Promoting the outcomes of the research and performances from Hacking the Body 2.0 Feel Me & Flutter Stutter

1. Hacking the Body 20 Ethics in Wearable Tech Etextiles Design & Data Collection in Performance
Camille Baker, PhD, University for the Creative Arts, School of Communication Design, Epsom, UK - CBaker10@uca.ac.uk
& Kate Sicchio, PhD, New York University, Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY USA, sicchio@nyu.edu
Keywords: wearable tech and e-textiles, performance, personal identity, ethics of data collection.
The fervour over the last 2-3 years around wearable technology that
collects user’s personal body data, under the pretense of medical or
fitness monitoring, highlights the timeliness of raising critical ques-
tions. The ethics of corporate data collection is only now being dis-
cussed publically, not only in the fine print for wearable sports and
health devices and corresponding mobile apps. More public aware-
ness and education about body data mining is critical, everyone
should have the right to access, own, explore, and use their own body
data.
Wearable companies should be required to provide users open ac-
cess and ownership of their own body data, as well as to grant rights
it, to enable them new ways to express their personal identity, as well
as to interpret or reinterpret this data however they choose – which is
presently not easy since the companies hold it as proprietary and only
sell it to insurance or medical companies (Forrester, June 2014).
Hacking the Body 2.0 (HTB2.0) is an on-going practical investigation by media artist/choreographer/re-
searcher Kate Sicchio and Camille Baker, which explores the issues of personal data collection and data as
identity. The focus of HTB 2.0 has been in interpreting inner processes in order to try define them as part of
one’s personal identity, which may (or may not influence) one’s movement and interaction with others.
Conceptually, Hacking the Body and HTB 2.0 started by examining rhetoric within the online computing
community on code, hacking, networks, the quantified self, and data as a new approach to examining inner
and outer states of the human body, measured by sensing devices within performance. By using modern
DIY wearable electronics and smart materials alongside hacked corporate fitness tech, we explore issues of
data identity and data ethics that are adding a new dimension to the evolution of technology in performance.
As researchers and artists, we question corporate and government agendas, and explore ways to access
body data locally (not ‘in the cloud’), to uniquely demonstrate who we are, our physiological changes, move-
ment, and interaction–like language. While examining these issues, we believe we can create new forms of
non-verbal interaction and communication, and empower ourselves through access to our own body data,
to express and perform our identity, outside the cloud.
The participatory performance activities and choreography developed by HTB 2.0 are informed by physi-
ological code and data collection as a means for performers to interact with their own body data, through
experiential, sensual, haptic engagement with the custom-made garments on their bodies and those of oth-
er performers as such, they become co-creators in the work. HTB 2.0 is not only focused on the making of
physiological sensing and actuating garments, but also on enabling performers to understand, express and
perform their ‘data-as-identity’ to reclaim control over it. It is also another technique to devise movement
and interaction, for performers co-create the performance. As with other forms of data, body-as-information
can be hacked and re-purposed, and re-physicalised, yet we argue this should only done by the owner of
that body - putting the data ownership literally back into the hands of the body from which it originates and
is collected from.
Practically, the HTB 2.0 performance instantiations have helped to
develop our electronics making skills using soft-circuits and smart
textiles. We have created non-data-collecting tech garments that
trigger expression and portray personal identity through move-
ment responses and haptic interaction. In the process, performers
express their own body code during the performance ‘hacks’. Re-
cent iterations have focussed on garment aesthetics, ethical use
of fabrics, housing for the electronics, and interaction design of
the sensing and actuation, not to mentions movement vocabulary
and gestural responses of the dancers triggering the actuation to
further develop into dance phrasing. This process allows dancers
to interact and respond to touch and haptics and their response to
actuation or output through vibration - developing new movement
‘dialogue’ between performers exploring their identities.
HTB 2.0 took to the stage in early spring 2016. We hacked into
off-the-shelf devices to enable the dancers to interact directly with
the embedded electronics in the garments, to trigger the dancers in
conversation, with an added feature allowing the choreographer (or
the audience) to intervene directly with the dancers’ and their move-
ment. Two pieces were developed: 1) Flutter/ Stutter – costumes
with haptic garments and motor actuation ‘tickles’; 2) feel me –
costumes with custom etextiles breath sensors and vibe actuation.
feel me, had hacked corporate devices, is a very structured piece
choreographically with a strict form of repetition, so as one dancer
exhales, the other dancer stops moving for a breath. The movement
is intentionally forced to emphasise the interaction.
References: 1) Dixon, Steve. 2004. Digital Performance A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2) Forrester, Ian. “Quantified Self and the ethics of personal data”, (IN BBC R&D blog, June 2014), http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2014/06/qs-ethics-ofdata (accessed November 26, 2014) 3) Grosz, Elizabeth. 2001. Architecture from the outside Essays on Virtual and Real Space.
Cambridge: MIT Press. 4) Howe, Daniel C. (2015) “Surveillance Countermeasures: Expressive Privacy via Obfuscation” IN (APRJA) A Peer-Reviewed Journal About Datafied Research 2015, volume 4.1, available online at http://www.aprja.net/?Page_id=2283 accessed January 22, 2016. 5) Kozel, Susan. 2008. Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology. Cambridge: MIT Press. 6) Manning, E. 2009. Relationscapes: Movement,
Art, Philosophy. Cambridge: MIT Press. 7) Nebeker, Camille. Edd, MS, “Examining the ethical dimensions of wearable and sensing technologies”, (IN mhealth Research, Health Informatics Information Technology (HIIT) Section Poster Session # 5, 4378.0, November 2014). Online at https://apha.confex.com/apha/142am/webprogram/Paper309689.html (accessed November 26, 2014) 8) Reese, Stephen. “Preparing for the digital health
revolution”, (IN Digital Health The Guardian, November 2014), Online at http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/olswang-partner-zone/2014/nov/07/preparing-for-the-digital-health-revolution (accessed November 26, 2014) 9) Ridgway, Renée (2015) “Personalisation as currency”, IN (APRJA) A Peer-Reviewed Journal About Datafied Research 2015, volume 4.1, available online at http://www.aprja.net/?P=2531. 9) Rose, Ian. “Every step
you take: Who owns our mobile health data?” ((IN BBC Business, November 12, 2014), Online at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29952998 (accessed November 26, 2014) 10) Ryan, Susan.E. 2014 Garments of Paradise. Cambridge: MIT Press. 11) Salter, Chris. 2010. Entangled Technology and the Transformation of Performance. Cambridge: MIT Press. 12) Schiphorst, T and Anderson, K. 2004. Between Bodies: using Experience
Modeling to Create Gestural Protocols for Physiological Data Transfer, International Conference For Human-Computer Interaction Systems, Vienna, Austria: Conference Proceedings.13) Schiphorst, T. 2007. The Varieties of User Experience: Bridging Embodied Methodologies from Somatics and Performance to Human Computer Interaction, PhD Dissertation, School of Computing, Plymouth, United Kingdom: CAiiA Star at the University of
Plymouth. 14) Zizek, Slavoj. 2006. How to Read Lacan London: Granta Books.
Figure 1. Image from February 2016 in London, UK - dancers interacting with the textile touch
sensors embedded in the pink pleated fabric.
Figure 2. Image from January 2016 in London, UK - new bespoke garment for flutter/stutter: made from recycled materials with textile touch
sensors embedded in the pink pleated fabric.
Figure 3. Image from February 2016 in London, UK - feel me: where the breath is felt by the
other dancers and interferes with the choreography