Danielle Wilde
Umeå University, Umeå Institute of Design, Faculty Member
- University of Southern Denmark, Institute of Design and Communication, Faculty Memberadd
- noneedit
- Danielle Wilde is professor of design for sustainability at Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University, Sweden, and as... moreDanielle Wilde is professor of design for sustainability at Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University, Sweden, and associate professor of embodied design at the University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg. Wilde’s research examines how embodied engagement with the materiality of the world can assist people in thinking in new ways; developing new possibilities for future action that can be implemented today; alternative responses to challenges we face, whether these are planetary in scale or concern the nature within us. In this work, Wilde uses performative and probiotic methods, participatory and speculative research through design, to open up new ways of thinking, through moving, making and doing. Much of her current research is focused on food. For more, see daniellewilde.comedit
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The human food system is complex; has significant social and environmental impact; and raises questions around identity and culture. This mix of individual, collective, public, private and environmental concerns positions Environmental... more
The human food system is complex; has significant social and environmental impact; and raises questions around identity and culture. This mix of individual, collective, public, private and environmental concerns positions Environmental Citizenship (EC) central to food system transformation. We discuss three 'FUSILLI' food living labs-a food waste NGO; a venue for creative experimentation of alternative food practices; and a forest-based library. These living labs use participatory research through design to place citizens at the forefront of change processes. We analyse them using the model of Education for Environmental Citizenship to consider how they foster EC and thereby sustainable food system transformation.
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Anticipation holds that imaginaries of future situations can provide orientation in decision making, despite the incalculability of outcomes. The Shit! project turns this premise towards the rift between humans and 'the rest of our... more
Anticipation holds that imaginaries of future situations can provide orientation in decision making, despite the incalculability of outcomes. The Shit! project turns this premise towards the rift between humans and 'the rest of our nature'. The project uses experimental means to examine how anticipation-performed through moving, making and doing with food-might assist people to envision and then perform healthier relationships with their gut microbiome. The imaginary is human|microbiome harmony, pleasurably negotiated through what goes into our bodies, materially, sensorially, nutritionally, and emotionally, and what comes out-our shit. To anticipate from and towards this imaginary, we use autoethnographic inquiry to estrange researcher thinking, a 'kitchen research lab in the wild' to expose early ideas to public scrutiny, and a fourpart workshop to estrange participant thinking. The workshop was conducted with people who struggle with serious gut disease, and close family members with ostensibly healthy guts. The activities reconfigure embodied design methods around, with and through food to engender a fertile space in which participants may address vulnerability and taboo, and embody anticipation of alternative relationships with their gut microbiome. The work introduces food and eating as anticipative actions for world-making, to support participant engagement with challenging subjects.
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Backpacks are often heavy and can be a significant cause of pain. To avoid pain, they must be worn in a certain way and readjusted when they move. Yet, recognising when to adjust a backpack is not self-evident. It is an evolving embodied... more
Backpacks are often heavy and can be a significant cause of pain. To avoid pain, they must be worn in a certain way and readjusted when they move. Yet, recognising when to adjust a backpack is not self-evident. It is an evolving embodied process---a subtle, negotiation between body and pack. We present Sensepack, a wearable that sits in-between a backpacker's body and their pack. Sensepack supports novice backpackers to learn to recognise and sense backpack displacement. It monitors shifts in weight distribution, using four textile-sensors to determine imbalances and provides tactile, real-time feedback. We evaluated Sensepack through user testing---indoors on stairs, and in the field. Our preliminary findings suggest that Sensepack may be useful for learning to identify shifts in backpack weight that can cause long-term stress on the body.
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Deploying wearable technologies in the performing arts not only concerns costume wearers but affects further stakeholders whose work is impacted by the interactive effects or who help maintain the technology. Beyond the wearer, literature... more
Deploying wearable technologies in the performing arts not only concerns costume wearers but affects further stakeholders whose work is impacted by the interactive effects or who help maintain the technology. Beyond the wearer, literature neglects how these other stakeholders engage with interactive costumes, though a performance production is based on the contribution of many parties. We conducted a longitudinal study to examine how stakeholders of a youth ballet production experience and appropriate interactive costuming. Our findings suggest that user experiences vary according to stakeholders' closeness to the costume, background and taste, the costume interaction mode and social environment. We expand existing models of technology appropriation with two novel technology relations: professional reserve and polite indifference. Based on these, we suggest integration into existing practices, to design for the show, and create positive experiences to incorporate interactive cos...
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Socialization, eating and play are core activities that make us human. While they are often brought together, play theory suggests that their combination has unexplored potential in the context of gastronomy. Our research also indicates... more
Socialization, eating and play are core activities that make us human. While they are often brought together, play theory suggests that their combination has unexplored potential in the context of gastronomy. Our research also indicates that a chef’s desire to control the meal may be a key impediment to developing dining experiences in which the diner’s playful engagement impacts taste, texture and flavour combination. We investigate if combining participatory research through design and play theory might better situate chefs to diversify their approach to playful gastronomy. Using experimental design methods, we interviewed a chef, a maître d’, a professional gastronomist, two food enthusiasts and a novice, to identify overlooked opportunities to extend play in gastronomy. We then conducted a series of dinners – designed with and for experts, enthusiasts and novices – to explore these opportunities, and tested the resulting method through a workshop with student chefs and game desi...
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We present a range of body-worn devices that have evolved from a common design intent: 'to move the body through real and virtual extension'. These devices encourage people to move in extra-normal ways, and thereby view and... more
We present a range of body-worn devices that have evolved from a common design intent: 'to move the body through real and virtual extension'. These devices encourage people to move in extra-normal ways, and thereby view and experience their bodies from perhaps hitherto unknown perspectives. They provide a rich playground for self-expression, as well as learning opportunities that we believe might be relevant for people with physical challenges and unconventional or altered abilities. Our desire in presenting this work to the ArtAbilitation community is to open up a dialogue and examine opportunities for engagement.
She Ji is a peer-reviewed, trans-disciplinary design journal published by Elsevier in collaboration with Tongji University and Tongji University Press. She Ji focuses on economics and innovation, design process and design thinking. The... more
She Ji is a peer-reviewed, trans-disciplinary design journal published by Elsevier in collaboration with Tongji University and Tongji University Press. She Ji focuses on economics and innovation, design process and design thinking. The mission of the journal is to enable design innovation in industry, business, non-profit services, and government through economic and social value creation. Innovation requires integrating ideas, economics, and technology to create new knowledge at the intersection of different fields. She Ji provides a forum for interdisciplinary inquiry.
Research Interests: Economic History, Anthropology, Communication, Design, Creativity studies, and 15 moreCreativity, Design Creativity, Design Management, Design Theory, Design Research, Applied Anthropology, Design Innovation, Consumer Behavior, Design Anthropology, Design thinking, Creative thinking, Creative Economies, Architectural Design, Creative Economy, and Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
This proposal describes a modular system for creating light- based planar body extrusions that make visible the spatial relationships inherent in gestures and postures. The aim of the system is to afford clearer insight into the dynamics... more
This proposal describes a modular system for creating light- based planar body extrusions that make visible the spatial relationships inherent in gestures and postures. The aim of the system is to afford clearer insight into the dynamics of gesture, and the spatial interplay between body parts, a person and their surroundings. Two different forms of light-extrusions are proposed. The system
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Extending the body with technology affords a re-examination of the body as a dynamic system by magnifying underlying, often overlooked, mechanical processes and relationships. Technological extensions can provide an experiential bridge... more
Extending the body with technology affords a re-examination of the body as a dynamic system by magnifying underlying, often overlooked, mechanical processes and relationships. Technological extensions can provide an experiential bridge between what we see, hear or feel and what we believe we know about the body in time and space. They can also provide a platform through which to
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ABSTRACT Sustainability in (Inter)Action provides a forum for innovative thought, design, and research in the area of interaction design and environmental sustainability. The forum explores how HCI can contribute to the complex and... more
ABSTRACT Sustainability in (Inter)Action provides a forum for innovative thought, design, and research in the area of interaction design and environmental sustainability. The forum explores how HCI can contribute to the complex and interdisciplinary efforts to ...
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In this paper we discuss the value of an open, responsive research structure in the context of a multi faceted, critical design project that has participation at its core. Problems with data delivery rendered our original design research... more
In this paper we discuss the value of an open, responsive research structure in the context of a multi faceted, critical design project that has participation at its core. Problems with data delivery rendered our original design research structure unviable. Turning to the crafts that underpinned our research enabled the emergence of a new–open and responsive–structure. As a direct result, we arrived at a number of unexpected, highly valuable outcomes. The contributions of this paper are fourfold: 1) we provide a 'live' story from research practice, within which, 2) we argue the usefulness of a core provocative question to ensure saliency of critical designs, 3) we demonstrate the value of unresolved prototypes in eliciting participant engagement, and 4) we discuss how craft can serve as method, technique and tool to scaffold an open, responsive research structure. A number of researchers have highlighted the need for documentation and reporting of design process [9, 20, 37, 42] including, specifically, in the context of critical design [6]. We respond to these calls.
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Physical discomfort can be highly personal, difficult to discern from the outside, challenging to effectively communicate. Yet communicating discomfort can be of great value. We present a method for developing wear-ables that transfer one... more
Physical discomfort can be highly personal, difficult to discern from the outside, challenging to effectively communicate. Yet communicating discomfort can be of great value. We present a method for developing wear-ables that transfer one person's discomfort to another: a modified fashion ideation process that enables a person to bring their hidden embodied experiences into wearable form. Using five complementary foci, the method seeks to simulate rather than replicate; to support people to find abstracted expressions for their lived experiences of discomfort, with which to negotiate shared understanding. The resulting wearables support empathic engagement with how another person might feel.
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Embodied design ideation practices work with relationships between body, material and context to enliven design and research potential. Methods are often idiosyncratic and – due to their physical nature – not easily transferred. This... more
Embodied design ideation practices work with relationships between body, material and context to enliven design and research potential. Methods are often idiosyncratic and – due to their physical nature – not easily transferred. This presents challenges for designers wishing to develop and share techniques or contribute to research. We present a framework that enables designers to understand, describe and contextualise their embodied design ideation practices in ways that can be understood by peers, as well as those new to embodied ideation. Our framework – developed over two conference workshops – provides a frame for discussion of embodied design actions that leverage the power of estrangement. We apply our framework to eight embodied design ideation methods. Our contribution is thus twofold: (1) a framework to understand and leverage the power of estrangement in embodied design ideation, and (2) an inspirational catalogue demonstrating the diversity of ideas that embodied design ideation methods can foster.
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Embodied design ideation (EDI) practices work with relationships between body, material and context to enliven design and research potential. Methods are often idiosyncratic and – due to their physical nature – not easily transferred. As... more
Embodied design ideation (EDI) practices work with relationships between body, material and context to enliven design and research potential. Methods are often idiosyncratic and – due to their physical nature – not easily transferred. As independent researchers, and as collaborators, we have been engaging with this problematic for some time. At CHI2017 we will present a framework that enables designers to understand, describe and contextualise EDI practices in ways that can be understood by peers, as well as those new to embodied ideation. Our framework affords discussion of embodied design actions that leverage the power of estrangement. In developing our framework we engaged with numerous researchers who use estrangement as a key activator in embodied design ideation. We thus bring to the workshop (1) a framework to understand and leverage the power of estrangement in embodied design ideation, (2) our individual approaches to EDI, developed over many years of research practice and (3) an inspirational catalogue demonstrating the diversity of ideas that EDI methods can foster.
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In this paper we discuss the value of an open, responsive research structure in the context of a multi faceted, critical design project that has participation at its core. Problems with data delivery rendered our original design research... more
In this paper we discuss the value of an open, responsive research structure in the context of a multi faceted, critical design project that has participation at its core. Problems with data delivery rendered our original design research structure unviable. Turning to the crafts that underpinned our research enabled the emergence of a new–open and responsive–structure. As a direct result, we arrived at a number of unexpected, highly valuable outcomes. The contributions of this paper are fourfold: 1) we provide a 'live' story from research practice, within which, 2) we argue the usefulness of a core provocative question to ensure saliency of critical designs, 3) we demonstrate the value of unresolved prototypes in eliciting participant engagement, and 4) we discuss how craft can serve as method, technique and tool to scaffold an open, responsive research structure. A number of researchers have highlighted the need for documentation and reporting of design process [9, 20, 37, ...
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Research Interests:
ABSTRACT People often engage in physical activity with others, yet wearable technologies like heart rate monitors typically focus on individual usage. In response, we discuss the potential of heart rate displays in a social context, by... more
ABSTRACT People often engage in physical activity with others, yet wearable technologies like heart rate monitors typically focus on individual usage. In response, we discuss the potential of heart rate displays in a social context, by means of an augmented cycling helmet that displays heart rate data. We studied how pairs of cyclists engaged with this setup and found that access to another person's heart rate data can result in social interplay which in turn supports engagement with the exertion activity. Through our design process and study, we reveal key dimensions of designing for social uses of heart rate data and wearable displays: temporal and spatial accessibility of data, technology support for its interpretation, and influences on heart rate. We also articulate a set of insights for designers that aim to support social exertion activities with heart rate data. As such, our work expands our understanding of wearable technologies' unique interaction opportunities.
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hipDisk is a wearable interface that extends the hips and torso horizontally to give the moving body musical capabilities. The device prompts wearers to move in strange ways, bypassing norms of self-constraint, to actuate sound. As the... more
hipDisk is a wearable interface that extends the hips and torso horizontally to give the moving body musical capabilities. The device prompts wearers to move in strange ways, bypassing norms of self-constraint, to actuate sound. As the wearer bends and twists their torso, causing the disks to touch, a single tone may be triggered through the integrated speakers. The result
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ABSTRACT Groundbreaking neuroplasticity research demonstrates how interactive technologies can be used to leverage and increase our brain's capacity to learn. Importantly, unless specific physical pathologies are being addressed,... more
ABSTRACT Groundbreaking neuroplasticity research demonstrates how interactive technologies can be used to leverage and increase our brain's capacity to learn. Importantly, unless specific physical pathologies are being addressed, this research remains screen-based, overlooking the rich multi-modal capacities of the human body. Embodied interaction affords multi-sensory experiences and heightened engagement. It allows for a broad palette of activities, as well as powerful leverage of the indelible intertwining of body and brain. This paper argues that embodied interaction, in particular poetic-kinaesthetic engagement in artistic activities, may powerfully compliment existing techniques for stimulating neuroplastic change.
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The Light Arrays project explores the extension of the body through an array of visible light beams projecting on the environment a dynamic representation of the body, its movement and posture. Interestingly, these light cues are visible... more
The Light Arrays project explores the extension of the body through an array of visible light beams projecting on the environment a dynamic representation of the body, its movement and posture. Interestingly, these light cues are visible both for the user wearing the device as well as for others. The result is an experiential bridge between what we see and what we feel or know about the dynamic, moving body. The Light Arrays afford augmented proprioception, generated through the artificial visual feedback system; enhanced body interaction prompted by the interactively augmented body image (in time and space); as well as a clear visual representation of interpersonal and inter-structural | architectural space.
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The boundaries between 'the digital' and our everyday physical world are dissolving as we develop more physical ways of interacting with computing. This forum presents some of the topics discussed in the... more
The boundaries between 'the digital' and our everyday physical world are dissolving as we develop more physical ways of interacting with computing. This forum presents some of the topics discussed in the colorful multidisciplinary field of tangible and embodied interaction. Eva Hornecker, Editor
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Being in our bodies is so natural that it can slip out of our awareness. Yet the simple act of paying attention to our movement reconnects us with the body. In our technology-centered world, moving to design and designing to move restore... more
Being in our bodies is so natural that it can slip out of our awareness. Yet the simple act of paying attention to our movement reconnects us with the body. In our technology-centered world, moving to design and designing to move restore the concept of design as bodily activity. Focusing on how moving can develop “knowing bodies” is an important design strategy that may radically impact the way designers work.
It is almost impossible to imagine what lies ahead. What will the future bring? How could life be different? The OWL project is an evolving interrogation of how we might imagine technologies that do not yet exist. How can we support the... more
It is almost impossible to imagine what lies ahead. What will the future bring? How could life be different? The OWL project is an evolving interrogation of how we might imagine technologies that do not yet exist. How can we support the emergence of radical future technologies that reflect and respond to our personal desires?