Bodies, embodiment and ubiquitous computing

• Published in: Digital creativity (Exeter) Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 63 - 69
• Main Authors: Schick, Lea, Malmborg, Lone
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 01.03.2010
• Subjects: body; collectivity; context-awareness; Embodiment; interaction design; interactive textiles; sensor-network systems; subject; ubiquitous computing
• ISSN: 1462-6268; 1744-3806
• DOI: 10.1080/14626261003654533

This paper advocates the future of the body as a distributed and shared embodiment; an unfolded body that doesn't end at one's skin, but emerges as intercorporeality between bodies and the technological environment. Looking at new tendencies within interaction design and ubiquitous computing to see how these are to an increasing extent focusing on sociality, context-awareness, relations, affects, connectedness and collectivity, we will examine how these new technological movements can change our perception of embodiment towards a distributed and shared one. By examining interactive textiles as part of a future rising landscape of multi-sensory networks, we will exemplify how the new technologies can shutter dichotomies and challenge traditional notions of embodiment and the subject. Finally, we show how this 'new embodiment' manifests Deleuze's philosophy of the body as something unstable and changing, and how his refolding of the body can be useful for future interaction designers to understand the context in which they work and the challenges they will meet.