collective confidence by romyengel

a future focused on collective confidence rather than artificial autonomy

A Future Focused on Collective Confidence rather than Artificial Autonomy Florian Adam & Romy Engel Master Thesis Interface Design Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design, 2017 supervised by: Professor Frank Jacob Jens Alexander Ewald Professor Martin Postler

Acknowledgement We are using this opportunity to express our gratitude to everyone who supported us throughout the course of this project. We are thankful for their aspiring guidance, invaluably constructive criticism and friendly advice during the project work. We are sincerely grateful to them for sharing their truthful and illuminating views on a number of issues related to the project. We express our warm thanks to Professor Frank Jacob, Jens Alexander Ewald and Professor Martin Postler at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design for their support and guidance and we would like to express our very profound gratitude to Claire Rosemary Schairer Gilham for her thorough proofreading. Thank you, Florian & Romy

Declaration of Authorship Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung We hereby declare that the thesis submitted is our own unaided work. All direct or indirect sources used are acknowledged as references. We are aware that the thesis in digital form can be examined for the use of unauthorized aid and in order to determine whether the thesis as a whole or parts incorporated in it may be deemed as plagiarism. For the comparison of our work with existing sources we agree that it shall be entered in a database where it shall also remain after examination, to enable comparison with future theses submitted. Further rights of reproduction and usage, however, are not granted here. This paper was not previously presented to another examination board and has not been published. Wir erklären hiermit ehrenwörtlich, dass wir die vorliegende Arbeit selbständig angefertigt haben. Die aus fremden Quellen direkt und indirekt übernommenen Gedanken sind als solche kenntlich gemacht.Wir wissen, dass die Arbeit in digitalisierter Form daraufhin überprüft werden kann, ob unerlaubte Hilfsmittel verwendet wurden und ob es sich – insgesamt oder in Teilen – um ein Plagiat handelt. Zum Vergleich unserer Arbeit mit existierenden Quellen darf sie in eine Datenbank eingestellt werden und nach der Überprüfung zum Vergleich mit künftig eingehenden Arbeiten dort verbleiben. Weitere Vervielfältigungs- und Verwertungsrechte werden dadurch nicht eingeräumt. Die Arbeit wurde weder einer anderen Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegt noch veröffentlicht. Kiel, 01.03.2017 Florian Adam Romy Engel

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Content Abstract — xiii Introduction — 1 Artificial by Nature — 9 Mängelwesen/Deficient Beings — 12 Maintain vs. Redefine — 16 Design Approach — 23 Desirable Futures — 24 Participatory Approach — 27 Provocative Experience Prototypes — 30 Research Through Design — 31 Conceptual Design vs. Concept Design — 33 Democratic Aesthetics — 34 Relevant Projects Clustering — 41 The Good Life Workshop — 69 Artificial Autonomy — 85 A Society of Individuals — 87 Instinctual Prostheses — 88 Empathy — 90 Prototypes for Interdependent Interactions — 97 Conceptual Approaches — 97 Prototyping — 104 Principles for Interdependent Interactions — 125 Conclusion — 145 Appendix — 151

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Abstract In this project we explore the interconnectedness between technology and the human body by proposing opportunities for how we can shift this development towards a more empathic societal future. We discuss how the evolution of human beings is tightly related to the development of existential tools, leading to the insight that artificial components are very hard to separate from human nature. Recent developments within technology further shrink this proximity between the natural and the artificial by increasingly surpassing the external boundary of the human body and entering its inner areas. Research in the field of bodily enhancement technologies has shown that its core focus on individual independence, enabled by technologies, might move us further away from each other and from ourselves. New enhancement technologies are mainly used to reinforce personal strengths and thus create more independence for the individual. Personal technologies which are highly focused on individual needs, are not taking the universal human aspiration for social interaction into account. To reroute this trend towards a more empathetic path, we are proposing principles for interdependent interactions to enhance a future that is focused on collective confidence rather than on artificial autonomy.

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Introduction xv

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Introduction Recent developments within enhancement technologies persistently spark a debate about how far we can take the development of expanding our own capabilities through the use of artificial technology, without exceeding the limits of human nature. The way in which new possibilities within biotechnology are moving the area of artificial creation into biological spheres, is demanding a new level of responsibility from us designers. As these possibilities of actually redesigning the human body are moving into a far more graspable future, rather than letting the technological development navigate itself, designers are increasingly obliged to actively engage with this topic. The vast number of current design exhibitions1,2,3 addressing the topic of redesigning the human body show that designers are already taking up these challenges. Immersing ourselves into the projects exhibited within these shows we were able to direct our own focus within the topic and work out areas of special interest to engage with further.

“3rd Istanbul Design Biennial – Are We Human?,” accessed December 4, 2016, http://arewehuman.iksv.org/. “The Life Fair,” The Life Fair, accessed December 4, 2016, http://thelifefair.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/home. “Dream Out Loud - Designing for Tomorrow’s Demands” Dream Out Loud, accessed December 4, 2016, https://dreamoutloud.stedelijk.nl/.

Our critical review of the projects further enabled us explore their particular approaches and to critically challenge our own preconceptions concerning their main motivations. What benefit would these new designs bring and for whom? Design philosopher Victor Papanek addressed the challenging nature of the duties of the designer in 1972 by stating: “Design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments and, by extension, society and himself.”4 His comments are still highly relevant and have triggered us to address this topic within the final project of our master studies. Our interest was further sparked by the Dutch philosopher Peter Paul Verbeek who addresses the ethical implications of this technologically driven human evolution in a well balanced way throughout his thoughts about the limits of humanity.5 He humanistically neither condemns the recent trends trying to keep human nature clear of artificial intruders6, nor does he euphorically propagate the future of man and technology7, as for example transhumanist Raymond Kurzweil does.

Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Revised. (Chicago, Ill: Academy Chicago Pub Ltd, 1985). p.8 4

5 “Philosophy of Man and Technology,” accessed August 30, 2016, https:// www.utwente.nl/bms/wijsb/organization/verbeek/oratie_eng.pdf. 6

Peter Paul Verbeek. De grens van de mens. over de relatie tussen mens en techniek. (Nijmegen: Valkhof Pers, 2008).

7 “Ray Kurzweil: The Accelerating Power of Technology | TED Talk | TED. com,” accessed December 4, 2016, https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurz weil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us

Instead Verbeek critically discusses in which way we as humans are already interwoven with technology and the ethical implications which arise from this alliance. Being within the final term of our Interface Design studies, these interactions between humans and technology have always been our core interest. Within our final thesis project we were keen to engage with this very literal connection between the human body and emerging technologies. We wanted to explore and understand the current developments and contribute our own perspective by proposing more socially responsible scenarios. Our explorations into the artificial character of human nature go back as far back as to the early hominins. We explore how humans have always been connected to enhancing technology, making up for being deficient beings by nature. Taking the discussion a step further we are looking at the way supportive technologies today are not only maintaining our human status quo but even succeeding what once was humanly possible. This opens up the discussion of which direction we want to design our way of being human in the future and we subsequently explore the design perspective from which we want to approach the topic. By engaging with a topic as speculative as the future of humankind, we then take a closer look at the different concepts around preferable futures and critically discuss why we are approaching them from a participatory design perspective. We dive into the matter of research through design and explore the completely different conceptual approaches this kind of prototyping process implicates.

By contrasting the explorative approach of our prototypes to a more classical concept design perspective, we are discussing how their aesthetics could move the discussion about human enhancements to a broader public. To enable a more structured discussion about the immense amount and variety of the existing approaches we encountered, we explain further how we clustered the projects in reference to their level of invasiveness. This explains how we were therefore able to discuss and compare the projects in a more focused way and how it opened up a framework that helped us to further stake out our own approach and provide a discussion we could come back to during the subsequent process. Through our experiences within The Good Life Workshop we discuss how we were trying to get a better understanding of the publicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s motivations and comprehension regarding the topic of bodily enhancement. We explain how the workshop results showed a strong focus on individual independence and a marked renunciation of human instincts in favour of technological solutions. We further engage with the topic of individualism and contrast it to the concept of empathy being an inherent human instinct for social interaction. By working out how the workshop results shed light on a general development within western society, we explain how we are challenging this development through the generation of prototypes working in the opposite direction. Taking a look at our first prototyping process, we are laying out how we translated our initial ideas for interdependent social interactions into first experienceable prototypes.

Showing which insights during the first prototype testing made us further iterate on a second series of prototypes that puts a stronger focus on the interdependence of the created interactions. We conclude the insights which we generated from the prototyping process by phrasing general principles for the design of interdependent social interactions.

Artificial by Nature 7

Artificial by Nature The human species has always been evolving in a tight relationship with its tools. Ever since our own capabilities to achieve certain purposes were exceeded, we came up with means to expand our abilities. These enhancements would not only enable us to resolve tasks we otherwise would not be able to fulfill, they would also immensely accelerate the process of doing it by hand. The German Philosopher and Anthropologist Helmut Plessner describes this human nature of shaping ourselves through technological means as being “artificial by nature”8. This instrumentalism manifests itself in many shapes. From the early handaxes our ancestors used to hunt and chop their food with, to our mobile phones today that help us with a variety of everyday tasks. Regarding their complexity today’s technologies might be widely different from those of the early hominins, but the way in which it links to our lives in its use is actually very similar. “technology: the practical application of knowledge/ technologia (Greek): systematic treatment of an art, from techne art, skill+-o- + -logia -logy”9

8 Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen Des Organischen Und Der Mensch Einleitung in Die Philosophische Anthropologie (De Gruyter, 1965), quoted in Peter-Paul Verbeek, De Grens van de Mens: Over Techniek, Ethiek En de Menselijke Natuur (Lemniscaat, 2011). p.76

“Definition of Technology,” accessed January 15, 2017, https://www.merri am-webster.com/dictionary/technology. 9

Our mobile phones today stay in our hands during most of the day and link to us within their ubiquitous use, as the handaxes might have accompanied our ancestors many thousand years ago. This connectedness between ancient and more modern tools is not limited to the level of purely their use. The 200,000 year old handaxe of West Tofts10 for example, contains decorative earpiece fossils that do not contribute to its actual purpose. The additional effort of carefully carving the handaxe around a fossil piece instead of just choosing any other stone, shows the personal connection the ancient owner must have had to it. Although the way we decorate our everyday tools today might be significantly less costly it demonstrates a similar emotional relation to our daily technology.

Mängelwesen/Deficient Beings The use of artefacts as a reinforcement of inherent strengths is not exclusively human either. A species of crow uses hook shaped sticks during its foraging to elicit insects out of their hideouts11 and our close relations the chimpanzees sometimes even use a whole sequence of tools in order to achieve a certain goal.12

10 James B. Harrod, “Palaeoart at Two Million Years Ago? A Review of the Evidence,” Arts 3, no. 1 (February 28, 2014): 135–55, doi:10.3390/ arts3010135. 11

Nikola Doll, +ultra. gestaltung schafft wissen, 1st ed. (Leipzig: Seemann Henschel, 2016). Kathleen Rita Gibson and Tim Ingold, Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

A discussion about the connectedness between living beings and their artificial implements is thus not limited to the human phylogenesis alone. The existential qualities of human tool use make it particularly difficult to distinguish between untouched human nature and its artificial extensions. It seems to be part of our deeply essential way of being to make use of what is in our surroundings to compensate for our deficiencies. Considering human deficits, the philosopher Arnold Gehlen coined the terminology: “Mängelwesen”13 (engl. deficient being) to describe how, due to our lack of specialized organs and instincts, we would be incapable of surviving in our natural environment. This puts a clear focus on the existential necessity of supportive technology in order to outlive the dangerous world we inhabit.

Arnold Gehlen, Der Mensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt. 1. (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, Vittorio, 1990). quoted in Peter-Paul Verbeek, De Grens van de Mens: Over Techniek, Ethiek En de Menselijke Natuur (Lemniscaat, 2011). p.67 13

Maintain vs. Redefine In our world today where most existential risks have already been conquered by a variety of artificial means, enhancement technologies are now being used to compensate for abilities that might have been lost or have never been acquired at all. If we take Donna Haraway’s definition of the Cyborg as simply being a “hybrid of machine and organism”14, it clarifies that almost all of us already are this type of composite being, no matter whether the supportive technology is in our bodies or in our pockets. Glasses for example enable people with bad eyesight to see properly and hearing aids like the cochlear implant, make it possible for children who have been born deaf, to learn to hear.

Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Social ist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (Routledge,1991). p.150

As the German cyborg pioneer Enno Park points out his cochlear implant allows him not only to hear as other people do but to selectively tune into what he wants to hear and to tune out of what he does not.15 This connects to people like Aimee Mullins16 whose artificial limbs do not just enable her to walk like any other person but to exceed the sprinting abilities of non-amputees. Having a “bag full of legs”17 to choose from every morning Aimee Mullins is not only able to enhance her physical abilities but she also uses them as an opportunity to critically challenge known aesthetic concepts. “A prosthetic limb doesn’t represent the need to replace loss anymore. It can stand as a symbol that the wearer has the power to create whatever it is that they want to create in that space. So people that society once considered to be disabled can now become the architects of their own identities and indeed continue to change those identities by designing their bodies from a place of empowerment.”18

“Sascha Dicke: Higher Faster Further Technik auf den Leib gerückt | Form Nº 266” accessed December 3, 2016, http://www.form.de/en/magazine/ form266/focus. 15

Alice Rawsthorn, Hello World: Where Design Meets Life (Hamish Hamilton, 2013).

Aimee Mullins, “Transcript of ‘My 12 Pairs of Legs,’” accessed January 24, 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics/tran script. 17

Aimee Mullins, 2017.

People like Enno Park and Aimee Mullins open up an interesting discussion about two profoundly different motivations within the techno-human evolution. Do we want to conserve a human status quo through the means of artificial extensions or do we want to completely rethink the way we want to be human in the future? Floris Kaayk also addresses this core dualism within his fictional modular body project by claiming: “we want to use this opportunity not to maintain but to redefine mankind.”19 Either way, dichotomies like the one above clearly illustrate how crucial it is to actively discuss which direction we as a human species actually want to evolve. The merging of man and technology started many thousands of years ago and will continue to evolve into spheres that might seem unimaginable now. These imaginations however are exactly what we need. As designers we are used to imagining how things could be and ideally turning them into how things should be. In our next chapter we will discuss how we want to approach the questions raised earlier from a design perspective and which mindset we want to operate within.

“Video: Floris Kaayk & Torre Florim” Amsterdam 2016, accessed December 4, 2016, http://www.whatdesigncando.com/amsterdam-2016/video-floris- kaayk-torre-florim/. 19

Design Approach 21

Design Approach Ulm School of Design graduate and cybernetics Professor Klaus Krippendorff reminds us of designs core duties by saying: “Designers invent or conceive possible futures, including its artefacts that they may be able to bring about, imaginable worlds that would not come about naturally.”20 By describing a designerly approach towards conceivable futures, he also picks up an important distinction between design and scientific research, that the sociologist Herbert Simon also addresses in his Sciences of the Artificial.21 Both Krippendorf and Simon point out that whereas scientists work with a status quo, reasoning that things in the future due to scientific laws of nature will proceed the way they did in the past, designers take full responsibility for the futures they are conceiving by proposing alternatives that might not happen in that particular way. Agreeing with both Krippendorf and Simon we also do not believe that our role as designers is to contribute to the discussion of human enhancement through a scientific reasoning about how things within the field are likely to evolve. On the contrary we believe that it lies within our duties to explicitly challenge these scientific assumptions by working on alternatives that precisely would not be expected.

Klaus Krippendorff, “Design Research, an Oxymoron?,” Design Research Now: Essays and Selected Projects, October 1, 2007, 67–80. p.70 Herbert A. Simon, Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, Mass: The Mit Press, 1996).

Desirable Futures Further narrowing down the kind of futures designers should be working with Krippendorf speaks of “desirable futures,”22 and talks about the same eligible prospects that Simon phrases quite bluntly as “how things ought to be.”23 By emphasising that designers should work with futures people would actually wish for they both bring to mind the preferable futures cone within the PPPP Illustration24 by speculative Designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. Dunne and Raby use the divergent graphic initially designed by futurologist Stuart Candy, that illustrates the differences between probable-, plausible-, possible- and preferable futures, to discuss the very different approaches that are currently being taken towards the abstract concept of future. According to Dunne and Raby the majority of designers work within the field of probable futures. Unlike Krippendorf and Simon who see the engagement with “what is likely to happen”25 as belonging to the field of classical sciences, Dunne and Raby summarize that “most design methods, processes, tools, acknowledged good practice, and even design education are oriented toward this space” and they explain that the way design is currently being rated is also very closely linked to the thorough understanding of these expectable futures.

Krippendorff, p.70

Simon, p.4

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming (Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London: The Mit Press, 2014). p.5 24

Dunne and Raby, p.3

The cone of plausible futures takes a broader scope. Scenarios and prospects generated within here focus on â&#x20AC;&#x153;what could happenâ&#x20AC;?26 and mainly serve the purpose of economical and political preparation for alternative expectations. The broadest perspectives however are given within the range of possible futures. Within here, all suggestions are being considered to which a scientifically reasonable link can be drawn, even if this is purely fictional. Dunne and Raby emphatically isolate this area to the zone of fantasy, as this is lacking the necessary links between our current state of the world and the imagined one. A future that is of particular interest for us personally and that has also already been addressed by Krippendorf and Simon cuts across both the plausible and probable futures. The preferable future cone is much harder to describe as it raises questions that cannot be answered in as general terms as those within the futures explained above. What does preferable mean, for whom, and who decides?â&#x20AC;?27

Dunne and Raby, p.3

Dunne and Raby, p.4

Participatory Approach Questions like the one above motivated us to work in partnership with other people, starting from the very beginning of our process. As we are dealing with futures that address us as humans in general, it goes without saying that we did not want to leave this discussion to ourselves but rather open it up to the public as much as possible. Designing within the context of the human body moreover, is by its subject matter alone already so precarious, that it naturally demands a constant dialogue between us designers and potential future users, to continuously explore and learn from their relation to and reservations about possible body modifications. As the Swedish design researcher Pelle Ehn points out, it “started from the simple standpoint that those affected by a design should have a say in the design process. This was a political conviction not expecting consensus, but also controversies and conflicts around an emerging design object.”28 Within this dissensus we see one of the main benefits of our chosen design approach. Instead of trying to aim for the perfect fit between the people and our design, we expect the most valuable insights into the topic from exactly these possible sources of interference.

Pelle Ehn, “Participation in Design Things,” in Proceedings of the Tenth Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design 2008, PDC ’08 (India napolis, IN, USA: Indiana University, 2008), p.94

From earlier projects we learned that this starts even in the very early exploration phase, long before people can be confronted with any prototypical designs. The unforeseen way in which people react to the research methodologies used at the beginning of the process, can lead to insights much deeper than the ones initially intended to gain. As well as these extremely valuable insights we were hoping to gain from the cooperation with other people, we also see very general advantages within the participatory design approach. Although both academic research and artistic explorations showed us that people are already engaging with the topic of bodily enhancements, the discussions still seemed to be held within a rather small audience. Since questions about the future of humankind concern all of us, they should also be addressed to a broader public. Pelle Ehn phrases this process of moving the discussion away from its exclusiveness into the public as democratizing innovation. “This challenge means actively exploring alternative ways to organize milieus for innovation that are more democratically-oriented than traditional milieus that focus on expert groups and individuals.”29

Erling Björgvinsson, Pelle Ehn, and Per-Anders Hillgren, “Participatory Design and ‘Democratizing Innovation,’” in Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference, PDC ’10 (New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2010), p.49

By opening up our design process to a broader audience we are not only hoping to generate more interesting insights from unanticipated research outcomes but also wanting to generate a platform of discussion that reconnects people with human enhancement innovations personally, fostering a discussion about the futures we actually want within that sphere. Contrary to Dunne and Raby who clearly state that they: “rarely develop scenarios that suggest how things should be because it becomes too didactic and even moralistic,”30 we think our society is in desperate need of exactly these ‘preferable’ suggestions. As the public is already exposed to a vast number of bad news stories and pessimistic forecasts on a daily basis, we think that yet another dystopian prediction would not spark as much interest as a desirable alternative could do. By proposing futures people would actually wish for, we are hoping to raise more curiosity than by exposing them to scenarios they would rather prevent. Engaging with the public in a way that elicits their hopes and desires instead of evoking their fears and threats, we hope to raise interesting questions regarding our futures as technologised humans.

Dunne and Raby, 2014. p.3

Provocative Experience Prototypes Regarding the form these suggestions will take we decided to start as open as possible to allow more room and flexibility throughout the process. For us as designers, who are especially interested in experiences and interactions, it is of course particularly important to create a valuable experience for our recipients. To prevent indifference induced by technoid appearances and complicated forms of use we want our work to stay as low-tech and prototypical as possible. Using a design that stays very close to the known aesthetics of our everyday world we are hoping to gain a stronger familiarity between the public and our designs. The viewer should feel invited to actively experience the object and to discuss its implications. Danish design professor Jacob Buur clarified in a lecture he held at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design, on his concepts of provocative prototypes, how contrary to words that might disappear quickly “stuff stays on the table!”31 it also elicits a completely different kind of conversation than through speaking alone. This way he was able to show how his provotypes32 can successfully lead through very complicated and abstract discussions. This motivated us to generate objects that could possibly also facilitate the discussion of a topic as complicated as the future of humankind.

Jacob Buur, “Designing for co-design processes” Interface Salon Lecture. Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design. April 13, 2016. Laurens Boer, Jared Donovan, and Jacob Buur, “Challenging Industry Con ceptions with Provotypes,” CoDesign 9, no. 2 (May 2013): 73–89.

Research Through Design By facilitating a discussion about these preferable futures, through the experiences with our prototypes, we want to gain new knowledge for the design of bodily enhancements and about the topic in general. The prototypes we used do not function as a model for an object that is supposed to be realized more thoroughly later, nor are they supposed to represent our theoretical findings. Instead they embody our research hypothesis and are the key elements within its operationalisation. This means the prototypical objects manifest our assumptions which are then critically tested through the experience the user is having with it. “Hypothesis: An untested assertion about the relationship between two or more variables. The validity of such an assertion is assessed by examining the extent to which it is, or is not supported by data generated by empirical inquiry”33 “Operationalisation: The process of devising ways of measuring theoretical concepts.34

Victor Jupp, The SAGE Dictionary of Social Research Methods (SAGE, 2006). p.137 Victor Jupp, 2006. p.205

The approach that places designers as active participants into the research process is described in literature as Research Through Design.35 The term was initially articulated by the former Royal College of Art professor Christopher Frayling, to differentiate between three different research aims: research for art and design, research into art and design & research through art and design.36 German design researcher Wolfgang Jonas37 takes up this distinction by clarifying the different positions the design researcher is taking, regarding design process and subject matter. Research into design, locates the researcher outside the design process, observing it without actively engaging in it. Research for design takes the same outward perspective, the design researcher however engages more actively within the design process, by taking the role as a “knowledge supplier.”38 The most direct influence on the design process and its subject matter happens within research through design. It indicates a distinctively designerly research process, that generates new knowledge within the design process. Since designers are trained to make sense through objects, their research hypotheses are often approached through the design of explorative prototypes that reveal new insights into the studied phenomena. As explained before, these prototypes are distinctively different to the models known from a more classical product design approach.

Danny Godin and Zahedi Mithra, “Aspects of research through design: a literature review,”Proceedings of DRS (2014): 1667-1680. Christopher Frayling, Research in Art and Design (London: Royal College of Art, 1993).

Wolfgang Jonas, “Forschung durch Design”, Swiss Design Network Conference (2004). 37

Wolfgang Jonas, 2004. p.5

Conceptual Design vs. Concept Design The power of these more explorative prototypes, in contrast to prototypes that merely serve as models for later production, are also described by Dunne and Raby in their discussion about conceptual design. They clearly distinguish between concept design and conceptual design. In contrast to concept design, where the concept serves as a model for a later translation into the real world, “conceptual designs are not conceptual because they haven’t yet been realized or are waiting to be realized but out of choice. They celebrate their unreality and take full advantage of being made from ideas.”39 They argue that in order to identify new possibilities it is necessary to step out of the current mindsets by challenging the viewers’ imaginations. We want to use exactly these imaginations to generate new knowledge within our subject matter. Considering the outer appearance of our prototypes however, we want to work in a more democratic way than Dunne and Raby’s aesthetics are appearing to do.

Dunne and Raby, 2014. p.12

Democratic Aesthetics The otherworldly aesthetics often used by Dunne and Raby, for example in their Technological Dreams Series40 run, in our opinion, into danger of reaching out to only a small audience of design and art lovers, due to their abstraction from the real world. Although the designers Chris Woebken and Elliott P. Montgomery, founder of the Extrapolation Factory, were immensely influenced by the speculative design work of Dunne and Raby, their project 99¢ futures41 succeeded in generating a more direct exchange with their audience. 40 “Dunne & Raby,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.dunneandraby. co.uk/content/projects. 41 “The Extrapolation Factory,” accessed December 16, 2016, http://www. extrapolationfactory.com/Projects/99-FUTURES.

“We aim to challenge the notion that professional futurists are the only ones who can-or should-be thinking about long-term, large-scale futures.”42 The designed future artefacts in their project adapt well through their aesthetics to the other products of the 99¢ store, moreover they were for sale among the other products in the store for 99¢ as well. This accessibility of their design probably led to totally different discussions with totally different people, compared to possible discussions in a white space gallery.

Elliott P. Montgomery and Chris Woebken, Extrapolation Factory - Operator’s Manual: Publication Version 1.0 - Includes 11 Futures Modeling Tools (United States: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016). p.10

“We believe that co-creating and contextualizing future ideas as artifacts in current contexts is a powerful way to make accessible emotional connections to our potential futures, and to develop new ways of comprehending these futures.”43 This inspired us for our own approach. We want to include not only relevant scientists into our co-design approach but also everyday people need to be part of our preferable futures. To explore which mindsets have been used in other projects that work with the future of human enhancement, our next step was to develop a method by which to cluster these projects by designers, artists and scientists, to enable us to have a more structured discussion about them.

Project Clustering 39

Relevant Project Clustering During our initial reading and research we came across many diverse projects, varying from art and design projects to scientific explorations. We picked 40 projects that deal with the merging of the human body and technology in the most interesting way. To better discuss these fusions of humans and technology we developed different scales of invasiveness and ranked each individual project on them. As a first step we separated the human body into the areas inside and outside the skin. For this we created two scales; one determining if the technology would be visible or invisible, and another to judge its location inside or outside of the body.

An example of a project we ranked as being located on the outside and being highly visible would be for instance Google Glass.44 Within the next scales we discussed the different kinds of use in which the person would interact with the technology. Scales like brief & long use, as well as independent & dependent use, revealed a more detailed way in which the user depended on the technology.

44 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Google Glass,â&#x20AC;? accessed January 25, 2017, https://www.google.com/ glass/start/.

The speculative organic defibrillator by designer Agi Haines called Electrostabilis Cardium45 that starts up in case of a heart stroke, is an example of a very dependent but short use.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;CIRCUMVENTIVE ORGANS,â&#x20AC;? Agi Haines Designer, accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.agihaines.com/circumventive-organs.

With regard to functionality we distinguished between aesthetic and existential. The Low-tech plastic surgery46 project by artists Lucy McRae and Bart Hess in which they altered their faces using only hook and eye clasps, glue and string, would be an example of a purely aesthetical approach.

Our last invasiveness scale classifies projects regarding their overall impression. For this we used a range from familiar to uncanny, inspired by James Augers who emphasises the need to find the right balance between familiar and uncanny for a maximum effect on the recipients.47

46 “Lucyandbart,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://barthess.nl/lucyandbart. html. 47 James Auger, “Speculative Design: Crafting the Speculation,” Digital Creativity 24, no. 1 (March 1, 2013): 11–35

Graham48, a person designed by artist Patricia Piccini in collaboration with trauma surgeons and transport scientists to survive car accidents, would be an example of an extremely uncanny project, that according to Auger would not affect an audience as much as a more balanced approach would do.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Meet Graham,â&#x20AC;? accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.meetgraham. com.au. 48

visible invisible

uncanny familiar

existential aesthetic

long brief

dependent independent

inside outside

To generate a graph that would enable us to compare the different projects at first sight, we located the more invasive characteristics on the outside of a radar chart. This way we were able to get an overview of each projectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; general invasiveness, through the size of the generated graph. This meant that each project received its own unique invasiveness form, giving it a bigger or smaller size depending on the connected invasiveness rating within that area. The bigger the emerging form the more invasive the merge between body and technology in that particular project.

Reflection The resulting invasiveness graphs can be discussed from two perspectives. Firstly, you can evaluate the overall invasiveness of each project manifested in pure size. This enables a very direct comparison of the different projects and allows for further explorations connecting their invasiveness to their intent or context. Secondly, it is possible to focus on the different characteristic of the invasiveness. For example only looking at the aesthetic vs. existential scale, you can compare in which way the different projects line up within here and obtain further insights into the projects within each single characteristic of invasiveness.

By comparing the 6 most invasive projects (Graham49, Transfigurations50, Modular Body51, Life Support Ventilation Dog52, Biophilia Organ Crafting53 and Aphasia Mechanica54), we saw interesting overlaps of some characteristics. (Graph 1)

All these projects had a long period of time within their use and had a very existential character. Looking at the content of these projects again we realized that all of these project had a strong speculative design approach and decided for our own process to work on a better balance of this invasiveness. 49

“Meet Graham,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.meetgraham.com.au.

“Transfigurations,” Agi Haines Designer, accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.agihaines.com/transfigurations. 50

“The Modular Body,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://themodularbody. com.

“Life Support - Revital Cohen & Tuur Van Balen,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.cohenvanbalen.com/work/life-support. 52

“Biophilia — Organ Crafting,” Veronica Ranner, accessed January 25, 2017, https://www.veronicaranner.com/biophilia-organ-crafting/. “Human + Aphasia Mechanica,” Science Gallery, accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.sciencegallery.com/humanplus/aphasia-mechanica.

Graham

Life Support Ventilation Dog

Modular Body

Transfigurations

Aphasia Mechanica

Biophilia Organ Crafting

Finger Gloves

Bionic Movement Research

Hyper Normal

Digital Eye Glass

Google Glass

Oyster Nails

In contrast to these projects, we also looked at the 6 least-invasive projects (Finger Gloves55, Digital Eye Glass56, GoogleGlass57, Oyster Nails58, Bionic Movement Research59, and Hyper Normal60). (Graph 2, Page 53) Their common characteristics were their independent method of use and their location outside of the body. As a lot of real world existing products were located in this area, this approach seemed natural but it was nevertheless a very interesting way for us to confirm our assumptions. We further compared the Google Glass (blue) to the Audio Tooth Implant (yellow), a speculative design project by James Auger in which a personal communication device is implanted in your mouthAlthough their use and functionality is quite similar, the Audio Tooth Implant is much more invasive. With this project being still quite a familiar artefact, it attracted a lot of attention when it was published back in 2001.61

Tate, “Finger Gloves, Rebecca Horn 1972,” Tate, accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/horn-finger-gloves-t07845.

56 “Prof. Steve Mann,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.eecg.toronto. edu/~mann/.

“Google Glass,” accessed January 25, 2017, https://www.google.com/ glass/start/. 57

58 “Oyster Card Nails Make Travelling on the London Underground Easier,” Wareable, accessed January 25, 2017, https://www.wareable.com/wear able-tech/oyster-card-fingernails-for-contactless-payment-2981. 59 Choy Ka Fai, “Prospectus For A Future Body,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.ka5.info/prospectus.html. 60

“Design Interactions,Sitraka Rakotoniaina,Hyper-Normal,” accessed January 25, 2017, http://www.di10.rca.ac.uk/sitrakarakotoniaina/.

61 James Auger, “Speculative Design: Crafting the Speculation,” Digital Creativity 24, no. 1 (March 1, 2013): 11–35

visible invisible

long brief

uncanny familiar

dependent independent

existential aesthetic

inside outside

For our further project development the invasivity scales generated within this project clustering enabled us to learn a lot more about the projects we had seen so far by helping us to sort and further understand their characteristics. It also gave us a framework to discuss which area we want to place our ideas and prototypes. As James Auger already pointed out about the dichotomy of uncanny and familiar for a more direct response of the public it is crucial to find the right balance.62 We generated six of these scales to relate our proposals and ideas to in order to find the best set of invasivity characteristics that work best within our own research and project. 62

James Auger, 2013.

The Good Life Workshop 65

The Good Life Workshop Becoming progressively overwhelmed by all we had read and seen so far within the project, we realised that we had to reconnect with the perceptions and desires of actual people, who did not know anything about the project and our aspirations. We wanted to step back and ask what it is that people would do if they could enhance their body or the body of someone else. Within “The Good Life Workshop” we tried to facilitate a playground where people could take bodily development into their own hands and manufacture as well as discuss what they thought was important and desirable. The main aim of the workshop was to understand people’s ideas of what parts of the human body are enhanceable and in which way or ways they would desire to do so. On the material level we wanted to keep it as simple as possible in order to afford a fearless engagement with the topic through the use of familiar materials that should invite an active engagement with the matter. In order to realise the workshop as promptly as possible and because we did not expect the outcomes to be significantly different with participants from outside, we restrained from inviting external people and spontaneously asked 12 fellow students from the BA and MA courses within our design department to take part in the workshop. We wanted the participants to generate their own versions of future humans and therefore we needed appropriate representations of human bodies. We decided to manufacture small human shaped puppets made of skin coloured fabric, stuffed with an ordinary toy filling, that could easily be held in one’s hands.

The big advantage of the stuffed puppets to us, in comparison to flat reproductions for example, was the skin like character of the fabric they were made of. The little humans could thus embody an outer as well as an inner sphere that could both be manipulated. We were extremely curious about how the workshop participants would work with the invasivity of putting things onto or under the skin and therefore decided to work with the fabric figures. The size of the figures also needed to be small enough to generate an appropriate amount of intimacy with each participant but big enough to allow a comfortable way of working with them that would not get too complicated. As prototyping materials for the participants to use, we offered a variety of repurposed materials like: pipe cleaners, yarn and rubber bands from which we hoped that their familiarity would afford a restraint-free way of working within the tasks.

TTx

A A

KB LR

LR TT

SA SA TTx

TTx

JB SA

JB JD

TS TS

GM GM GM

Past Present Future

Procedure As a conversation starter we asked the participants in advance to think of something that had made their life easier during the past couple of days that they could document or bring to the workshop. Within the first task they were then asked to present their findings and map the area where these eased their lives onto an outline of a human body we had provided on a wall. As well as being curious about what people would bring, we were interested in how the inner and outer spheres of the body would be understood while mapping them onto the body and how the participants would engage with the level of invasiveness regarding their findings. To further engage the discussion about the way the findings were easing their lives, we asked the participants in the second part of the conversation starter task to think about how their finding would have eased their lives 100 years ago and will do so 100 years from now. What has made your life easier during the past couple of days? GM public transport ticket A to-do-list KB smartphone TT day creme SA throat tablets SJ bike TTx cooking pot JB train-app LR bikelight TS thermos cup JD the pill

Within the next subtasks the participants worked in groups of 3, with one little figure per group that they had to modify within different frameworks. After each subtask the teams would switch their figures and further iterate on a body that was already modified by somebody else. In doing this we hoped to keep the participants motivated to work on a variety of enhancement proposals within different mindsets without getting tired of the actual modification process. The fourth subtask asked the participants to draw their ideas onto a storyboard instead of prototyping it onto the figures directly, in order to amplify the focus here onto the actual ideas, rather than being distracted by yet another prototyping exercise. Task 1: What would you add or maximize on your own body? (Groups A) What would you remove or minimize on your own body? (Groups B) Task 2: What would the world this person lives in look like? (Groups A) How would the other people within this world look? (Groups B) Task 3: What would you change on the body of your 90 year oldgrand parents in order to allow them to have a good life? (Groups A) What would you change on the body of your new born baby in order to allow it to have a good life? (Groups B) Task 4: How could these changes actually be accomplished?

In the final tasks we addressed the participants individually again and gave them one figure each that would represent their own bodies. We asked them to think about what they would change about themselves and to prototype it onto the little humans. To counteract a possible avoidance of the task by not wanting to change anything at all, the task implied that they had to change something about their bodies, even if it would only be a very minimal trait. We decided to end the workshop with this task as we were interested in whether their approaches would differ from the way they altered the figures during the previous group tasks. The idea was also to progressively increase their personal relatedness to the little human throughout the workshop, starting from collectively working on the body of somebody else towards an individual discussion of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own body alterations. After the participants had presented their individual amendments, we concluded the workshop by asking the people to pair themselves into teams of two and work on a super-enhancement that would only work with the two individual powers together. The motivation behind this element of the task was to shift the focus from a solely individual level onto a mindset where augmented abilities could also be initiated on a social sphere. We summed up the workshop with a feedback session where we asked for the participantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; thoughts and observations on the topic and what they thought about the workshop design in general.

Workshop Reflection We received very positive feedback from the particpants regarding the general design of the workshop. Although they worked quite intensively on the amendment of the little people throughout the process, the exercises were not perceived as tiring or too repetitive. One participant emphasized that the switch after each task was particularly engaging as each group again had to focus on what the other group had done in order to further iterate the prototype. In general the prototyping process with the little stuffed people succeeded both on the level of their practical workability as well as on their conceptual flexibility. The attendees showed no restraint in invasively taking apart the figures in order to change them, with the help of the additional prototyping materials. Although we always provided them with a very similar stuffed little person, they easily accepted that for example in one exercise it would represent a baby even though it had represented a 90 year old granny in another exercise before. Reviewing the way we lead through the different tasks and tried to facilitate the arising discussions, we realized that we could have been a lot more inquiring regarding the answers and explanations that the participants gave. Particularly within the first task we observed several cases where the explanation and mapping took place quite casually and without much consideration. One participant for example had brought ‘the pill’ as it simply “enables a different life” and we missed the chance to find out in any depth in which way it did so. By looking again at what the participants had actually changed about their little humans, we realized that they had primarily worked within the sphere of personal independence.

The only group that came up with an interpersonal interaction at all, designed a scenario where you could follow/unfollow other people on a perceptual level and thus only see or hear the people you want to. Aside from the level of personal relatedness all the prototyped enhancements freed the individuals from their perceived deficits; instead adding extra amounts of technology onto or into the body instead of taking other people into account. The 90-year old grandparents for example were equipped with little companionship robots instead of connecting them to actual family members and the babies were supplied with specific sensors so the parents did not have to lose time by guessing why the baby was crying. The last example particularly sparked our interest as the parental instinct of tuning into the child was so clearly being replaced by its technological substitutes, we asked ourselves if this could be a general trend within current developments of enhancement technologies. Are we deliberately giving up our most existential human skills to put all our trust in their artificial simulations?

Artificial Autonomy 83

Artificial Autonomy The insight we gained from the workshop, that most interventions were motivated by independence or comfort, made us re-evaluate the core aspirations for bodily enhancement technologies we had come across so far. We had for long been asking ourselves, if the main purpose of all these developments would be to have a more comfortable life. Would this mean, that the further evolution of humanity should be inspired by the general pursuit of wanting to do less? Although this might be one of the most powerful motivations to evolve humankind upon, Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman clearly states that a growing comfort leads to quite the opposite of the good life we all wish for: â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is untrue that happiness means a trouble free life. A happy life means overcoming troubles, fighting these troubles, resolving difficulties and challenges. You just confront the challenges, you try your best, you stay yourself and then you get the moment of happiness when you see that you have controlled the challenges. The joy of overcoming troubles is being lost when the comfort grows.â&#x20AC;?63

Erik Gandini, The Swedish Theory of Love, Documentary, (2016). 1:07:04

A Society of Individuals Bauman’s thoughts form part of Erik Gandini’s documentary The Swedish Theory of Love on the extreme nature of individualism within Swedish society. The film portrays how societal decisions, motivated by individualistic values during the last century, have lead to Sweden’s society today. It gives a spine-chilling forecast on what could be ahead of us and confirms developments we have also seen within many of the human enhancement projects we encountered throughout the project so far. As Sweden reduced its interpersonal dependence by changing societal structures, many people today are reducing their dependence on other people with the help of enhancing technologies. Gandini’s documentary dystopically catalogues how the 1972 manifesto familjen i framtiden64 (engl. family in the future) which optimistically made everyone “free from each other,”65 lead to a society where people live and die alone in their apartments without anyone noticing. We were stunned by how closely this linked to some of the enhancement proposals our workshop brought about. If we go back to the example of the 90-year old grandma, who should acquire the possibility to live a better life, she was given a companionship robot to talk to instead of enhancing her in a way that would enable her to connect to her relatives or friends.

Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Kvinnoförbund, Familjen i framtiden: en socialis tisk familjepolitik (Sveriges socialdemokratiska kvinnoförb., 1978). Gandini., 02:54

Instinctual Prostheses Disturbed by these predictions of the probable future of an asocial individualistic society, we decided to take our project in a stronger interpersonal direction. We wanted to focus rather on the benefits of a collective confidence than on further working in the direction of artificial autonomy. Reflecting on another core example of the workshop, where the parental intuition of knowing why your baby is crying was unhesitatingly substituted by artificial sensors and displays, we were made to further about the current state of human instincts in general. Do we still possess these basic instincts at all and if yes, how exactly or have we already traded them for the total reliance on technological indicators? Design researcher and artist Susanna Hertrich also worked with these technological substitutions of human instincts in her Synthetic Empathy66 project, where she created wearable prototypes that artificially produce emotional bodily responses, induced by a feed of bad news. The devices trigger “coldness, as an experience of fear; lachrymatory excitation, as an experience of grief; and constraint, as an experience of panic.”67 To us, these instinctual prostheses not only opened up an interesting debate about how far our reliance on technological input has already gone, but also inspired us to further look into one of our most social human instincts: empathy.

66 “Susanna Hertrich - Synthetic Empathy,” accessed November 15, 2016, http://www.susannahertrich.com/research/synth_empathy.shtml. 67

Susanna Hertrich et al., “Synthetic Empathy: Somaesthetic Body Actuation as a Means of Emotional Evocation,” 2010.

Empathy Asking ourselves how we could redirect the asocial and individualistic developments within the field of bodily enhancement towards a more interpersonal future, we started by having a closer look at the status quo of our current empathic capabilities. Immersing ourselves into the topic of empathy we came across the neuroscientist Tania Singer who has been elaborately studying the topic of empathy throughout the past couple of years. She points out that “being able to understand our conspecifics’ mental and affective states is a cornerstone of our lives as social animals,”68 and that this ability has multiple positive effects on our social and bodily health. Sociologist Hartmut Rosa endorses this opinion in his Entfremdungsthese69 (engl. alienation theses) by linking severe bodily malfunctions to the lack of interpersonal resonance. Even though the necessity and positive effects of interpersonal resonance seem to be obvious, we seem to get more and more deprived of the ability to do so. Alongside an impressive psychological meta-analysis70 outlining severe signs of empathy loss throughout the last decades, it is once again Zygmunt Bauman who perfectly sums up how our supersaturated individualism harms our empathic abilities:

68 Tania Singer and Claus Lamm, “The Social Neuroscience of Empathy,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1156, no.1 (March 1, 2009): 81–96 69

Hartmut Rosa, “Resonanz statt Entfremdung: Zehn Thesen wider die Stei gerungslogik der Moderne.”, Zeitwohlstand–Wie wir anders arbeiten, nach haltig wirtschaften und besser leben. München: oekom, 62-72. (2014)

70 Sara H. Konrath, Edward H. O’Brien, and Courtney Hsing, “Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students Over Time: A Meta-Analysis,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 15, no. 2 (May 1, 2011): 180–98

“People who are trained in independence are losing the ability to negotiate cohabitation with other people. Because you already are deprived of the skills of socialising. It is awfully tiring, requiring a lot of effort, a lot of attention, process of negotiating and re-negotiating, re-discussing, re-agreeing, re-creating. Independence strips you of the abilities of doing just that.”71

Suspicious factors in empathy loss Though we strongly suspected social media and the ubiquitous presence of technology within our current everyday lives to have had a great impact on the change in our empathic abilities, we wanted to make sure we were not overlooking any other important contributing factors. The already mentioned empathy meta-analysis72 confirmed our suspicions that, one of the key elements within empathy loss is the ubiquity of personal technology. It increasingly bonds people to their devices instead of actually connecting them to each other and generally results in an overall reduced face to face time73 and hence fewer opportunities to actually learn to read other people’s faces.

Gandini., 1:08:11

Konrath et al., 2011.

L. Mark Carrier et al., “Virtual Empathy: Positive and Negative Impacts of Going Online upon Empathy in Young Adults,” Computers in Human Behavior 52 (November 2015): 39–48, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.05.026. 73

The simplified forms of technologically mediated communication particularly deprive people of their abilities to recognize the emotional states of other people, through their lack of nonverbal cues, “such as facial expressions, body posture, eye contact, gestures, and touch.”74 This also connects to the way we behave empathetically while we are online. Cognitive psychologist L. Mark Carrier discovered that, virtual empathy75 can misleadingly fulfill one’s desire for interpersonal solicitousness but its quality is not even close to an empathic exchange in real life. Through the phenomenon of the conforming nature of personal media76 consumption which results in a lack of opposition to personal beliefs, the ability of negotiation with other people is simply being lost by lack of exposure to different opinions. On the other extreme the general supersaturated exposure to bad news77 throughout diverse channels of mass media deadens the ability to resonate with the terrible experiences other people are undergoing. As our main aim of this project is to elicit a conversation on desirable futures within human enhancement, we did not perceive these suspicious factors within empathy loss as problems that could simply be solved. We moreover wanted to use the identified situations as guiding points for our further explorations within the topic.

74 L. Mark Carrier et al., “Virtual Empathy: Positive and Negative Impacts of Going Online upon Empathy in Young Adults,” Computers in Human Behavior 52 (November 2015): 39–48, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.05.026. 75

Carrier et al., 2015. p.40

P. Manney, “Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling Is the Key to Empathy,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 19, no. 1 (2008): 51–61.

Brad J. Bushman and Craig A. Anderson, “Comfortably Numb: Desensitizing Effects of Violent Media on Helping Others,” Psychological Science 20, no. 3 (March 2009): 273–77

To further converge towards our goal of facilitating a stronger interpersonal interaction by the means of human enhancement technology, our next step was to generate a series of prototypes that explored different starting points for real life interactions, inducing a stronger interpersonal dependence.

Interdependent Prototypes 95

Prototypes for Interdependent Interactions Arising from our explorations on independent individualism and suspected factors within empathy loss, we generated further ideas to work with. As stated before, we set the focus of our approach on the consecutive exploration of the most interesting aspects we had worked on so far, rather than perceiving them as problems we could solve by generating new ideas. It was more important for us to create prototypes which lead to a meaningful discussion with the users about the main aim of bodily enhancement than to confront them with solutions for the problem of empathy loss. From our new knowledge about the different suspected factors within empathy loss, as well as through general insights we had drawn throughout the process so far, we generated initial ideas for aspects we wanted to address within our explorative prototypes.

Conceptual Approaches Our concepts of Emotion Odour and Body-Located-Feeling both translate emotions into a different medium. As we have learned in our explorations concerning empathy loss, people are losing their ability to recognize nonverbal cues due to technologically mediated communication.78 We were lead to speculate about new ways of emotional transmission into different mediums. Emotion odour uses a different way of transmitting emotional states, via odour.

L. Mark Carrier et al., “Virtual Empathy: Positive and Negative Impacts of Go ing Online upon Empathy in Young Adults,” Computers in Human Behavior 52 (November 2015): 39–48

Having learned that human olfaction is “one of the most ubiquitous forms of social communication”79 we wanted to reconnect with this important human ability, by creating social interactions that were based on this principle. Moreover this could be a chance to revisit our question; have we already traded our basic instincts for a total reliance on technological indicators? Body-Located-Feeling also translates emotions into a different medium, but is more focused on the location on and in the body. Earlier in our design process we discussed projects according to their level of invasiveness and we found that this is not only determined by the enhancements’ position underneath or above the skin but also by its general location on the body. We were interested in finding out if it is possible to trigger different emotions depending where the input is being placed and what kind of medium it could be translated into. As a broader idea we came up with different forms of interpersonal synchronization to design a shared valuable experience. Height, face, body temperature, facial expression, heartbeat, odour, and voice are all body signals, or parts of the human body. Through synchronization, signals coming from two individuals could be merged to one common and shared unusual experience. This is in contrast to the concept of personal technology and personal media where users can communicate and interact at any given time without synchronizing.

Wen Zhou and Denise Chen, “Sociochemosensory and Emotional Functions: Behavioral Evidence for Shared Mechanisms,” Psychological Science 20, no. 9 (September 2009): 1118–24, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02413.x. p.1

Another idea we further wanted to work with was an interaction based on a specific time frame. Our concept of a 4 Minute Interaction aimed to create an interaction, which lasted for a fixed amount of time. We determined the duration through being inspired by the psychologist Arthur Aron who originally tested80 the relationship between eye contact and closeness by concluding that nothing connects you more intensely than four minutes of eye contact. As four minutes allow you to let somebody near you and to shed your prejudices, Amnesty International Poland reenacted Aron’s experiment in 2016“breaking down barriers between recently-arrived refugees and Europeans”.81 Can this experience be recreated with an interaction designed to last for four minutes, which cannot be interrupted, and therefore not escaped by its users?

Arthur Aron et al., “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23, no. 4 (April 1, 1997): 363–77.

“Look Refugees in the Eye: Powerful Video Experiment Breaks down Barriers,” accessed February 6, 2017, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ news/2016/05/look-refugees-in-the-eye/.

The Expression Shaper is a mouthpiece that influences from outside to trigger emotions and to learn and practice them. As already mentioned, people are increasingly losing their abilities to recognize the emotional states of others. Our idea is a tool to re-learn what these emotions feel like as well as a communication tool between people to talk about their feelings and emotions. We were inspired by the anatomist Guillaume Duchenne who experimented with electrical currents to stimulate facial muscles and was the first to discover a relation between the facial expression of a smile and a positive emotion.82 Furthermore, psychologist Paul Ekman described in 1972, a relationship between facial behavior and emotion for the basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.83 These emotions specifically are to be further explored using the Expression shaper. Interdependent Objects are objects which can only be used by two or more people cooperatively. Our research showed that both personal technology and personal media have a strong negative influence on our empathic abilities. Where personal technology increasingly connects people physically to their devices instead of other people, personal media “surround us with comforting, confirming information”84 and leaves its users lacking in exposure to different opinions. To counter these developments we thought of an object that brings people together within real life interactions that can only be used cooperatively. Guillaume Duchenne “The Psychological Study of Smiling,” Association for Psy chological Science, accessed January 15, 2017, http://www.psychological science.org/observer/the-psychological-study-of-smiling.

Paul Ekman, Wallace V. Friesen, and Phoebe Ellsworth, Emotion in the Human Face: Guidelines for Research and an Integration of Findings (Elsevier, 2013).

P. Manney, “Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling Is the Key to Empathy,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 19, no. 1 (2008): p. 53

100

To trigger further thoughts from our concepts we created playful collage visualizations. Through this more abstract visualization we were able to generate a wide range of possible forms for our prototypes.

101

Prototyping Our next step was to focus on the most interesting ideas for prototyping. We decided to design an Emotion Odour prototype because it addresses the idea of human instincts combined with enhancements. From the pool of ideas for synchronization we chose Face Syncing. It is a very intimate, personal and visual experience which, combined in one prototype, could be very powerful. We also picked the Expression Shaper as it is a direct interference with usual facial appearance and because it actually enters the human body, it is the most invasive of all our ideas. Our research highlighted the strong influence a smile can have on our emotions, something we wanted to explore further. Interdependent Objects are our more general approach to create a social interaction between two people, by the use of one artefact together. In contrast to the other ideas which address human instincts and emotions, this Interdependent Object will bring two people together through the collaborative use of an object. As we have already described within our design approach, we wanted to design the prototypes to be as aesthetically familiar as possible so that users can experience and relate to them more directly, inviting a more direct discussion about their concepts.

104

The Emotion Odour prototype consisted of six small containers. Each container was marked with a laser engraved image of one of the six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. We used arbitrary smells that were not specifically connected to the emotions, as olfactory emotion transmission usually happens unnoticed anyway. To trigger a general discussion about the concept within the testing we wanted to provide some kind of olfactory feedback connected to the visual representations of the emotions. We therefore used arbitrary smell feedback in favor of no olfactory feedback at all.

106

For the Expression Shaper we were inspired by cheek retractors used in dentistry. Each of the basic emotions was abstracted by us into a mouthpiece. We designed them to exaggerate the expression of what the mouth would look like while experiencing one of the six basic emotions. Once an appropriate form was found they were 3D printed.

107

For the Facial Synchronizer we created an analogue face syncing device which was done using a piece of acrylic glass, covered on both sides with a translucent mirror foil. We chose the hand mirror for our prototype to play on the topic of narcissism. One finding during our research on empathy was an overall increase of narcissism during recent years85 that is negatively correlated to empathy.86 This means the higher the increase in narcissism the higher the decrease in empathetic skills.

“Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory,” accessed December 19, 2016, https://www.research gate.net/publication/5342670_Egos_Inflating_Over_Time_A_Cross-Temporal_ Meta-Analysis_of_the_Narcissistic_Personality_Inventory.

108

Sara H. Konrath, Edward H. O’Brien, and Courtney Hsing, “Changes in Disposi tional Empathy in American College Students Over Time: A Meta-Analysis,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 15, no. 2 (May 1, 2011): 180–98

Our Interdependent Object consists of a laser cut two part pocket watch which we called an Interdependent Timer. Each piece on its own is only part of a clockface, it is not possible to read the time with only one part. Only when placed in the right way on top of each other, is the time revealed. A watch is an object almost everybody owns these days, either using their mobile phone, or a wristwatch and is displayed in various places around cities. It has not always been like this. We thought of the era when people asked each other for the time and implemented this thought into our Interdependent Timer.

109

Prototype Testing and Results Our prototypes were then tested by various people we came across at random. It was important to us to discuss each individual prototype with the users to get feedback and thoughts from them. The six different artificial scents we chose for the Emotion Odour triggered various reactions. It was a challenge for users to talk about the different odour we had chosen and relate them to our chosen set of emotions. Our users spoke about memories and situations they connected to the various odours. They also remembered other smells from their past and smells they link directly to situations. Overall we saw a strong connection between memories and scents but difficulties in linking them to specific emotions.

110

Testing the Expression Shaper we observed that when asked to put them into their mouths people did not hesitate as much as we had expected. Due to the forms of the prototypes we observed that the users had difficulties telling the six basic emotions apart and were not sure what emotion they were supposed to feel when wearing the different shaped mouthpieces. Mostly people started laughing once they saw themselves using the Expression Shaper and only once they knew which emotion the Expression Shaper was supposed to trigger did they then automatically try to imitate the emotion with their overall facial expression. At this point we observed a close connection to expression of the eyes and eyebrows. We also observed the moment the users looked at each other while wearing the Expression Shaper; they tried to mimic each other to see the analogue reaction. This revealed that the concept itself has a strong potential to evoke empathic reactions but nevertheless needed fine tuning regarding the right size and form for each emotion.

111

The Facial Synchronizer worked very well. People had a lot of fun trying it out, which we related to the particularly surprising quality of the moment when the usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; faces overlapped. In particular we noticed that people were curious to synchronize themselves with many different people, with contrasting appearances, for a more intense experience. It was interesting to see how people had to interact with each other by telling them to move their body into certain directions to attain a synchronized image in the mirror. We observed that the uncanny moment the faces perfectly overlapped was such a strong experience that people did not stay in this position and jumped right out of it.

112

With only one of the two components of the pocket watch in hand, users were initially confused by the Interdependent Object. They first tried to figure out by themselves what they were supposed to do. After a little while people started to talk to each other to analyze the objects. Once this happened they solved the mystery through interaction and by laying both pieces on top of each other to read the time. Users were surprised, but as the interaction was over once this had happened, we noted that the object needed to be more inviting for a truly valuable interaction.

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For us it was great to test our ideas in a very early stage of our process, and to include other people in this process. This showed us which prototypes could lead to the desired discussion: What kind of enhancements are desirable, and for what purpose? For us the Facial Synchronizer, the Expression Shaper, and the Interdependent Timer had the strongest responses. In the case of Facial Synchronizer and the Expression Shaper, we observed a strong reaction in the moment of synchronisation. Synchronisation as a tool for creating a valuable interaction was a key learning point from these two prototypes, which we wanted to think about further in our project. The Interdependent Timer was interesting but not powerful enough to stay as an interaction on its own. We therefore developed the idea of the Interdependent Timer into a more general concept of increased interdependent interactions. This became a key element of the hypothesis we wanted to create to further guide our prototyping process. To focus on the goal we were trying to achieve with our prototypes we framed a hypothesis. It clarified what kind of interactions our prototypes needed to provide. Our hypothesis formed the basis for our second prototyping approach. It proved necessary to design a second set of prototypes since our initial prototypes did not achieve the quality we needed for a valuable interaction. We decided not to improve our first prototypes but to develop new ideas, which focused more strongly on the interdependency of the interactions.

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Hypothesis: Increasing interdependent interactions will positively reinforce empathic abilities.

Video Prototypes To guide us through the next phase we formulated 3 core factors we wanted to embed within the next set of prototypes to achieve a stronger experiential quality. The prototypes should invite an exploration by the user to gain a more enduring experience, the interaction with them should be accessible as direct as possible and not mediated by too many distracting side factors and on their aesthetic level we wanted to gain an appropriate level of familiarity for a closer emotional connection between the objects and their users. When considering the main motivations of the prototypes we had another look at The Good Life Workshop we had held earlier in the project. What did participants enhance themselves to do, and for what reasons? The general tendency to wish for longer legs, more muscle strength, bigger hands and enhanced senses in general, inspired us to address these longings with a diverse range of interdependent interactions in these areas: size, hearing and vision. To illustrate our ideas we created 3 video prototypes: Altruistic Stilts, Collaborative Hearing-Aid and Synchronic Spectacles. The video format of the prototypes enabled us to quickly sketch the functionality in a short example of their use, without getting distracted by the technical tinkering process. We built the necessary props to illustrate our ideas and asked two people to enact the interdependent interactions we wanted to achieve.

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Altruistic Stilts are wooden stilts which are strapped to someone’s legs but are mainly usable by another person. We liked the idea of having an enhancement that enhanced not oneself but another person. The Collaborative Hearing-Aid is a device that enhances the hearing experience. When used alone it gives a more focused hearing experience but put together with another device the function of an even more sensitive hearing experience is enabled. Our third prototype the Synchronic Spectacles, empowered its users to immediately experience their own perspective with a soft overlay of another person’s vision and thereby gain extra information from their diverse way of looking at things. To gain further insights into the ability of our second set of prototypes to elicit interesting conversations about the preferable futures of human enhancement, we now wanted to present our designs to people outside of our process. To try a different approach to the user testing we had conducted within the first prototyping session, we now reached out to two art and design professionals, who had already addressed this topic within their work, and asked them if they would be willing to have a conversation with us. Our video prototypes functioned as starting points for the discussions we held with them. We created a website87 which contained our abstract and both prototyping approaches, to enable the people we approached with our discussion requests to get an overview about our process thus far.

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“Collective Confidence,” Florian Adam — Interaction Designer, accessed February 27, 2017, http://florianadam.eu/collective-confidence/.

Prototype Conversations We had the opportunity to talk to Susanna Hertrich and Fabian Hemmert who had worked together on the Synthetic Empathy88 project, which we have already discussed in our explorations on the topic of Instinctual Prostheses. Susanna Hertrich89 is a multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Basel and Berlin and Fabian Hemmert90 a design researcher and professor for Interface and User Experience at the University of Wuppertal. Both conversations enabled us to critically challenge our previous ideas and prototypes through the eyes of these two professionals within art and design research. Introducing them to our project with the help of the website worked really well and in both cases the conversation moved beyond the mere assessment of our prototypes. It was an interesting challenge to present our project to someone completely new to the project, within a very short timeframe and enabled us to focus on the key points of our process. The specific feedback we received from them regarding our prototypes helped us to first of all step back and look at them from a more distanced perspective and second of all to gain new insights about the more general motivations we were trying to achieve with them.

Susanna Hertrich et al., “Synthetic Empathy: Somaesthetic Body Actuation as a Means of Emotional Evocation,” In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop of Devices that Alter Perception (Seoul, Korea, October 13th, 2010). DAP ‘10. (2010).

“Susanna Hertrich,” accessed February 17, 2017, http://susannahertrich.com/ about.shtml.

“Prof. Dr.-Ing. Fabian Hemmert,” accessed February 17, 2017, http://www. fabianhemmert.com/.

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Principles for Interdepent Interactions 123

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Principles for Interdependent Interactions From the insights we gained during both our prototyping sessions we went on to generate universal principles for the design of interdependent interactions. These principles are for interdependently focused interactions in general and are not limited to the sphere of bodily enhancement alone. They are as follows: 1. Immediacy

The interaction needs to be accessible as immediately as possible without being mediated by too many distractors.

2. Familiarity

The level of familiarity has to be adequately chosen in order to meet the interacting objects from where they are standing.

3. Universality

The linking mechanism within the interaction should be as universally compatible as possible.

4. Reciprocity

The exchange happening within the interaction needs to work in both directions.

5. Intimacy

The physical distance between the interacting subjects should be kept as minimal as possible.

6. Additionality

The interaction should add a quality that can not be achieved by the interacting objects on their own.

7. Emotionality

The gain happening within the interaction needs to go beyond the level of pure functionality.

8. Sustainability The quality of the interaction should have sustainable effects for the interacting objects.

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1. Immediacy The interaction needs to be accessible as immediately as possible without being mediated by too many distractors.

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2. Familiarity The level of familiarity has to be adequately chosen in order to meet the interacting objects from where they are standing.

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3. Universality The linking mechanism within the interaction should be as universally compatible as possible.

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4. Reciprocity The exchange happening within the interaction needs to work in both directions.

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5. Intimacy The physical distance between the interacting subjects should be kept as minimal as possible.

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6. Additionality The interaction should add a quality that can not be achieved by the interacting objects on their own.

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7. Emotionality The gain happening within the interaction needs to go beyond the level of pure functionality.

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8. Sustainability The quality of the interaction should have sustainable effects for the interacting objects.

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Conclusion The main aim of our thesis project was to take a critical look at recent developments in human enhancement technologies. Recognising the deep rootedness of technology use within human history, we did not want to question the successive approximation of man and technology in general, but rather to critically examine the consequences that could arise from this trend. Paying special attention to the motivational factors for technological body modification, through both theoretical and practical methodologies, showed us an extreme focus on individual independence with a spine chilling outlook on what could be ahead of us. To counterbalance these developments we consequently focused our project on the interdependent qualities that are currently lacking in enhancement discussions but which could contribute crucially to a more desirable prospect. Being particularly interested in the design of interactions, we wanted to focus especially on the interactive qualities these developments imply. After gaining some initial theoretical insights into the artificial nature of humankind, we worked out a design approach that would address the topic most appropriately. It became clear quite quickly, that dealing with a topic as enormous as ‘the future of human nature’ demands a really open approach. Dunne and Raby’s explorations within Critical- and Speculative Design91 greatly helped us to stake out the territory we wanted to explore. Their views on different futures enabled us to sharpen our perceptions towards the kind of predictions we wanted to work with.

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming (Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London: The Mit Press, 2014).

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We realized that we were more interested in speculating about preferable alternatives than working within the framework of scientific forecasts that might be likely to happen. To us the core duty as well as the core freedom of the design discipline lies in the liberation from scientific strictures in order to work on prospects that are more preferable than they are plausible. Taking a closer look at the kind of criticism that is usually used within critical design projects, we determined that we did not want to create a dystopic scenario to fuel a conversation about the contrary future we all actually wish for instead. As the discourse is already supersaturated with frightening forecasts, we thought alternative directions might attract more attention. In thinking about the visual language and level of impact that is usually used within speculative design projects, we decided to use a more democratic approach that addresses a public beyond the usual white space gallery visitors. One way of achieving this proximity to our audience was to repeatedly assess our ideas in relation to their level of aesthetic invasivity, we did this with the aid of a framework we established during the critical examination of existing projects. Another way of gaining a closer proximity between us and people outside of the process was to repeatedly invite them into various stages of the process to critically challenge our assumptions. Distancing ourselves from established project discourses and framing the very specific mindset we wanted to operate within was a new experience that was as challenging as it was fruitful. Without having anything to compare ourselves to we continuously had to find our own frameworks to elaborate our work and to progress through the project. On the one hand this gave us enormous freedom to be very flexible at each turn the project took and on the other hand it

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continuously left us feeling very uncertain as to whether we were proceeding in the right direction. An example of this uncertainty is how, in the participatory sessions during our initial prototyping, we realized that we were focusing too much on predictable experiences and were therefore failing to allow for a more unforeseeable gaining of knowledge to happen. We therefore adjusted our second prototyping approach by formulating a hypothesis that framed our expectations in a way that allowed for validation by both parties, while keeping the way our prototypes were experienced as undirected as possible. To open up our explorations and insights from the prototyping processes and make them more accessible to a broader public, we concluded by proposing general principles for interdependent interactions. These principles consciously supercede the sphere of human enhancement and interpersonal encounters to allow a more general application of the knowledge we have gained through the process. Expanding the discussion about preferable futures of humankind to a broader public was one of our main desires for this project. We are dealing with developments that concern every single human being and we believe it is indisputable that this conversation should not be held by a small circle of experts alone. It is the responsibility of the design discipline to enter the body of professionals that is currently shaping our communal futures and to continually expand the perspective from which it is operating. In order to truly move towards this genuinely empathetic approach, future explorations will need to have a much more radical focus on these participatory qualities.

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List of Figures Artificial by Nature P.10 “iPhone SE/5/5S Glitter Shell Case.” Skinnydip London. Accessed February 13, 2017. http://www.skinnydiplondon. com/products/iphone-se-5-5s-glitter-shell-case. P.11

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“Dunne & Raby – Critical . Design.” Accessed February 20, 2017. http://critical.design/dunne-raby/.

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“99¢ FUTURES - The Extrapolation Factory.” Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.extrapolationfactory.com/99-FUTURES.

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“99¢ FUTURES - The Extrapolation Factory.” Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.extrapolationfactory.com/99-FUTURES.

Project Clustering P.42 “Google-Glass-Brille-Header.jpg (1244×830).” Accessed February 20, 2017. https://i2.wp.com/www.mobiflip.de/ wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Google-Glass-Brille-Header. P.43 Kastrenakes, Jacob. “Human-Animal Hybrid Organs Imagine Organic Implants of the Future.” The Verge, July 8, 2013. http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/8/4505140/concept custom-organ-replaces-implants-with-animal-genes. P.44 “LUCY MCRAE.” Propela. Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.propela.co.uk/lucymcrae/. P.45 “Meet Graham.” Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.meetgraham.com.au. P.54 “Meet Graham.” Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.meetgraham.com.au. P.55 “Design Indaba Videos: Revital Cohen.” Dezeen, March 11, 2009. https://www.dezeen.com/2009/03/11/design-indaba videos-revital-cohen/. P.55

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“The Modular Body.” Next Nature Network. Accessed February 20, 2017. https://www.nextnature.net/projects/the-modular-body/.

P.56 “AGI HAINES: Re-Designing The Human Race.” The Front. Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.thefront.com/read/ agi-haines-interview/. P.56

“BIO.FICTION” Aphasia Mechanica, 2011. Accessed February 20, 2017. https://vimeo.com/22109235.

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P.61 “These Microchip Press-on Nails Could Revolutionise London Travel.” Justine Fashion, July 16, 2016. http://justinefashion. net/these-microchip-press-on-nails-could-revolutionise-london-travel/. Artificial Autonomy P.86

Gandini, Erik. The Swedish Theory of Love. Documentary, 2016.

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The Good Life Workshop Presentation

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Prototype Testing - Facial Synchronizer

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Prototype Testing - Expression Shaper

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Prototype Testing - Interdependent Object

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Prototype Testing - Emotion Odour

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Video Prototpye - Altruistic Stilts

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Video Prototype - Collaborative Hearing-Aid

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Video Prototype - Synchronic Spectacles

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In this project we explore the interconnectedness between technology and the human body by proposing opportunities how we can shift this development towards a more empathic societal future. We are discussing how the evolution of human beings can be tightly related to the development of existential tools leading to the insight that artificial components are very hard to separate from human nature. Recent developments within technology further shrink this proximity between the natural and the artificial by increasingly exceeding the outer limits of the human body and entering its inner areas. Research in the field of bodily enhancement technologies has shown that its core focus on individual independence, induced by technologies, might move us further away from each other and from ourselves. New enhancement technologies are mainly used to reinforce personal strengths and thus create more independence for the individual. Personal technologies, which are highly focused on individual needs, are not taking the universal human aspiration for social interaction into account. To reroute this trend towards a more empathetic path, we are proposing principles for interdependent interactions to enhance a future that is focused on collective confidence rather than on artificial autonomy.

Florian Adam & Romy Engel Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design 2017