Dr. Diego Maranan, Dean of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) Faculty of Information and Communication Studies (FICS), contributes a snippet about his works on Tangible, Embodied and Embedded Interaction (TEI) in the book, “Weaving Fire Into Form: Aspirations for Tangible and Embodied Interaction,” published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in July 2022.
The book explores “conceptual, philosophical, cognitive, design, and technical aspects of interaction”, and discusses the history and aspirations for the future of TEI.
Under the chapter “Aesthetics of TEI”, the authors listed classifications of designs and interactions that focus on mediating relations with a different scope regarding possibilities, invitation, and appropriation: Sensing and extending the body; Accessing the world; Specific forms of interaction with the world; Empowering and expressing ourselves in our socio-cultural context; Social interaction; and socio-cultural debate and speculation.
“One of the basic possibilities of embodied interaction is connecting us with our own body, enabling us to sense our body and increase awareness.” In Category 1: Sensing and extending the body, Dr. Maranan wrote his vignette titled, “How the floor can facilitate self-sensing and inspire somaesthetic technology design”. Focusing on how the technology could help in sensing and making sense of the physical self, he described Haplós as an example of a somaesthetic technology. Haplós is a wearable device created by Dr. Maranan and his co-authors which aims to facilitate “self-reporting of heightened body awareness.” They presented this device at TEI 2020.
The book aimed to not only provide history and evolution of the tangible world, but also to share the impact of TEI in the way humanity interacts in the digital world–the way people access information, express one’s self, collaborate with others, and create. The authors hoped that the future of TEI would help with the societal issues and sustainability challenges for it would “(re)shape our children and grandchildren’s futures.”
Quoting McCullough in “Abstracting Craft 1996”:
“Hands act as conduits through which we extend our will to the world. They serve also as conduits in the other direction: hands bring us knowledge of the world. Hands feel. They probe.”
Written by Maine Basan
Edited by Myra C. Almodiel and Anna Cañas-Llamas
Contributed by the UPOU Faculty of Information and Communication Studies
#UPOpenUniversity
