Embodied Interaction (1) : HyperHaptics

This winter semester, the Cluster Professorship for ›Embodied Interaction‹ was hosting the practice project ›HyperHaptics‹ at the weißensee school of art and design berlin. Together with MoA researchers, Bachelor and Master students of the Department of Product Design are exploring the potential of interlocking virtual and physical tactility. ›HyperHaptics‹ is thus a direct continuation of the research work of the project Cutting. The overall aim of »Cutting« is to investigate the haptic dimension of the cut. How can new haptic experiences be encoded? How can the ›Sensing Knife‹ or ›Virtual Dissection‹ be experienced in a prototypical setup and what is needed for this? Therefore the functional prototypes and concepts of the students are presented and discussed in the »Cutting« project group. Through critical feedback new perspectives and use cases should open up.

The objective

The introduction of the concept of ›the ultimate display‹ by Ivan Sutherland is considered the birth of Virtual Reality, or VR for short. Relevant systems primarily address only two of the human senses - our sight and hearing. In comparison, our skin and with it our sense of touch is a little-explored sensory interface for VR and AR (Augmented Realities) technologies. However, the project does not understand ›virtual realities‹ as a collective term for specific technologies alone, but rather as the digital enrichment of physical spaces and objects with multi-sensory information levels. The aim of the project is to use digital tools to create synaesthetic stimuli to create ›hyper-realistic‹ experiences. In this context the design focus is on prototyping and curating sensory impressions. How can haptics and materiality be transported into the virtual? And how to transfered back again? How can senses be meaningfully linked to complement and expand physical reality?

The process

With research institutions such as the MoA, design as an epistemological process is becoming increasingly important, the same applies to design education. In order to further promote this fairly new self-conception, ›HyperHaptics‹ differs from the ›typical‹ course of a product design project, which usually ends with a single design. By means of experiments organised in three sprints, students explore the limits of multi-sensory patterns of experience and learn to manipulate them. Each sprint focuses on a specific thematic and technological aspect. An essential part of the process is the realisation of physical objects, which are enriched with digital layers according to the respective focus. The goal of the sprints is the collaborative development of a sensorium, which, through the variance of prototypes and approaches, discusses haptic experiences at the interface of physical and digital reality in many ways.

The team

The course was realised under the patronage of Prof. Carola Zwick and Prof. Thomas Ness by Judith Glaser, lecturer for interaction designer (Studio NAND), Felix Rasehorn Pre-Doctoral Researcher (MoA), Felix Groll Head of the eLAB (weissensee school of art and design berlin), and supported by the experts Dr. Olivier Bau, Paula van Brummelen (weissensee school of art and design berlin) and Christoph Holtmann (HTW).