Haptic Augmentation in a Social Context

Haptic Dominance Haptic Augmentation in a social context Charlotte Bywaters

Contents Introduction Chapter 1 - Phase 1 [Spatial Awareness] Chapter 2 - Phase 2 [Haptic Augmentation] Chapter 3 - Phase 3 [Digitalised Senses] Chapter 4 - Phase 4 [The Final Installation] Chapter 5 - Conclusion

[Introduction] Debates in contemporary practise is a module undertaken in our final year of study in BA Interior Architecture and Design. The research and implementation of practical based work within our field of study, was in collaboration with 4 colleagues from the institution. The work has been informed from a collection of advanced research methods, critical analysis, and exhaustive documentation of practical work in response to theories related to the industry. Debates in contemporary practise was undertaken in three Phases. Phase one brought in warped space ideology which explores the spaces of Hyper-reality. Phase two delves into the empire of the senses such as synaesthesia, mental plasticity and spatial perception. And finally Phase three understands the implementation of technology in practise. This book is my individual documentation of the process to our collective installation.

Chapter 1 – Phase 1 [Spatial Awareness] The first Phase in the process introduced myself and the team to spaces in Hyper-reality which included heterotopias, simulacrums and virtualities. One key text we looked at was, Anthony Vidler’s (2002) ‘Warped Space’. The piece of writing mentions two forms of “spatial warping”, the first type is a psychological warping of space and the second is an artistic intervention in the spatial boundaries. Warped space highlights the morphing of anxiety within society as a result of a digitalised world. The movement from analogue to digital has not just impacted our external environment but also the way in which we perceive our surroundings.

experiments were claustrophobia and agoraphobia. Claustrophobia was first documented in 1879 as “a sensation of being in a passage getting narrower and narrower to the point of being able to go neither forward nor back, an intolerable terror” (Ball, 1879) Agoraphobia is noted to be a condition where people are “always experiencing a certain anxiety or discomfort, whenever they have to walk across a vast empty place.” Stated Camillo Sitte a Viennese architect (1889, p.45). He saw it as the collective trend of the modern age and expanding architectural forms.

From our understanding of those neuroses we decided to explore specific case studies around sensory The introductory material we were deprivation and how that can impinge given for the first topic delivered to our on a human’s mental well-being. This team enabled us to begin combining practise of deprivation used such our research around the area of spatial architectural confines in which to qualities and individual perceptions of employ these techniques. Historically those spaces. From this we decided sensory deprivation had been used as a to further analyse Anthony Vidler’s means of torture, one specific example ‘Warped Space’. Vidler depicts that is Guantanamo Prison. The deprivation these psychological spaces now was used to instil a sense of fear, hold possibilities of neuroses and disorientation and cause dependency on phobias. “Metropolis rapidly became their captor. During the 1950’s a study the privileged territory of a host of diseases attributed directly to its spatial was conducted to induce a state akin to psychosis by placing individuals in conditions” (2002, p.25). The two spatially defined phobias which the team air conditioned cubicles with earmuffs, gloves and goggles in order to study their sought to investigate in our Phase one

response in human behaviour and mind control. Dr Hebb of McGill University whom conducted these experiments, concluded that the detainee became more susceptible to the interrogator as a result of the sensory deprivation study.

Hebb recounted in the American Psychologist journal that the results documented were “very unsettling to us… It is one thing to hear that the Chinese are brainwashing their prisoners on the other side of the world; it is another to find, in your own laboratory, that merely taking away the usual sights, sounds, and bodily contacts from a healthy university student for a few days can shake him, right down to the base.”

(Bond, 2014)

Experimentation 1

Experimentation 2a

Initially the team sought to explore current theories and as a team, we proposed to experiment in a restricted environment.

The spatial dimensions of the environment would be kept as a control as we wanted to see whether or not if changing the surrounding environment to the restricted pod would alter the person’s perception of the space whilst inside of it. Spatial qualities that would change would be elements like scenery, sounds and smells. In order to gain quantitative data to analyse our findings we would record resting heart rate and blood pressure along with during and after the experience.

From further analysis of the two spatial phobias, agoraphobia and claustrophobia, the team decided to debate the qualities of the space which was actually required to initiate such feelings towards the space or if any architectural qualities were required at all. Through further discussion we felt that the spatial boundaries that can instigate this fear of closed spaces may not have to be as obvious as a wall. Therefore we decided not to proceed with the previous experiment.

Can you feel claustrophobia even though the architectural space is wide and open?

The idea of a physical boundary which you can see that may influence your perception of a space was to be debated and from that we chose a restrictive material instead that was to create a physical boundary which the participant could not necessarily see but feel. Our participants were asked to remove excess

clothing to the bare minimum so we could wrap up their body, tying in their limbs to their sides. They were wrapped with cling film. Its high tensile strength, minimal thickness and transparency qualities made it an appropriate material to use. The wrapping started at the elbows down to the knees so that they were partially mobile. Participants were given tasks to encourage them to explore their spatial surroundings. From this we hoped to understand if whether or not the tight restricting properties of the cling

film heightened the anxiety even though they could see and perceive the room not to be a enclosing and suffocating space. From this we took quantitative measurements of heart rate and blood pressure before during and after.

Experiment 2b After having completed experiment 2a we decided to experiment not just individuals but with multiple participants and see how their reaction could influence the others. After all, the term agoraphobia came about from the social transition in the metropolis as well as the architectural characteristics.

“The “discovery” of these new phobias seems to have been a part of a wider process of remapping the space of the city according to its changing social and political characteristics” (page 26). For the experiment two participants were attached back to back by being wrapped up again with cling film in a similar fashion. This was again carried out within a room wider than any space which would increase the chance of spatial anxiety.Emotion is defined by Joseph Le Doux (2002) as “The process by which the brain determines or computes the

the attitudes of the participants. We found that as the users became more aware of the restriction and how their movement was being dictated against their will started to impinge on the more submissive one of the pair. And we saw a significant change in them, their Whilst orientating the space they were in, the pair were not just in contact with movements became more erratic, they were less compliant with the dominant. the restrictive cling film, but also the The change in how it affected them other person’s body. A body which was radiating heat as well as working within internally was also measured again with the confines of the tubular like boundary a heart rate and blood pressure monitor.

Qualitative documentation also took they were enclosed in. In order to fully place with video recording to understand understand their spatial parameters, movement patterns and body language the pair had to orchestrate themselves for further analysis. The body language is as a functioning whole. However their co playing turned into a fight for power, a reflection of the participant’s emotion. where on participant became more dominant than the other. This gave an indication to their behavioural patterns and how the duration of time spent in the enclosure may start to impact on value of a stimulus”. Emotions are chemical and neurological activities essential to uphold this balance in our bodies, ultimately for survival. Le Doux’s theory has evolutionary undertones.

Chapter 2 – Phase 2 [Haptic Augmentation] The second Phase brought in our sensual perception of space. Perception via the senses is an active process which makes a connection with the external world (Tuan,1974). The architectural event which was theorised by Brian Massumi, states that our awareness of the space which we occupy should not be dominated solely by the architectural qualities themselves but in addition to the events which occur within them. “The static notions of form and function long favoured by the architectural discourse need to be replaced by attention to the actions that occur inside and around buildings”. Massumi depicts space to be a stage, a host for performance, a backdrop as it were.

There is debate as to which sense informs your perception of the environment more accurately and thoroughly. There are some theorists that categorise the senses into two qualities of their impression they have on our own perception of the external environment. These are intimate and distant which were categorised and defined through their relationship of distance to the body, by Tuan and Hall in ‘Sensuous Geographies: body, sense and place’.

However it was the interplay between two particular intimate senses that

initiated our informed research. The two senses were hapticity and sight, which we wanted to determine which one informed our spatial perception more efficiently. Juhani Pallasmaa (1994) has noted the debate between the two “the architecture of the eye detaches and controls, whereas haptic architecture engages and unites.” The holistic augmentation of our haptic sense has been supported by many other theorists, including George Berkley who states sight without touch could not “have any idea of distance, outness or profundity, nor consequently of space or body.” (19481957, p.12).

Conversely the bias ranking of vision in ocularcentrism primarily influences the architectural discourse in Western culture. The primacy of vision was pioneered by two influential philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. Plato distinctly grouped the sense of sight with creation of human intelligence and soul and the remaining senses with man’s material being. They concluded sight was the most effective source of information.

The influence ocularcentrism has had on architectural discourse has been noted in Le Corbusier’s writing and also the Modernist movement he was a part of; “Architecture is a plastic thing. I mean by plastic what is seen and measured

by the eyes.” (Le Corbusier,1959 cited in Pallasmaa, 2005 p.27).

But what happens if one sense is lost and how will the brain adapt to the loss of that particular sensory information?

Experiment 3 and attempt to describe and possibly pin down the contents of the boxes.

For this experiment we were collecting both qualitative and quantitative data, We conducted an experiment using 10 as we found after the trial we could gain boxes lined up on a countertop, each with a separate hand hole carved into the some understanding to their perception through visual aids such as their body side and the contents unknown to the language and facial expression. We found participants. The contents ranged from on the majority there was a similarity haptically pleasurable items to rather between people’s reactions to the boxes nauseating variations. The volunteers that contained the more extreme were asked to approach each box, feel Is the sense of sight the primary sense organ to perceive fear?

samples. However their distinction of the material varied massively. This directly links back to how perception is entirely individual and based upon previous perceptions, Just as Henri Bergson noted in his book ‘Matter and Memory’ (2010) “Every perception is already memory” and “we perceive practically only the past”.

For one participant in particular their reaction was triggered by my own behaviour, an accident of course which lead me onto the discovery of interactionism. Whilst guiding their hand into the box I almost dropped the phone used for recording. My shock and abrupt movements were instantly interpreted by the participant and immediately affected their complete perception of what could be lurking in the box. Blumer (1969, p.80) states that, “To interpret the actions of another is to point out to oneself that the action has this or that meaning or character.” Interaction in humans is determined by the use of symbols this is done by interpretation of the meaning of each other’s actions. George Herbert Mead’s theory ‘Symbolic Interactionism’ is based off an internal mechanism we all have, the self. Which allows us to act towards ourselves as we would do towards others. Mechanism determines

how an individual will cope through their actions guided by indicators they perceived in their surroundings. Blumer summarises the theory as “Human beings interpret or “define” each other’s actions instead of merely reacting to each other’s actions” (1969, p.79) Following on from our discussion and feedback from the previous experiment, we looked into previous works that have found a way of reducing the sight of our participants without using a blindfold which is physically touching them and possibly slightly inducing a level of anxiety within the participant. In turn creating inaccurate results and making the experiment bias. Anthony Gormley’s Blind Light (2007) is a case study which utilises an effective way of minimising the users visual capacity without physically touching them. In this luminous glass box he has created in this installation, you

enter into an environment similar to a mountain-top filled with a dense cloud or mist. The visibility internally has been reduced to less than two feet, so while the body narrates the piece they are encouraged to explore their surroundings to use their sense of touch. Anthony Gormley’s installations question the security we are meant to get from the architectural forms which we inhabit and use. And that by removing our sense of sight the familiair spaces we utilise and now unfamiliar. Gormley has made it important for users of Blind Light to find the outside whilst you are inside, and to reconnect with your sense of touch as that what will enable you to understand and eventually master the space you are enclosed in.

Experiment 4 Staged Tactility Removal After further reading of an influential theorist to our research, Paul Rodaway’s book ‘Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place’ mentions another relative theorist, Hull, who crucially states that, “As long as the blind person has one hand free, he can see with it… the free hand he uses to guide himself; he feels blind when he has no free hand; he feels blindfolded when both hands are occupied.” (1990, p.82).

Will only lack of vision induce anxiousness?

Would anxiety be gradually heightened up to complete lack of tactile exploration?

Or would anxiety only be induced from the initial removal in the first stage and not alter with further removal?

The Stages of Sensory Removal are detailed as follows: - Stage one - gloves and boots From this we then decided to test the Stage two – helmet reduction in the haptic sense to complete - - Stage three - wrapped from removal during spatial exploration and

elbows to knees its effect on our perception of space.

We would do this to see how levels of anxiety measured both qualitatively and Bubblewrap was the chosen material quantitatively would vary at each stage. to create a lack of tactile sensitivity, by effectively muffling any stimuli that would And to see if a correlation would arise from the amount of freedom they had to lead to perception of the space. We haptically explore and their anxiousness. started by fashioning boots and gloves This would take place in a dark room with out of the material, as many receptors a minimal amount of light for reference for haptic stimuli are concentrated in the hands, predominantly the finger when orienting the space. So after having measured the impact that lack of tips. And boots were designed as spatial sight has on spatial perception, we could constraints can be determined from the flooring and boundaries that rise then gauge the significance of change from the ground. Secondly we created a if at all any with the gradual removal of helmet, this would dampen any sounds, tactility. restrict the peripheral sight and also reduce orientation/ balance. And finally we constructed a tubular like form

around them to restrict all movement to a minimum, allowing a shuffle.

The previous box experiment we conducted highlighted particular features to haptic exploration which we chose to investigate further. This then influenced the tactility removal experiment which involved either a single participant or pair to gauge their reactions to surroundings with gradual removal of the sense of touch. Their behaviour lead me to another theory for human behaviour called the Health belief model. The theory depicts that in most cases human

action is an awareness of possible threats fear of the unknown had resulted in an to their well-being and how they perceive adopted behaviour. the effectiveness of their particular actions they have chosen to adopt. We could see in this experiment that they had adapted their actions from what they had established from external cues in the environment. Participants first entered the room individually, their movements were timid and cautious, but when in pairs they were more confident and actively exploring the environment, their

In addition to the health belief model, the social learning theory could also be applied to the same experiment in order to understand the participant’s behaviour. This theory was headlined by Bandura, who stated that most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling; from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed and later on will serve as a guide for action. Nisbet and Gick (2008, p.296) have established

the model to be “in order for behaviour to change, people must feel personally vulnerable to a health threat, view the possible consequences as severe, and see that taking action is likely to either prevent or reduce the risk�

Similarly it is a process of taking in information from the external influences. We saw that due to restricted movements pairs were often falling over or colliding during exploration of the

environment. So in order to regain their original position they had to awkwardly move and work within the minimal space they had been provided to get back up. This process was faster when individuals observed the other in order to understand correct and failed attempts to get up.

A case study which influenced our experiment massively was the Finger Gloves by Rebecca Horn in 1972. She also investigated the power of our haptic perception and sensory awareness with the use of these gloves she constructed.

what the user now feels is through a The gloves perform by changing your relationship with your surroundings so material barrier, somewhat muting the the objects that were once distant are stimuli. now within reach. Maximising the users contact with the space as well as limiting it as the fingers have been extended and

Chapter 3 - Phase 3 [Digitalised Senses] From the information delivered to us Experiment 5 in our final stage of the module. The Our proposed experiment was carried team and I started to explore the range of technical components that could beout in two stages to determine the employed in our final installation. Wereaction to the complete opposites and whether or not one would trigger were then introduced to the driving force a greater reaction than the other. The for the product, an Arduino Uno board. first of the two had the participant in a This board is a small form of a computer lift on their own, the doors with numerous capabilities dependingstationary on the input and output devices attachedwere to closed for an unspecified amount of time.

During the course of time they it, along with the appropriate coding.

were in there for, they were wearing a Virtual Reality headset. The scene they saw before them did not correspond to the physical space they were now exploring haptically. The environment they were perceiving visually was Kings Cross station,London. An architectural landmark, known for its vast unobstructed space. The participants heart rate and blood pressure were measured before and after the experience.

The second variation to the experiment had the participant guided to another space for exploration, during the travel time, the participant was wearing the virtual reality head set. Again, the space for the experiment was unknown to the participant, however the scale was reversed. The space was now large and unobstructed. Blood rate and heart pressure were taken respectively with the same method, before, during and after .Participant was left unguided in the silent space with only the VR headset to provide any form of visual perception to the environment.

Correspondingly, the virtual stimuli opposed the reality. Participants saw and therefore did not correspond to their haptic stimuli and perception. Foot fall, sound reverberations, temperature and materiality could all be indicators which would contribute to the perceptual confusion.

neurones would not affect our overall perception of the space.

The results gained from the two variations showed a rise on average across all participants’ heart rate and blood pressure in the experiment from before and after the experience. From the analysis of the results the team and I could conclude that their haptic This experiment was conducted to determine if the ocularcentristic theorists perception did influence their anxiety as the visual aid was kept constant. were correct in believing all senses Therefore the physical environment they including the haptic were secondary come into contact with is just as much, if to the sense of sight. Therefore any confusion between the information not more influential to their perception. relayed by those “secondary” sensory

Chapter 4 - Phase 4 [The Final Installation] Haptic Dominance All experiments conducted in response to the theories we were delivered and through continued theoretical and practical research have culminated in our final installation. I am particularly interested to see how the results will work in relation to the social context.

From the various results we gathered, when participants are in different social surroundings, we can see that behaviours significantly change. And therefore can alter the persons own perception of their experience, when compared to an individual in isolation and removed from all social context.

This is supported from research conducted by Herbert Mead, set out in his book ‘Mind, Self and Society’ (1933), “One is continually affecting society by his own attitude because he does bring up the attitude of the group towards himself, responds to it, and through that response changes the attitude of the group.”. Mead concentrates alot on self awareness within society, and how we actively alter our own natural response to an event due to the social environemnt we find ourselves in.

Haptic Dominance aims to challenge natural instinct to haptic exploration dependent on the social context. The installation will be the controlled varibale and the social environment will be the independent variable. The number of visitors within the space will vary on an hourly basis. So the team and I expect to find a correlation between the results and the number of people surrounding the installation. ”We cannot account for th behaviour of any system while staying wholly inside it, eventually we must turn to forces operating upon the organism from without” notes Skinner (1953, p.35)

Construction We designed our installation based off of our most successful experiment where the collective results were more extensive and varied, and once again highlights the individuality of how fear can be perceived. The experiment which we are drawing a similar methodology from is the box experiment. It will be an individually operated installation comprising of one box situated on a podium with unknown contents to the participant.

The installation is designed to be mobile, therefore it can be situated in a range of social environments to see just how behavioural patterns are affected by your mortal surroundings. Each participant is actively aware of the social surroundings they are immersed in, this influences etiquette, body language and attitude, all of which have the ability to affect their response to what they touch within the box. The response will be qualitatively measured with motion sensors which will actively monitor movements of the hands

whilst inside the box along the depth of the box. We decided to use qualitative data in the final installation as this showed more variation between individuals in our previous experiments such as the staged tactility removal and the unknown contents. These qualitative measurements will illustrate the behavioural pattern of the individual to the unknown contents of the box as well as the social context.

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