tei 2024 recap 🧶 | Courtney N. Reed

We’re back from the ACM 18th International Conference on Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) in Cork, IE! 🍀

there and back again 🚢

In an effort to be sustainable, the Sensorimotor Interaction Group (senSInt) trekked from Saarbrücken across the channel via train to meet me in London, and then we took three trains, a ferry, and one more train to reach Cork and back - that’s a total of 7 trains and 2 ferries!

senSInt on the move from London to Holyhead!

papers!

senSInt presented some excellent research investigating material influences in eTextile interaction and designing wearables for investigating networks in music performance

Base and Stitch: Evaluating eTextile Interfaces from a Material-Centric View 🧶

Superstar Vineetha Rallabandi presented her MSc work which investigated the role of base fabrics in guiding gesture and their material agency in interaction with eTextiles.

RaveNET: Connecting People and Exploring Liminal Space through Wearable Networks in Music Performance 🧢

Rachel Freire demoed our RaveNET nodes - Bones, a wearable breath-sensing corset for voice, Tendons, a multisensor glove for gestures in bass-playing, and Veins, an EMG-based cap for facial expression - and their design processes.

Liminal Space: A Performance with RaveNET 🎤

Along with Paul Strohmeier and Valentin Martinez-Missir, we performed Liminal Space to demonstrate RaveNET in action.

Some of our tech: Rach showing off the RaveNET nodes during the demo sesson (top, left), Vinny with eTextile swatches used in the Base and Stitch study, (top, right), and some of our RaveNET setup from Monday's performance, showing off the Bones anti-corset (bottom).

blarney!

We had an excellent time getting Blarneyed - kissing the stone at Blarney Castle is meant to give the gift of the gab! Hoping that we can use some of that for our future paper writing. 😉

Scenes of Blarney Castle and a wonderful day out, enjoying Ireland's lush green landscape!

references

2024

Base and Stitch: Evaluating eTextile Interfaces from a Material-Centric View

Vineetha Rallabandi, Alice C Haynes, Courtney N. Reed, and 1 more author

In Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, Feb 2024

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Fabrics are seen as the foundation for e-textile interfaces but contribute their own tactile properties to interaction. We examine the role of fabrics in gestural interaction from a novel, textile-focused view. We replicated an eTextile sensor and interface for rolling and pinching gestures on four different fabric swatches and invited 6 participants, including both designers and lay-users, to interact with them. Using a semi-structured interview, we examined their interaction with the materials and how they perceived movement and feedback from the textile sensor and a visual GUI. We analyzed participants’ responses using a joint, reflexive thematic analysis and propose two key considerations for research in e-textile design: 1) Both sensor and fabric contribute their own, inseparable materiality and 2) Wearable sensing must be evaluated with respect to culturally situated bodies and orientation. Expanding on material-oriented design research, we proffer that the evaluation of eTextiles must also be material-led and cannot be decontextualized and must be grounded within a soma-aware and situated context.
@inproceedings{Rallabandi_TEI24_BaseStitch, author = {Rallabandi, Vineetha and Haynes, Alice C and Reed, Courtney N. and Strohmeier, Paul}, title = {Base and Stitch: Evaluating eTextile Interfaces from a Material-Centric View}, year = {2024}, month = feb, isbn = {9798400704024}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3623509.3633363}, doi = {10.1145/3623509.3633363}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction}, articleno = {15}, numpages = {13}, keywords = {design evaluation, eTextiles, gestural interaction, materiality, wearable sensing}, location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Cork</city>, <country>Ireland</country>, </conf-loc>}, series = {TEI '24}, }
RaveNET: Connecting People and Exploring Liminal Space through Wearable Networks in Music Performance

Rachel Freire, Valentin Martinez-Missir, Courtney N. Reed, and 1 more author

In Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, Feb 2024

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RaveNET connects people to music, enabling musicians to modulate sound using signals produced by their own bodies or the bodies of others. We present three wearable prototype nodes in an inaugural RaveNET performance: Bones, an anti-corset, uses capacitive sensing to detect stretch as the singer breathes. Tendons, a half-glove, measures galvanic skin response, pulse, and movement of the bass player’s hands. Veins, a cap with electrodes for surface electromyography, captures the facial expressions of the drum machine operator. These signals are filtered, normalized, and amplified to control voltage levels to modulate sound. Together, musicians and nodes form RaveNET and engage with shared liminal experiences. In designing these wearables and evaluating them in performance, we reflect on our creative processes, spaces between our different bodies, our presence and control within the network, and how this made us adapt our movements in order to be noticed and heard.
@inproceedings{Freire_TEI24_RaveNETWiP, author = {Freire, Rachel and Martinez-Missir, Valentin and Reed, Courtney N. and Strohmeier, Paul}, title = {RaveNET: Connecting People and Exploring Liminal Space through Wearable Networks in Music Performance}, year = {2024}, isbn = {9798400704024}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3623509.3635270}, doi = {10.1145/3623509.3635270}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction}, articleno = {89}, numpages = {8}, keywords = {biosignals, body-based control, interaction networks, musical performance, wearable sensing}, location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Cork</city>, <country>Ireland</country>, </conf-loc>}, series = {TEI '24}, }
Liminal Space: A Performance with RaveNET

Rachel Freire, Valentin Martinez-Missir, Courtney N. Reed, and 1 more author

In Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, Feb 2024

Abs Bib PDF

We present our musical performance exploration of liminal spaces, which focuses on the interconnected physicality of bodies in music, using biosignals and gestural, movement-based interaction to shape live performances in novel ways. Physical movement is important in structuring performance, providing cues across musical ensembles, and non-verbally informing other musicians of intention. This is especially true for improvised work. Our performance involves the use of our musicking bodies to modulate audio signals. Three bespoke wearable nodes modulate the performance through control voltages (CV) and interface with specific technical aspects of our instruments and techniques: 1) an “anti-corset” that measures the expansion and resistance of Reed’s abdomen while singing, 2) an augmented glove that assists Strohmeier’s bass/guitar signal routing across his pedal board and modular setup, and 3) a cap-like device that captures Martinez-Missir’s subtle facial expressions as he manipulates his modular synthesizer and drum machine setup. Through these performances we explore the notion of control in musical improvised performance, the interconnectedness and communications between our ensemble as we learn to collaborate and interpret each others’ bodies in this novel interaction.
@inproceedings{Freire_TEI24_RaveNETPerf, author = {Freire, Rachel and Martinez-Missir, Valentin and Reed, Courtney N. and Strohmeier, Paul}, title = {Liminal Space: A Performance with RaveNET}, year = {2024}, isbn = {9798400704024}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3623509.3635337}, doi = {10.1145/3623509.3635337}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction}, articleno = {105}, numpages = {4}, keywords = {biosignals, body-based control, interaction networks, musical performance, wearable sensing}, location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Cork</city>, <country>Ireland</country>, </conf-loc>}, series = {TEI '24}, }