TOWARDS EMBODIED INTERACTION Andrew Morrison & Synne Skjulstad

Extending performance Technology enhanced performance Augmented spaces, actions & actors Audiences as participants Systems as responsive Activity Theory as a conceptual frame: the mediating artifact

From digital scenography towards embodied interaction Users’ increased control over management of a work User interaction as informal assemblage of steps Immediate circumstances of a work are made more visible System responds momentarily to actions & needs (Dourish 2001: 160)

Embodied interaction Possessing and acting through a physical manifestation in the world Embodiment phenomena occur in real time and space Our engagement in the world of mediating artifacts A phenomenological presence (Dourish 2001:) Our approach is from socio-cultural learning and developmental view

Embodied interaction Embodied interaction is the creation, manipulation, and sharing of meaning through engaged interaction with artifacts (Dourish 2001: 126)

Embodied interaction Duality between action & meaning Practice unites action & meaning in context Incorporating the physical & symbolic Embodiment as participative not physical reality (Dourish 2001)

Dance & digital media Media as actors (Sparacino et al.) Digital scenography (ars 2004)

Experimental creative design Learning designs & designs for learning Convergences between dance & digital media as performance Collaboration between Statens ballethøyskole & InterMedia 3 projects on creative educational practice & research 2 projects on designing embodied interaction & kinesis

Ballectro Socio-cultural approach to designing & learning the arts Situated technology: live & mediatised Contexts of creative co-construction Mediating and articulating research

Extended Collaborative inquiry Choreography and digital media Student performance and reflection

Extended + Adaptive redesign process Consultative, constitutive The body as enculturated screener

Embodied interaction Contextualising & explaining design practice via theory Building vocabulary & conceptual apparatus Relating different elements of embodied interaction Providing principles for the design of new artifacts Meaning via intentionality, ontology, intersubjectivity Acting on but also through technologies (Dourish 2001)

Embodied interaction Links between tangible & social computing How the everyday world works, how we experience the world Things are embedded in the world, realities as embedded in settings Artifacts can have multi-level roles & inscriptions Embodiment and phenomenology, experiential, being with acting New spatial and locative design challenges: activity, practice, community (Dourish 2001)

Tapet Tgarden (FOAM Sponge) Designing embodied movement Audience as actors: Experiments with MPEG, sensors, spatial irony (Sem 2004)

Karakuri Anticipatory interaction Simulated space for user engagement (Penny 2004) Trialling into extended use (Westvang 2004)

‘Where the action is…’ … the design and analysis of systems based on tangible interaction needs to encompass more than simply their ‘tangible’ characteristics, and to understand how they are caught up in larger systems of meaning that connect the physical to the symbolic rather than separating them. Dourish (2001: 207)

Through the mediating artifact Idunn Sem on Activity Theory and multimediated dance Dourish’s principles for embodied interaction (2001: 161ff): Computation as medium, Meaning on multiple levels Users create meaning from and on the designed Embodied technologies participate in world they represent Embodied interaction moves action into meaning

Related references (For InterMedia dance and technology projects, see: deLahunta, Scott. (2002): Virtual reality and performance'. Performing Arts Journal Dourish, P Where the Action Is. The MIT Press: Cambridge. Morrison, A ‘Dancing with postcolonial theory: digital scenography and the performance of local culture'. Norsk medietidsskrift. Vol. 10. No At: Morrison, A., Skjulstad, S. & Smørdal, O ‘Choreographing augmented space’. Future Ground Conference, Melbourne Australia, November (to appear in proceedings) Penny. S ‘Representation, enaction and the ethics of simulation’ In Wardrip-Fruin N. & Harrigan, P. (eds) First Person. The MIT Press: Cambridge Sha, X:W. & Kuzmanovic, M ‘From representation to performance: responsive public space.’ DIAC At: Skjulstad, S., Morrison, A. & Aaberge, A ‘Researching performance, performing research’. In Morison, A. (ed.) Researching ICTs in Context. InterMedia/UniPub: Olso Sparacino, F., Davenport, G. & Pentland, A. (2000): 'Media in performance: Interactive spaces for dance, theatre, circus, and museum exhibits'. Systems Journal. Vol. 39, Nos 3 & 4. At: Westvang, E ‘Karakuri: shadows working on the world’. VSMM Conference, Ogaki City Japan, November. pp