Research Work-in-progress show and Workshop: How meaningful emotional relations are co-constructed between human and their wearable robotic artefacts?

Time: 3pm, 21 January, 2016

Venue: Royal College of Art, South Kensington Site, Darwin Building, 5th floor, Fashion & Textile research studio.

Duration: 60min
Group size: 6-20 people

Description:
The workshop presents robotic artefacts, which are essentially machines but with organic appearance and sensual movements responsive to human emotional cues. Unlike computational artefacts which are often presented with clear-defined affordance, the artefacts in this workshop, with their vagueness in identity, produce a place of open-ended emergence and becoming (Pickering and Guzik, 2008: ix) and enable a process of relation forming at individual level. The design perceives emotion as interaction (Kirsten et al, 2007) and supports the understanding, interpretation and experiencing of emotions as its aim.

We welcome all interested minds to join us.

We will first share our personal experience and insights on what is meaningful emotional relationship between human and wearable objects. We then have hands on experience with these robotic artefacts. We compare them with technological artefacts including sociable robots.  We will set free our imagination and discussion in pairs on possible relations with these objects. Finally we will discuss the the potential of wearable robotic artefacts be an active agent in co-constructing meaningful emotional relations with humans.

Please email yan.zheng@network.rca.ac.uk to confirm participation.