Design Space Evolution
An evolving design space exploring human sensing through personal experimentation, supported by digital fabrication, data visualization, and audiovisual immersion.
An evolving design space exploring human sensing through personal experimentation, supported by digital fabrication, data visualization, and audiovisual immersion.
Since the Design Dialogues, my design space has undergone a significant transformation. Initially, it revolved around the intersection of various fields like audiovisual experiences, data visualization, and naturall emphaty. These areas framed my exploration, with human sensing as one of the key topics rather than the central focus. However, through feedback, reflection, and experimentation, I’ve shifted my approach, positioning human sensing as the core foundation of my research and interventions.
This pivot was inspired by the idea of using my own body as both the channel and tool for experimentation. Instead of designing interventions disconnected from the self, I aim to ground my exploration in first-person experiences, where I become the subject and object of the research. This allows me to dive deeper into understanding and hacking sensory perception, emotional reactions, and the physical responses of the human body. The decision aligns with feedback I received about creating a cohesive narrative and channeling diverse experiments into a unified framework.
To support this human-centered focus, I’ve consolidated three key pillars: digital fabrication, data visualization, and audiovisual immersive experiences, as tools to represent, analyze, and communicate the outcomes of my experiments. These pillars now act as the scaffolding for my design interventions, providing ways to explore, document, and amplify the sensory and emotional discoveries made through my body-centric approach.
As part of refining my design space, I conducted an exercise to examine my own body. This introspective process involved identifying various parts and characteristics that could serve as a foundation for microinterventions. The exercise generated a range of ideas, from exploring tactile sensations in the hands to experimenting with sensory deprivation or amplification in specific body regions. However, one topic stood out: sweat.
Sweat embodies both a primal, mammalian instinct and a response conditioned by human cognition. It is a physical reaction to external stimuli like heat and exertion, but it can also be triggered by mental and emotional states such as anxiety or fear. This intersection of the body’s subconscious, instinctual processes with the conscious, socially conditioned mind deeply resonated with my interest in human sensing. It opened up a unique line of inquiry: exploring the circumstances under which sweat emerges, its intensity, and how it manifests visually on the body.
From this discovery, two potential paths for interventions emerged. The first focuses on the broader idea of microinterventions, using different parts of the body to explore and uncover new sensations or ways of understanding oneself. The second, more specific, line hones in on this topic of sweat, quantifying and contextualizing it across various scenarios to investigate the balance between mammalian instincts and cognitive influences.
Throughout my research, sweat has evolved from a simple bodily function to a deeply complex and multi-faceted material, shaping my design space in unexpected ways. To structure this exploration, I developed a comprehensive design space built around four key frameworks: body awareness, sweat & society, physical response, and resource & material. This refined approach allowed me to map out scientific, cultural, and artistic references that have informed my process, situating my interventions within a larger discourse.
The final design space, showcased in Design Dialogues, visually represents this journey, capturing my evolving understanding of sweat, its potential as a design material, and the ways it connects the personal with the collective.
Sweat has become the central focus of my design space moving forward. After initial explorations into human sensing and bodily responses, I have chosen to dive deeper into sweat as both a physical and emotional signal. My future will center around understanding, visualizing, and interacting with sweat, using it as a medium to explore themes of self-awareness, social perception, and human-material interaction. This shift reflects my desire to use sweat not just as a bodily byproduct, but as a rich source of data and expression, pushing the boundaries of how we engage with our own physiology in design.
