining these methods provoked and expanded the scope of interactive skin from the technological to the sensory and the social. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of the research dialogues that this approach facilitated, make the case for creative methodological improvisation and exploration of emergent technologies and show how c...
Multimodal digital communication is the main theme of this conference meant to attract multidisci... more Multimodal digital communication is the main theme of this conference meant to attract multidisciplinary research on a wide range of issues from teaching and learning to analysing multimodal digital data appearing in multiple communication arenas.<br> <br> a-mode.eumade4ll.eu<br> <br> <br> Keynote speakers:<br> <br> Marina Bondi<br> Carey Jewitt<br> Rodney Jones<br> Gunther Kress and Jeff Bezemer<br> David Machin<br> Theo van Leeuwen <br> A-MODE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE<br> <br> Elisabetta Adami – University of Leeds, UK<br> Cristina Arizzi – University of Messina, Italy<br> Styliani Karatza – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,<br> Greece, and University of Leeds, UK<br> Ivana Marenzi – L3S Research Center, Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany<br> Ilaria Moschini – University of Florence, Italy<br> Sandra Petroni – University of Rome 'Tor Verg...
Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020
Touch is central to communication and social interaction. For both humans and robots touch is a m... more Touch is central to communication and social interaction. For both humans and robots touch is a mode through which they sense the world. A second wave of industrial robots is reshaping how touch operates within the labor process. Recent studies have turned their attention to the role of touch in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). While these studies have produced useful knowledge in relation to the affective capacities of robotic touch, methods remain restrictive. This paper contributes to expanding research methods for the study of robotic touch. It reports on the design of an ongoing ethnography that forms part of the InTouch project. The interdisciplinary project takes forward a socially orientated stance and is concerned with how technologies shape the semiotic and sensory dimensions of touch in the 'real world'. We contend that these dimensions are key factors in shaping how humans and robots interact, yet are currently overlooked in the HRI community. This multi-sited sens...
HCI and Industrial Design are both disciplines that are currently experiencing radical transforma... more HCI and Industrial Design are both disciplines that are currently experiencing radical transformation in terms of their identity and scope. HCI has moved beyond its origins in human factors and cognitive psychology towards the proactive and generative design of experience. Industrial Design has similarly evolved from a concern with physical form and function-giving solutions to the holistic design considerations of the user’s experience. Given the complexity and scale of this shifting design landscape, the response of design education must shift in methods and learning and teaching objectives. This paper provides the Design and Technology Education community with a research case study of innovation within HCI education, here situated within the broader context of Industrial Design education. We present a novel pedagogy for designing digital touch communications, developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration of HCI, Industrial Design, and Social Science academics, and advanced...
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