Exploring interactive expressions
of human movement.
MFA Graduate Thesis, California College of the Arts
Grew my knowledge about designing with data through UX research and rapid prototyping
Objective
Study and capture human movement and fitness, and develop technologies that encourage a sense of self and sensation.
Key Activities
Researched alternative modalities for health, movement and the body.
Researched attitudes, mindsets and motivations for health and fitness with women.
Experimented with movement tracking devices and manipulated the data by sketching in electronics.
Developed health and fitness archetypes.
Prototyped with electronics and video to explore potential solutions.
Wrote, illustrated, and presented graduate thesis.
Outcomes
Created an immersive sound experience that was controlled through rhythmic, flowing movement.
Developed new methods for exploring, studying, experimenting and designing for emerging technologies.
My graduate thesis was an exploration in human movement, sound, and poetic expressions of data. I was dissatisfied with analytically-biased expressions of the body in contemporary digital culture, and I wondered if there were ways to express and cultivate deeper meaning with the same technologies.
From my personal yoga practice, I developed a hypothesis that people chose to exercise not only for physical reasons, but for psychological and spiritual benefits. I decided to narrow my participants to women, as I saw a gap in the market for products tailored specifically for women’s needs. I ran a research study to understand other women’s attitudes, motivations, habits and tech use around fitness.
Through video prototyping, I explored how women could customize an agentic AI to motivate and coach them to maintain a regular fitness routine to help stave off depression. Tracking technology could collect movement data, and data visualization technology could create artistic graphics that could be replayed, projected, or productized.
I also inviting participants to play with objects in ways they thought would produce sounds. These helped me explore the mechanics of sound and movement.
I made a wearable device that could create sound while moving, essential in understanding data inputs and interaction parameters. Sketching with electronics helped me to uncover potential design and development issues, and my test subjects could more easily respond to the functionality and experience of a working prototype.
Instead of calculating movement towards a goal with the intent to modify behavior, the echosphere uses data input for creative expression with the intent to inspire wonder at the body’s natural abilities. The intention is to tune into the participant’s own unique sounds of movement, and to use these sounds to create a meditative space that motivates the participant to move and experience embodied awareness.