This document discusses the concept of embodiment as it relates to interactive systems and phenomenology. It argues that tangible and social computing have a common foundation in embodiment, which phenomenology explores as our experiences as embodied actors interacting in and through the world in an absorbed, unreflective manner. Since phenomenology takes embodiment as central, it seems a good place to turn for help in developing an understanding of embodiment's role in interactive systems. The document examines how embodiment can organize embodied interaction in terms of creating, manipulating, and communicating meaning and establishing practices.

1. Being
in the
World
Matt Jones
Nokia Insight & Foresight
Design Engaged 2004

2. Two halves to this talk, one more concrete,
one more playful than the other

3. A hard problem
“Ubicomp is hard, understanding
people, context, and the world is hard,
getting computers to handle everyday
situations is hard, and expectations are
set way too high.
I used to say ubicomp was a ten-year
problem; now I'm starting to think that
it's really a hundred-year problem.”
- Gene Becker, fredshouse.net

4. Next-gen mobile
Bigger screens, Same old
more whizzy features messy world.
The
4/5/04 101
Disappearing
Organisation

5. A modest start: “being in the world”

6. Where the action is
“tangible and social computing -- have been conducted largely as independent research
programs. However, I believe that they have a common foundation, and that that foundation is
the notion of quot;embodiment.quot; By embodiment, I don't mean simply physical reality, but rather,
the way that physical and social phenomena unfold in real time and real space as a part of
the world in which we are situated, right alongside and around us.
This ignores 99% of our daily lives,
The reason that the idea of embodiment is an important one is that it isn't new. In fact,
quot;embodimentquot; is at the centre of phenomenology, an important strain of philosophical
the mundane everyday existence in
thought beginning at the end of the nineteenth century. Phenomenology rejects the
which we simply go our about
Cartesian separation between mind and body on which most traditional philosophical
approaches are based. The idea of disembodied rationality, phenomenologists argue, arises
business. In place of the Cartesian
because we think about cognition only in those immediately apparent problem cases where
some problem appears in the world that needs to be solved.
This ignores 99% of our phenomenology explores our simply go
model, daily lives, the mundane everyday existence in which we
experiences as embodied actors interacting in the world, actors in it and acting
experiences as embodied participating
our about business. In place of the Cartesian model, phenomenology explores our
interacting in the world, participating
through it, in the absorbed and unreflective manner of normal experience.
seems likeingoodand to turn for help in developing an in the
a it place acting through it, understanding of the role that
Since the phenomenological tradition has taken the idea of embodiment as a central one, it
absorbed and unreflective manner of
embodiment can play in interactive systems. Drawing from the writings of a number of
phenomenologists, and especially from Heidegger, Schutz and Wittgenstein, Where the
normal experience.
Action Is develops an understanding of embodied interaction organised in terms of the
creation, manipulation and communication of meaning, and the establishment and
maintenance of practice. Rather than embedding fixed notions of meaning within
technologies, embodied interaction is based on the understanding that users create and
communicate meaning through their interaction with the system (and with each other,
through the system).”

7. Where the action is
http://personal.dranalli.com/ddr.jpg

8. More ‘embodied’ interaction
The
4/5/04 102
Disappearing
Organisation

9. Converts…
This holiday, my two sisters - who to my knowledge had never
played a console game before - got addicted to EyeToy…
The
4/5/04 103
Disappearing
Organisation

10. New ways of using mobile phones
with touch-based technology
Easy and concrete access to services,
content and repeat functions by
touching
Transfer of digital items between
devices as a simple gesture of giving
In the future, also fast and convenient
local payment and ticketing
This last case has got most of the publicity, but as an
interaction designer I find the first two more powerful

11. 100
10
1
Touch can reduce user interactions by 2x orders of magnitude

12. Launched
Active-Cover for Nokia 3220 with NFC

13. Car
Navigation
System Audio
HDD/DVD
Recorder
PDA
NFC
Technology
Television
Video Camera
Digital Still
Mobile Phone Camera
PC
19
would you like to know more?
http://www.nfcforum.org/

14. Near Field Communication (NFC)
is a touch-based RFID technology
NFC works in the globally available 13.56 MHz band
The effective working distance is up to a few centimeters
Based on ISO 18092 including ISO14443A MiFare and FeliCa
standards, ie compatible with the most broadly established smart card
infrastructure covering >80% of the market
Tags in smart objects are powered by the radio signal of the reader, and do not
require any battery or other source of power
The tags contain some memory that can store URLs, SMS and similar
information
Costs currently a few ten EUR cents and decreasing rapidly
Devices do not contain tags, but can communicate using the same interface
Devices can not only read tags, but also write to enabled tags

15. 1
=
r 3
~ 10 - 30 mm
The NFC field maps closely to the object
which is ideal for interaction design using touch

16. “Don’t be idiotic,
study semiotics”

17. A digital spirit world
~ 10 - 30 mm
Things acquire a digital life

18. Semiotic Spirit World
Things could acquire many digital meanings
Origin forest
Permitted moves
for the mahogany
for this piece
I was made from
Play that scene
from “The Thomas
Crown Affair”

19. Info Fetish objects
• Auspicious Computing
• Genevieve Bell
• Minority Report
• Unique wooden balls

20. Info Fetish objects?
image: http://keiko0616jp.hp.infoseek.co.jp/anime/onepi/strappu02.jpg

21. Ecological impact
• Ecological impacts, +ve & +ve
• -ve
• phones are precious, tags are not
• throwaway, data detritus, spime spume
• +ve
• programmatic product life-cycle
• audit trails for trash
• automation of recycling

22. Corporate
Technoptimism?
“Though it might take five to ten years to build and scale up such a
system, it could revolutionize the life-cycle management of
products.”
“The development of inexpensive radio frequency tags to identify
the products to which they are attached may enable us to more
accurately track their movement through commerce and into final
recycling, reuse, or disposal systems, automating producer
responsibility programs.”
“According to John Seeley Brown and David Rejeski,
manufacturing systems could be designed to keep track of
products, manage inventories better, alert operators when
products need repair or replacement, and enable manufacturers to
ensure that they make their way back to the appropriate facility for
remanufacturing or recycling.”
Nope...
this is World Wildlife Fund report “Sustainability at the speed of light”

23. SUSTAINABILITY AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT DENNIS PAMLIN
to the
We have
to cont-
the role
respec-
the gap
akers in
lief that
ty, need
© 1986, WWF World Wide Fund For Nature (Formerly World Wildlife Fund) ® WWF Registered Trademark owner / Tryckeri AB Knappen, Karlstad, Sweden
other if
for the
WWF Sweden
Ulriksdals slott
170 81 Solna
Sweden
Tel: +46 8 626 74 00
Fax: +46 8 85 13 29
http://www.panda.org/news_facts/publications/general/ict/index.cfm
www.wwf.se
DAVID REJESKI JOSEPH ROMM JAMES N LEVITT NEVIN COHEN PETER ARNFALK THOMAS LANGROCK HERMAN OTT
www.panda.org
THOMAS DWORAK RAUL ZAMBRANO MONA AFIFI ANDERS WIJKMAN KALLE LASN EDITED BY DENNIS PAMLIN

24. Long now
layers
Sometimes,
technology
can short
circuit these
layers (?)
Image: Stewart Brand at IA Summit,
by Mike Lee, http://curiouslee.typepad.com

25. Could
Touch-tech
be one?
Blimey!
Apologies to Stewart Brand

26. You know what?
I love this stuff!
Thanks!