Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case

Höök, Kristina; Benford, Steve; Tennent, Paul; Tsaknaki, Vasiliki; Alfaras, Miquel; Martinez Avila, Juan; Li, Christine; Marshall, Joseph; Daudén Roquet, Claudia; Sanches, Pedro; Ståhl, Anna; Umair, Muhammad; Windlin, Charles; Zhou, Feng

Abstract

We report on a somaesthetic design workshop and the subsequent analytical work aiming to demystify what is entailed in a non-dualistic design stance on embodied interaction and why a first-person engagement is crucial to its unfoldings. However, as we will uncover through a detailed account of our process, these first-person engagements are deeply entangled with second- and third-person perspectives, sometimes even overlapping. The analysis furthermore reveals some strategies for bridging the body-mind divide by attending to our inner universe and dissolving or traversing dichotomies between inside and outside; individual and social; body and technology. By detailing the creative process, we show how soma design becomes a process of designing with and through kinesthetic experience, in turn letting us confront several dualisms that run like fault lines through HCI’s engagement with embodied interaction.

Citation

Höök, K., Benford, S., Tennent, P., Tsaknaki, V., Alfaras, M., Martinez Avila, J., Li, C., Marshall, J., Daudén Roquet, C., Sanches, P., Ståhl, A., Umair, M., Windlin, C., & Zhou, F. (2021). Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 28(6), Article 40. https://doi.org/10.1145/3462448

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 1, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Nov 15, 2021
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 27, 2025
• Journal: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
• Print ISSN: 1073-0516
• Electronic ISSN: 1557-7325
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 6
• Article Number: 40
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3462448
• Keywords: somaesthetics, first person, Soma design
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/18996154
• Publisher URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3462448
• Related Public URLs: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-307034
• Additional Information: Received: 2020-10-01; Accepted: 2021-04-01; Published: 2021-11-15