Haptic Possibilities: Interactive Re-embodiments

The following blog post was first published as part of TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association) PaR Gallery 2022 under the theme Re-embodiment(s). 

Haptic (adjective)

1 : relating to or based on the sense of touch
2: characterized by a predilection for the sense of touch 

 Questions and PaR Possibilities

How can we ‘translate’ touch into other forms of experience?

How can we ‘translate’ touch into other forms of embodied experience?

How can we ‘translate’ touch into other forms of interactive embodied experience?

How can we ‘translate’ touch into other forms of interactive embodied experience that re-iterate touch?  

Feminist philosopher Sara Ahmed notes that the ‘word “contingency” has the same root in Latin as the word “contact” (Latin: contigere: com-, tangere, to touch)’ (2005, 100).

Along with Jackie Stacey they identify inter-embodiment as ‘a way of thinking through the nearness of other others, but a nearness which involves distantiation and difference’ (2004, 7)

So, what can be the inter-embodied possibilities when there is no nearness and physical distantiation is not an aware choice but necessity?

How and to what extent could wearable haptics facilitate the emergence of these possibilities?

‘Wearable technologies touch people very intimately […] raising questions about not only what this means for our understanding of what it means to be human, but also creating the possibility that human senses such as touch may be transformed by the encounter’ (Cranny-Francis 2013, Introduction).

This PaR Sharing

This sharing follows my contribution to the TaPRA 2021 PaR online gallery. 

It draws from the same practice-research project From haptic deprivation to haptic possibilities.

January to March 2021

5 online 1:1 sessions 

14 research participants from Europe and North America

PaR Attention and Intention

This year's attention is on haptic ‘translations’¹ and inter-embodiments.

Can we somehow re-embody creative and caring haptic interactions using voices as ‘translations’ or extensions of touch?

The voices are 10 brief recorded reflections as emerged by six of the research participants in the end of the first session.   

The intention is to study possible dynamics between somaticities, technology and PaR dissemination as an extension of the research inquiry itself.

The artifact exhibited at the physical PaR Gallery is a wearable haptic prototype in the form of a glove. And it is significant to clarify that, even though for practical reasons the glove unavoidably brings attention to hands, the Haptic Possibilities project explicitly approaches the wholeness of the individual skin as sensory organ for tactile experience.

Materials used:

• a simple cotton glove
• conductive fabric/thread/adhesive fabric tape
• crocodile clip cables
• Playtron (a device that can turn any conductive material soundable)
• Koala sampler app

 You can click on the indicative demo video below

You can also explore a form of online iteration of the project through the following guidance:

• Place your cursor on the image below and right click on it
• A new window that takes you to a google slide page titled Haptic Possibilities will open on your device
• The 10 brief audio recordings have been placed at different parts of the sketched hand
• Move your cursor to any of them and press play
• What you hear is the verbal reflections of the six participants to the PaR project From Haptic Deprivation to Haptic Possibilities
• Feel free to create your own narrative. Each reflection holds its own meaning so you could leave each audio file to play until the end. Alternatively, you could pause and move to another one at any point checking what interactions may come up
• How these reflections may interact with your own present tactility?

Thank you for your time!

Notes

1. The first step in exploring a form of haptic-to-sound 'translation' was my collaboration with the computational artist and composer Christina Karpodini on her project Sonically Touchable (September 2020).

References

Ahmed, Sara, and Stacey, Jackie. 2004. "Introduction: dermographies". In Thinking Through the Skin, edited by Sara Ahmed and Jackie Stacey, 1-17. London: Routledge. doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203165706.

Ahmed, Sara. 2005. “The skin of the community: affect and boundary formation.” In Revolt, affect, collectivity: the unstable boundaries of Kristeva’s polis, edited by Tina Chanter and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, 95 – 111. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Cranny-Francis, Anne. 2013. "Introduction." in Technology and Touch: The Biopolitics of Emerging Technologies. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137268310.