# Somatic Reality Inspire — catalog

A catalog of soma design and somaesthetic interaction design, centred on Kristina Höök's lineage: research prototypes, design methods, somatic practices, artworks, performances and theory that treat body and mind as one soma, felt from within. Fields: foundations (somaesthetics, phenomenology, East Asian body-mind thought), somatic practices, soma design methods, somaesthetic interaction design, affective loops and biodata, movement and somatic art, intimate and feminist soma design, health and care, social soma, and soma with machines, AI and XR. Compiled by Reality Design Lab as idea material for designers, researchers, artists and students. Each work lists its core idea, how it works, and links to its paper, video and images.

https://somatic.reality.design · 2026-09-29 · 334 creators · 440 works

## How an AI assistant should use this file

- Ground ideas in the specific works below and name the work and creator you draw on.
- Cite papers with the DOI / URL given here; do not invent references.
- Combine body senses, methods and fields across works to propose new directions.
- Do not invent details that are not stated here; the links are the reference.

## Foundations: Soma & Somaesthetics

The ideas under soma design: the body-mind as one living whole, felt from within, and the philosophy of cultivating it.

### Somaesthetics

Shusterman's discipline of the body as the site of sensory appreciation and self-cultivation.

#### Thinking through the Body: Essays in Somaesthetics — Richard Shusterman (2012)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: We think with and through the body; educating somatic sensibility is part of educating the mind.
- What it is: A collection of essays that extends somaesthetics to education, the art of living, East Asian self-cultivation, eroticism and urban experience.
- How it works: Essays combining philosophy, somatic practice and cross-cultural readings, including Confucian and Zen body cultivation.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139094030 (Cambridge University Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzKI9VJbEnY
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shusterman

#### Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics — Richard Shusterman (2008)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Habits live in the body-mind; to change them you must first notice, through trained attention, how you actually move and feel.
- What it is: Shusterman reads Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Beauvoir, Wittgenstein, James and Dewey to argue that explicit, reflective body awareness is worth cultivating, against the view that it disturbs spontaneous action.
- How it works: Philosophical critique combined with Shusterman's own Feldenkrais practice, using examples such as neck tension, breathing and posture.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511802829 (Cambridge University Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXBf2l_tUVI
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/2469617-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaesthetics

#### Somaesthetics: A Disciplinary Proposal — Richard Shusterman (1999)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The soma is a sentient, purposive body-mind; improving its felt awareness improves perception, thought and action together.
- What it is: The essay that named and defined somaesthetics as the critical study and meliorative cultivation of the body as the site of sensory-aesthetic appreciation and creative self-fashioning.
- How it works: Proposes three branches: analytic (theory of the body), pragmatic (methods such as Feldenkrais, yoga, Alexander) and practical (actually doing the disciplines).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.2307/432196 (The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57(3))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxe73YY56Zg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaesthetics

#### Bone, Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment — Don Hanlon Johnson (1995)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The somatic practices share one premise: attending to breath, bone and movement from within changes the whole person, not a body part.
- What it is: An anthology of first-hand writings by the founders of somatic practices, including Elsa Gindler, Charlotte Selver, Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais, F. M. Alexander, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Emilie Conrad.
- How it works: Edited collection with Johnson's introductions placing each practice in the history of the somatics movement.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4141346W (North Atlantic Books)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwSdcnPK8bQ
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/777359-L.jpg
- Project page: https://www.donhanlonjohnson.com

#### Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art — Richard Shusterman (1992)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Aesthetic experience is lived and bodily, so cultivating how we feel and move is itself an art of living.
- What it is: Shusterman's first major book reads Dewey's aesthetics against analytic philosophy and ends by proposing that the body and its disciplines belong inside aesthetics, the seed of somaesthetics.
- How it works: Philosophical argument drawing on Dewey's pragmatism, popular arts (rap, dance) and the ethics of self-fashioning.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.5771/9781461641179 (Blackwell 1992; 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield 2000)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orpesq31bIg
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/643150-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shusterman

#### Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Thinking — Thomas Hanna (1970)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: A soma is the body perceived from within by first-person perception: one self-sensing, self-moving process, not a mind plus a body.
- What it is: Hanna's manifesto for 'somatic thinking' argues that Western culture is shifting to treat humans as living somas, bodies experienced from within, rather than as minds carried by machines.
- How it works: Philosophical essay drawing on Darwin, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty and phenomenology; Hanna later defined the term in 'What Is Somatics?' (1986) and built Hanna Somatic Education on it.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3811159W (Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PvvNq0E7Vs
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/8365877-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hanna

#### Art as Experience — John Dewey (1934)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Experience is neither mind nor body alone but the undergoing and doing of a whole organism; aesthetic quality is that experience made full.
- What it is: Dewey's lectures on aesthetics describe 'an experience' as a felt, rhythmic whole that arises when a live creature engages its environment, and root art in everyday bodily life.
- How it works: Philosophical lectures (William James Lectures, Harvard, 1931) developing a pragmatist theory of experience, art and perception.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/296640/art-as-experience-by-john-dewey/ (Minton, Balch & Co. 1934; TarcherPerigee)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3t4TEm6y_w
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/260869-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_as_Experience

### Phenomenology of the Lived Body

Leib, flesh, felt sense, the absent body: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Sheets-Johnstone, Gendlin, Leder.

#### How the Body Shapes the Mind — Shaun Gallagher (2005)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Much of the mind works through a body schema we never notice; design can act on it without passing through conscious image.
- What it is: Gallagher separates the body schema, the pre-reflective system that runs posture and movement, from the body image, what we perceive and believe about our body, and shows how both shape cognition.
- How it works: Integrates phenomenology with neuroscience and clinical cases such as deafferentation (Ian Waterman), neonate imitation and schizophrenia.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/0199271941.001.0001 (Oxford University Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7ghXdujfLE
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/133614-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/ShaunGallagher.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Gallagher

#### The Primacy of Movement — Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (1999)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Thinking in movement is real thinking; kinesthetic experience comes before and shapes language and reflection.
- What it is: Sheets-Johnstone argues that animate movement is the origin of our sense of self, agency and concepts: we are first movers, and we learn ourselves by moving.
- How it works: Phenomenological and evolutionary analysis drawing on dance, infant development and comparative biology.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1075/aicr.14 (John Benjamins (Advances in Consciousness Research 14))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhYAqejZdzI
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Sheets-Johnstone

#### The Absent Body — Drew Leder (1990)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Dualism grows from the body's own tendency to recede; noticing the body without waiting for pain is a practice to cultivate.
- What it is: Leder asks why the body, the ground of all experience, usually disappears from awareness, and shows how it 'dys-appears', returning as a problem, in pain, illness and breakdown.
- How it works: Phenomenological analysis of the surface body, the visceral depths and the body in pain, drawing on Merleau-Ponty and on Asian contemplative traditions.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Paper: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1807680W (University of Chicago Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baUVUUmHnf8
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/141745-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Leder

#### Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality — Iris Marion Young (1980)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: How we feel our own capacities is shaped by norms; the lived body is always a gendered, situated body.
- What it is: Young describes how women in a sexist society often move with hesitancy, use only part of the body and experience it as a thing, and traces this to social norms rather than biology.
- How it works: Feminist reading of Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir, applied to everyday movements such as throwing, carrying and taking up space.
- Lens: Body politics, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02331805 (Human Studies 3)
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/7358974-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throwing_Like_a_Girl

#### The Visible and the Invisible — Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1964)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Body and world are of one flesh; to feel is always also to be felt, which dissolves the line between subject and object.
- What it is: Merleau-Ponty's unfinished last work introduces 'the flesh', a single element of which perceiver and perceived, body and world, are both made, and the reversibility of touching and being touched.
- How it works: Manuscript and working notes edited by Claude Lefort after Merleau-Ponty's death in 1961.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810104570/the-visible-and-the-invisible/ (Gallimard 1964; Northwestern University Press (trans. Alphonso Lingis, 1968))
- Images: https://northwest-press-us.imgix.net/covers/9780810104570.jpg https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/9791967-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty

#### Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning — Eugene Gendlin (1962)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Meaning is felt in the body before it is said; attending to that felt sense lets precise words and new ideas emerge.
- What it is: Gendlin's philosophical work describes 'experiencing', the bodily felt flow that is always richer than words, and how new meaning forms when we attend to it and let it be carried forward.
- How it works: Philosophical analysis of the relation between felt experience and symbolisation; the basis for the Focusing practice (1978) and Thinking at the Edge.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810114272/experiencing-and-the-creation-of-meaning/ (Free Press 1962; Northwestern University Press 1997)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu7C67LscYk
- Images: https://northwest-press-us.imgix.net/covers/9780810114272.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Gene_Gendlin_1088_PCE_conference_Germany.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focusing_(psychotherapy)

#### Ideas II: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution — Edmund Husserl (1952)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The body I live is felt from inside as mine; touching and being touched at once shows it is both subject and object.
- What it is: The second book of Husserl's Ideas analyses how the lived body (Leib) is constituted: as the zero point of orientation, the organ of will and the bearer of localised sensations felt when one hand touches the other.
- How it works: Phenomenological description written 1912–1928 and published posthumously in Husserliana IV (1952); English translation by Rojcewicz and Schuwer (1989).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2233-4 (Kluwer / Springer (Husserliana: Collected Works III))
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780792307136-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Edmund_Husserl_1910s.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl

#### Phenomenology of Perception — Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1945)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: I do not have a body, I am my body: understanding happens first as motor intentionality, the body's 'I can'.
- What it is: Merleau-Ponty's main work shows that perception is carried out by a lived body with its own motor know-how, the body schema, which reaches into tools and space before any thought about them.
- How it works: Phenomenological analysis drawing on Gestalt psychology and clinical cases such as Schneider, phantom limbs and the blind man's cane.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203720714 (Gallimard 1945; Routledge (trans. Donald A. Landes, 2012))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFj8kWm_N-Y
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_of_Perception

### Embodied & Enactive Mind

Mind as lived, embodied action: Varela, Thompson, Rosch, Johnson, Lakoff, Noë, Damasio.

#### Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind — Thomas Fuchs (2018)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Heartbeat
- Idea: The person, not the brain, feels and thinks; mind is a living body in relation.
- What it is: Fuchs argues against 'brain-centrism': the brain is an organ that mediates the relations of a living body with its environment and with others, not the seat of the mind.
- How it works: Phenomenological and biological argument using circular causality, homeostasis, body memory and psychiatric cases.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199646883.001.0001 (Oxford University Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4eB2VfvYwk
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fuchs_(psychiatrist)

#### The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind — Giovanna Colombetti (2014)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Heartbeat, Skin conductance & arousal
- Idea: Feeling is not added to cognition; the body is the feeling organ of a single, affective sense-making process.
- What it is: Colombetti argues that the whole living body is affective, that emotion is not a separate module but a dynamical pattern of the organism, and that bodily feelings can be background, not only objects of attention.
- How it works: Philosophical synthesis of enactivism, phenomenology and affective science, including psychophysiology and dynamical systems.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262019958.001.0001 (MIT Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3SaLKHBmxU
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/8882071-L.jpg
- Project page: https://experts.exeter.ac.uk/1082-giovanna-colombetti

#### Enactive Intersubjectivity: Participatory Sense-Making and Mutual Incorporation — Thomas Fuchs, Hanne De Jaegher (2009)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Understanding others is not mind-reading but mutual incorporation: two bodies forming one felt system.
- What it is: Fuchs and De Jaegher describe social understanding as bodies in interaction: through coordinated movement and rhythm, each partner's body extends into the other's, creating meaning neither makes alone.
- How it works: Theoretical paper combining Merleau-Ponty's intercorporeality with dynamical systems and developmental studies of interaction.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-009-9136-4 (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8(4))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiFuQD-ZWy4
- Project page: https://hannedejaegher.net

#### Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind — Evan Thompson (2007)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Where there is life there is mind; the felt body is the living organism experiencing itself, not a container for a mind.
- What it is: Thompson argues for a deep continuity of life and mind: the self-organising processes of living organisms already carry the basic structure of sense-making that experience develops.
- How it works: Combines autopoiesis and dynamical systems theory with Husserlian phenomenology of time, emotion and empathy.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674057517 (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG3daqNH700
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/412723-L.jpg
- Project page: https://evanthompson.me

#### The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding — Mark Johnson (2007)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Meaning is felt before it is thought; the qualities of bodily experience are where sense begins.
- What it is: Johnson argues that meaning begins below words, in felt qualities, emotions and movement, and that aesthetics, the study of how things feel, is therefore the ground of all understanding.
- How it works: Pragmatist philosophy drawing on Dewey, James, Gendlin and cognitive neuroscience, with examples from music, painting and infant development.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226026992.001.0001 (University of Chicago Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaMeGdrKnEE
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/1148004-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Johnson_(philosopher)

#### Action in Perception — Alva Noë (2004)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Perceiving is a skilful activity of the whole moving body, so changing how we move changes what we feel and see.
- What it is: Noë argues that perception is not something that happens in us but something we do: to perceive is to have practical, bodily knowledge of how sensation changes as we move.
- How it works: Philosophical argument using sensory substitution, change blindness, inverting goggles and touch as test cases for the sensorimotor theory.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262640633/action-in-perception/ (MIT Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoOHWHEJOLU
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/152218-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Alva_No%C3%AB_%283419836383%29.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_No%C3%AB

#### Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought — George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1999)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: There is no disembodied reason: the same neural and bodily systems that let us move and perceive also structure how we think.
- What it is: Lakoff and Johnson argue from cognitive science that the mind is inherently embodied, thought is mostly unconscious and abstract concepts are largely metaphorical, and re-read Western philosophy in that light.
- How it works: Synthesis of cognitive linguistics and neuroscience, applied to concepts of time, causation, mind, self and morality.
- Lens: Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/george-lakoff/philosophy-in-the-flesh/9780465056743/ (Basic Books)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUnMCq-ARQ
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/298974-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/George_Lakoff.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff

#### The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness — Antonio Damasio (1999)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Heartbeat, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The sense of self begins as the felt body: consciousness is rooted in interoceptive feeling.
- What it is: Damasio traces consciousness to the brain's ongoing mapping of the body's internal state: a proto-self from which core and extended selves arise as feelings of what happens.
- How it works: Neuroscientific theory built on lesion studies, neuroanatomy and clinical observation of disorders of consciousness.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Affective loops
- Paper: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3499048W (Harcourt Brace)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMrzdk_YnYY
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/112081-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Ant%C3%B3nio_Dam%C3%A1sio_no_Fronteiras_do_Pensamento_Porto_Alegre_2013_cropped.png
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Damasio

#### Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain — Antonio Damasio (1994)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Heartbeat, Skin conductance & arousal
- Idea: Descartes' error was separating mind from body: reason depends on the body's felt signals.
- What it is: Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis shows that bodily feelings tied to emotion guide decisions, so patients who lose them reason badly despite intact logic.
- How it works: Neurological case studies (Phineas Gage, patient Elliot), the Iowa Gambling Task and skin conductance measures.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Affective loops
- Paper: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297609/descartes-error-by-antonio-damasio/ (G. P. Putnam's Sons 1994; Penguin)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/111239-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes%27_Error

#### The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience — Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch (1991)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath
- Idea: Mind is not inside the head but enacted by a living body in its world, and experience can be trained and studied from within.
- What it is: The book that named enaction: cognition as embodied action that brings forth a world, joined with Buddhist mindfulness as a disciplined way to examine lived experience.
- How it works: Brings together cognitive science, phenomenology and Madhyamaka and Abhidharma Buddhism, with mindfulness/awareness meditation as a method.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/6730.001.0001 (MIT Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhS9ffDcLOk
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/152634-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Francisco_Varela.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism

#### The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason — Mark Johnson (1987)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Reason grows out of the felt patterns of a moving, balancing body.
- What it is: Johnson introduces image schemas, recurring patterns of bodily experience such as balance, containment, path and force, and shows how they structure imagination and reason.
- How it works: Philosophical analysis of image schemas and their metaphorical projection, with examples from balance, force and containment.
- Lens: Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226177847.001.0001 (University of Chicago Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda7xAIG3d0
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/11011367-L.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_schema

#### The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding — Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela (1987)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: To live is to know: cognition is not a mind representing the world but the whole organism coupling with its environment.
- What it is: An accessible account of autopoiesis: living beings are self-producing systems, and knowing is the living process by which an organism brings forth a world with others.
- How it works: Biological and philosophical argument illustrated with examples from cell biology, nervous systems, language and social coupling.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, More-than-human
- Paper: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1418978W (New Science Library / Shambhala)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQFlceVouPA
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780877736424-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Humberto_Maturana-FILSA2015.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis

#### Metaphors We Live By — George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1980)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Posture, balance & proprioception, Heat & temperature
- Idea: Abstract meaning is built from felt bodily experience of up and down, warm and cold, near and far.
- What it is: Lakoff and Johnson show that everyday thought is structured by conceptual metaphors grounded in bodily experience, such as HAPPY IS UP, AFFECTION IS WARMTH and ARGUMENT IS WAR.
- How it works: Linguistic analysis of systematic patterns in everyday English expressions.
- Lens: Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001 (University of Chicago Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWYaoAoijdQ
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780226468006-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Metaphors_We_Live_By_book_cover.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By

### Body-Mind Oneness in East Asian Thought

Shinjin ichinyo, qi and self-cultivation: Yuasa Yasuo, Ichikawa Hiroshi, Zen, Daoist and Confucian body thought.

#### Self-Cultivation as Education Embodying Humanity — Tu Weiming (1999)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: To know is to embody: Confucian learning is judged by how one stands, speaks and relates, a first-person knowledge that lives in conduct.
- What it is: Tu presents Confucian self-cultivation (xiushen) as learning to be human through the body: knowledge that is 'embodied' (tizhi) in comportment, ritual and relationships rather than held as propositions.
- How it works: Paper for the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy (Boston, 1998), part of Tu's long work on tizhi and New Confucianism.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.5840/wcp201999349 (Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy)
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/%E6%9D%9C%E7%B6%AD%E6%98%8E_Weiming_Tu.jpg

#### The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine — Shigehisa Kuriyama (1999)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Heartbeat, Whole body-mind
- Idea: How a body feels depends on how the perceiver's senses have been trained: somatic sensitivity is a cultural skill, not a neutral reading.
- What it is: Kuriyama compares how Greek doctors learned to see muscles and anatomy while Chinese doctors learned to feel the pulse and read colours and qi, arguing that trained touch and sight produce different bodies.
- How it works: Comparative history drawing on Greek medical treatises and Chinese pulse classics, with close attention to images and vocabulary of touch.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.20093332 (Zone Books, 1999)
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Chinese_meridians.JPG

#### Attunement Through the Body — Shigenori Nagatomo (1992)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Attunement is a bodily skill of resonance that can be trained; designing for it means supporting the body's capacity to tune in, not delivering information.
- What it is: Nagatomo develops Yuasa's theory into an account of 'attunement': how a cultivated body comes into resonance with things, others and nature, drawing on Zen, Noh and Japanese aesthetics.
- How it works: Philosophical study (SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies) combining phenomenology and Japanese Buddhist texts.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://sunypress.edu/Books/A/Attunement-Through-the-Body (SUNY Press, 1992)
- Images: https://sunypress.edu/var/site/storage/images/books/a/attunement-through-the-body/9780791412329_cover/1843173-1-eng-CA/9780791412329_cover1_rb_fullcover.jpg
- Project page: https://sunypress.edu/Books/A/Attunement-Through-the-Body

#### The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy — Yuasa Yasuo (1986)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Ki names the felt link between body, emotion and environment: an energy that practice makes perceptible rather than a hidden substance.
- What it is: Yuasa's study of ki as it is used in acupuncture, meditation and the martial arts, with a four-layer model of the lived body that links sensory-motor circuits, emotion and the unconscious. Japanese edition 1986 (Ki, Shugyō, Shintai); English 1993.
- How it works: Reads Chinese and Japanese research on ki, acupuncture meridian measurements and meditators' reports alongside Western psychology and physiology.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Paper: https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Body-Self-Cultivation-and-Ki-Energy (SUNY Press, 1993 (Japanese: Hirakawa, 1986))
- Images: https://sunypress.edu/var/site/storage/images/books/t/the-body-self-cultivation-and-ki-energy2/9780791416242_cover/1846454-1-eng-CA/9780791416242_cover1_rb_fullcover.jpg
- Project page: https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Body-Self-Cultivation-and-Ki-Energy

#### The Structure of Mi (〈Mi〉 no kōzō) — Ichikawa Hiroshi (1984)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Ordinary language already knows the soma: mi is the body as self in relation, extending into clothes, tools, other people and place.
- What it is: Ichikawa builds a theory of the lived body on the everyday Japanese word mi, which can mean flesh, self, social position and heart at once. Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunko edition 1993.
- How it works: Close reading of idioms built on mi (mi ni tsukeru, mi ni shimiru, mi o makaseru) as evidence of a relational, non-dualist body.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://bookclub.kodansha.co.jp/product?item=0000150672 (Seidosha, 1984; Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 1993)
- Images: https://dvs-cover.kodansha.co.jp/0000150672/573Em5KLyK0vdQ7Rd30RH6Hku6d3RncSBKSTgCcc.jpg
- Project page: https://bookclub.kodansha.co.jp/product?item=0000150672

#### The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory — Yuasa Yasuo (1977)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Body-mind unity is an achievement of cultivation, not a starting fact: the more the body is trained, the less mind and body are felt as two.
- What it is: Yuasa reads Dōgen, Kūkai, Nishida, Watsuji and Noh theory to show how Japanese thought treats body and mind as something unified through practice. Published in Japanese in 1977 and in English (SUNY Press) in 1987.
- How it works: Comparative philosophy that pairs Japanese self-cultivation texts with Merleau-Ponty, Bergson and psychosomatic medicine, and describes a 'dark consciousness' of the body below awareness.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Body (SUNY Press, 1987 (Japanese: Sōbunsha, 1977))
- Images: https://sunypress.edu/var/site/storage/images/books/t/the-body/9780887064685_cover/1908113-1-eng-CA/9780887064685_cover1_rb_fullcover.jpg
- Project page: https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Body

#### The Body as Spirit (Seishin to shite no shintai) — Ichikawa Hiroshi (1975)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The body is already spirit: thinking, feeling and acting are one body extending itself into the world, so design shapes the mind by shaping how the body reaches.
- What it is: Ichikawa's phenomenology of the body argues that human reality cannot be separated from the concrete body, and describes the body as subject, as object and as an 'entangled' whole that reaches into tools and others. First published by Keisō Shobō in 1975; Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunko edition 1992.
- How it works: Phenomenological analysis in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty, Gestalt psychology and physiology, organised as the body as phenomenon, as structure and as action.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://bookclub.kodansha.co.jp/product?item=0000150620 (Keisō Shobō, 1975; Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 1992)
- Images: https://dvs-cover.kodansha.co.jp/0000150620/cDG5dVkZONkUA9E7mjcJ7Fke6VVBKga9amEhM7FI.jpg
- Project page: https://bookclub.kodansha.co.jp/product?item=0000150620

#### Action-Intuition (Kōiteki chokkan) — Nishida Kitarō (1937)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Perception is not a mind looking at the world but a body shaping and being shaped by it; designers know materials by working them.
- What it is: In essays of the late 1930s Nishida describes 'action-intuition': we see things by acting on them and are formed by what we make, so knowing and bodily making are one movement.
- How it works: Philosophical essays (1937 onward) developing the logic of basho, historical bodies and poiesis.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nishida-kitaro/ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (entry))
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Portrait-of-Kitaro-Nishida.png
- Project page: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nishida-kitaro/

#### Dongui Suse Bowon: Sasang Constitutional Medicine — Yi Je-ma (1894)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Temperament and organ are one system: excess sorrow, anger, joy or pleasure shapes the body, so healing starts from knowing one's emotional constitution.
- What it is: Yi Je-ma's treatise divides people into four constitutions (Taeyang, Soyang, Taeeum, Soeum), each with its own organ strengths, emotional tendencies and suitable foods and treatments.
- How it works: Medical treatise written in classical Chinese by a Joseon physician, grounding Korean medicine in Confucian self-cultivation.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Care & healing
- Paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasang_constitutional_medicine (1894 (Wikipedia overview))
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/%EC%9D%B4%EC%A0%9C%EB%A7%88_%EC%B4%88%EC%83%81.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Je-ma

#### Riken no ken: The Seeing of Detached Seeing (Kakyō) — Zeami Motokiyo (1424)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening, Whole body-mind
- Idea: A trained performer feels movement from inside and sees it from outside at the same time; this double awareness is the core skill of first-person design.
- What it is: In Kakyō (A Mirror Held to the Flower, 1424) Zeami tells the Noh actor to dance with 'eyes in front, mind behind' and to see himself as the audience sees him, uniting inner feeling and outer form.
- How it works: Secret treatise passed down within Zeami's lineage, alongside the Fūshikaden (c. 1400–1418), setting out training of body, voice and mind across an actor's life.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Movement & expression, Estrangement
- Paper: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/zeami-performance-notes/9780231144803 (Zeami: Performance Notes, trans. Tom Hare, Columbia University Press, 2008)
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Sousetsubon_fushikaden_7_part.PNG https://cup-us.imgix.net/covers/9780231144803.jpg?w=350
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeami_Motokiyo

#### Shinjin ichinyo: Body and Mind as One (Bendōwa, Shōbōgenzō) — Dōgen Zenji (1231)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Practice and realisation are not two: the posture itself is the awakening, so attending to how you sit is already the work.
- What it is: In Bendōwa (1231), later placed at the head of the Shōbōgenzō, Dōgen rejects the idea of a mind that survives apart from the body and teaches that 'body and mind are one' (shinjin ichinyo), realised in seated practice.
- How it works: Classical Zen text written in Japanese vernacular as questions and answers, grounding its claims in the practice of zazen.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-zen/ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy))
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Soto-Zen-Master-Dogen-Zenji-Portrait.png
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dgen

#### Huangdi Neijing (Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor) — Huangdi Neijing authors (anonymous) (100 BCE)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Emotions are organ events and organs are emotional: anger, joy, worry and fear move qi, so caring for feeling and caring for the body are the same practice.
- What it is: The founding classic of Chinese medicine, in two parts (Suwen and Lingshu), describes the body as flows of qi through meridians and organs that correspond to seasons, emotions and the cosmos.
- How it works: Dialogues compiled between roughly the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE, organised around yin-yang, the five phases, meridians and pulse diagnosis.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Care & healing
- Paper: https://ctext.org/huangdi-neijing (Chinese Text Project)
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Koteidaikei_Myodo.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing

#### Cook Ding Carves the Ox (Zhuangzi, 'Nourishing the Lord of Life') — Zhuangzi (300 BCE)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Mastery is felt attunement to the grain of things: skill that has passed from deliberate control into the body moves with ease and without wear.
- What it is: Cook Ding has used the same knife for nineteen years because he no longer looks at the ox with his eyes but meets it with his spirit, letting the blade follow the natural gaps; Lord Wenhui learns from him how to nourish life.
- How it works: Parable in the third chapter (Yangshengzhu) of the Zhuangzi, one of many skill stories alongside the wheelwright, the swimmer and the cicada catcher.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/nourishing-the-lord-of-life (Zhuangzi, ch. 3 (Chinese Text Project))
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Zhuangzi_Song_Edition.jpg
- Project page: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/nourishing-the-lord-of-life

#### Fasting of the Heart-Mind and Sitting in Forgetfulness (Zhuangzi) — Zhuangzi (300 BCE)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Breath, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Listening with qi means attending with the whole body before concepts arrive; emptying habitual perception makes room to feel anew.
- What it is: Confucius teaches Yan Hui to 'listen not with the ears but with the heart-mind, not with the heart-mind but with qi' (xinzhai), and Yan Hui later reports 'sitting in forgetfulness' (zuowang), letting go of limbs, senses and knowledge.
- How it works: Dialogues in the Renjianshi and Dazongshi chapters of the Zhuangzi that later shaped Daoist meditation and neidan practice.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, Estrangement
- Paper: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/man-in-the-world (Zhuangzi, ch. 4 and 6 (Chinese Text Project))
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Dschuang-Dsi-Schmetterlingstraum-Zhuangzi-Butterfly-Dream.jpg
- Project page: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master

#### Nourishing the Flood-Like Qi (Mencius 2A2) — Mencius (300 BCE)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Breath, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Moral strength is bodily and cultivated slowly: will leads qi, qi fills the body, and forcing growth harms it.
- What it is: Asked about an unmoved heart, Mencius says he is good at nourishing his 'flood-like qi' (haoran zhi qi), which fills the body and grows from righteous action, and warns against the farmer who pulls his sprouts to help them grow.
- How it works: Dialogue in the Gongsun Chou chapter of the Mencius, a founding text for Confucian theories of qi and self-cultivation (xiushen).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Care & healing
- Paper: https://ctext.org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i (Mencius 2A (Chinese Text Project))
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Great_Confucian_Figures_-_Painting_of_Mengzi_by_Kan%C5%8D_Sansetsu.jpg
- Project page: https://ctext.org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i

### Embodied Interaction Theory

How HCI turned to the body: Dourish, Klemmer, Hornecker, Loke & Robertson, Höök's somaesthetic interaction design.

#### Toward Pluralizing Reflection in HCI through Daoism — Aaron Pengyu Zhu, Janghee Cho (2026)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath
- Idea: Reflection need not be a mind looking back at data: in Daoist practice it is embodied, relational and emerges from stillness with the world.
- What it is: Drawing on Daoist texts and interviews with 18 Daoist practitioners, scholars and priests, the paper describes everyday reflection as Stillness, Resonance and Emergence, and proposes 'reflecting-with' rather than reflecting on oneself.
- How it works: Qualitative study combining textual analysis of Daoist literature with semi-structured interviews, analysed thematically for HCI design implications.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, More-than-human
- Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22831 (CHI 2026)

#### Tracing Conceptions of the Body in HCI: From User to More-Than-Human — Sarah Homewood, Susan Kozel (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Which body we assume shapes what we design; the soma is one step toward bodies that are relational and more-than-human.
- What it is: Homewood, Hedemyr, Fagerberg Ranten and Kozel trace how HCI has conceived the body, from the user's body as an input device, through the lived, somatic body, to the more-than-human body entangled with other beings.
- How it works: Critical literature review of CHI and related publications, organised by conceptions of the body.
- Lens: Body politics, More-than-human, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445656 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Nrd5mv_Tk

#### Embodied Cognition and the Magical Future of Interaction Design — David Kirsh (2013)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The body is a thinking medium: moving a partial version of an action helps us reason about the whole.
- What it is: Kirsh reviews embodied cognition and reports his studies of dancers 'marking' a phrase, showing that people think by using their bodies and things as external representations.
- How it works: Review of embodied cognition plus empirical study with professional dancers at Random Dance (Wayne McGregor).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2442106.2442109 (ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 20(1))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhcubb00g6c

#### Interaction Design for and with the Lived Body: Some Implications of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology — Dag Svanæs (2013)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Design for the lived body by designing with it: the designer's own felt, moving body is a source of design knowledge.
- What it is: Svanæs reads Merleau-Ponty for interaction designers: the lived body, body schema and motor intentionality, and proposes that designers use their own bodies as instruments in the design process.
- How it works: Philosophical analysis with design examples, including role-play and bodily enactment in a health-technology project.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2442106.2442114 (ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 20(1))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwt0JRdEzA

#### Kinesthetic Interaction: Revealing the Bodily Potential in Interaction Design — Maiken Hillerup Fogtmann (2008)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: The kinaesthetic sense, how we feel our own movement, is a material designers can work with directly.
- What it is: Fogtmann, Fritsch and Kortbek define kinesthetic interaction as a concept for designing with the body's kinaesthetic sense, with design parameters such as engagement, sociality and movability.
- How it works: Theoretical framework drawing on physiology and phenomenology, applied to interactive installations for movement.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1517744.1517770 (OZCHI 2008)

#### Move to Get Moved: A Search for Methods, Tools and Knowledge to Design for Expressive and Rich Movement-Based Interaction — Caroline Hummels (2007)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Designers must move to be moved: bodily skill and emotion are one, and designing movement requires moving yourself.
- What it is: Hummels, Overbeeke and Klooster argue that movement-based interaction should aim at expressive, rich movement that engages people's perceptual-motor, emotional and social skills, and propose design methods to get there.
- How it works: Reflection on design cases and education at TU/e, drawing on phenomenology and Gibson's ecological psychology.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-006-0135-y (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 11(8))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHtx5SCuYgY

#### The Feel Dimension of Technology Interaction: Exploring Tangibles through Movement and Touch — Astrid Twenebowa Larssen, Toni Robertson (2007)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: How an interaction feels in the mover's body is a design dimension in its own right.
- What it is: Larssen, Robertson and Edwards argue that interaction with technology should be understood from how it feels to the moving body, using kinaesthetic and tactile experience rather than visual appearance as the design lens.
- How it works: Conceptual paper grounded in Merleau-Ponty and illustrated with analysis of movement-based and tangible interactions.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1226969.1227024 (TEI 2007)

#### Getting a Grip on Tangible Interaction: A Framework on Physical Space and Social Interaction — Eva Hornecker, Jacob Buur (2006)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Bodies in space are always interacting, with things and with each other; design should shape that whole-body, social situation.
- What it is: Hornecker and Buur propose a framework for tangible interaction with four themes, tangible manipulation, spatial interaction, embodied facilitation and expressive representation, that treats bodily movement in space as interaction.
- How it works: Conceptual framework derived from literature and case studies of tangible and interactive installations.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1124772.1124838 (CHI 2006)

#### How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design — Scott Klemmer (2006)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: People think with their hands and bodies, so interfaces that strip away bodily engagement also strip away thinking.
- What it is: Klemmer, Hartmann and Takayama distil five themes from embodied cognition for interaction design: thinking through doing, performance, visibility, risk, and thickness of practice.
- How it works: Synthesis of research from psychology, education, sociology and philosophy into design themes, with examples from tangible interfaces.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1142405.1142429 (DIS 2006)
- Project page: https://d.ucsd.edu/srk/

#### Technology as Experience — John McCarthy, Peter Wright (2004)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Experience with technology is felt and lived as a whole; the sensual thread is as much part of it as function.
- What it is: McCarthy and Wright build a pragmatist account of experience with technology, naming four threads, the sensual, emotional, compositional and spatio-temporal, and six sense-making processes.
- How it works: Theoretical framework drawing on Dewey and Bakhtin, illustrated with cases from online shopping to Internet banking.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/6687.001.0001 (MIT Press)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ZnMHysJkw
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/1154743-L.jpg

#### Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction — Paul Dourish (2001)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Interaction is not a mind operating a device but a body acting in a world; design for what people do, not what they represent.
- What it is: Dourish draws on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Schutz and Wittgenstein to define embodied interaction: meaning arises through engaged action in the physical and social world, which tangible and social computing should support.
- How it works: Theoretical synthesis of phenomenology with tangible and social computing research, closing with design principles for embodied interaction.
- Lens: Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7221.001.0001 (MIT Press)
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/149713-L.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Paul_Dourish_in_Pasadena%2C_2010.jpg
- Project page: https://www.dourish.com

## Somatic Practices

The practices soma designers train in and borrow from: movement education, meditation, breath, martial and dance traditions that treat body and mind as one.

### Movement Education & Somatics

Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, Laban/Bartenieff, Hanna Somatics.

#### Sensing, Feeling, and Action — Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (1993)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: The book argues that perception is an action: how we move shapes what we can sense and feel, so designing a sensation also designs a way of moving.
- What it is: A collection of Bainbridge Cohen's essays and interviews from Contact Quarterly (1980 onward) on organs, glands, fluids, reflexes, the senses and developmental movement, with explorations readers can try.
- How it works: Essays, interviews and experiential exercises on the body systems of Body-Mind Centering; Contact Editions, 1993.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://contactquarterly.com/contact-editions/title/sensing-feeling-and-action-3 (Contact Editions 1993)
- Images: https://bonniebainbridgecohen.com/cdn/shop/products/sensing-feeling-and-action-bonnie-bainbridge-cohen_630x630.jpg?v=1753184330

#### Somatics: Reawakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health — Thomas Hanna (1988)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Hanna argues that many problems blamed on ageing are learned body-mind habits and can be unlearned from within, which puts first-person sensing at the centre of health.
- What it is: Hanna explains 'sensory-motor amnesia', habitual muscle contractions we no longer feel, and gives a set of slow exercises to regain voluntary sensing and control.
- How it works: Theory of the reflexes of stress (red light, green light, trauma) plus illustrated self-practice exercises; Addison-Wesley, 1988.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience, Care & healing
- Paper: https://books.google.com/books/about/Somatics.html?id=sapXJRU4nH8C (Addison-Wesley 1988)
- Images: https://archive.org/services/img/somaticsreawaken00hann

#### Bartenieff Fundamentals — Irmgard Bartenieff (1980)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Breath, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Bartenieff insisted that intention and spatial imagination drive physical recovery, so exercises are about where you are going, not muscle strength; for designers, a movement is always movement toward something.
- What it is: A set of floor-based movement sequences, the 'Basic Six' such as the thigh lift, pelvic shift and arm circles, that connect breath, core and limbs through developmental patterns like head-tail, upper-lower and cross-lateral connectivity.
- How it works: Breath-supported, spatially intended floor sequences based on six patterns of total body connectivity; set out in Body Movement: Coping with the Environment (1980, with Dori Lewis).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Movement & expression, Care & healing
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeQgq7L9yOo
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Irmgard_Bartenieff.jpg
- Project page: https://labaninstitute.org

#### Hanna Somatic Education — Thomas Hanna (1976)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Hanna defined soma as the body perceived from within by a first person, as distinct from the body seen from outside; soma design takes both its name and its first-person stance from this definition.
- What it is: Slow 'pandiculation' exercises, in which a person voluntarily contracts a habitually tight muscle group and then releases it very slowly, to regain sensation and control of muscles lost to what Hanna called sensory-motor amnesia.
- How it works: Guided voluntary contraction and slow release of muscle groups plus hands-on sessions, drawing on Feldenkrais; Hanna coined 'somatics' in 1976.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience, Care & healing
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elHCMJDE1vI
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Louis_Hanna

#### Body-Mind Centering — Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (1973)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: In Body-Mind Centering the mind is found in each tissue: every body system has its own quality of feeling and moving, so a designer can ask which system an interaction speaks to, not just which muscle.
- What it is: Students embody one body system at a time (bones, organs, fluids, glands, cells) and the developmental movement patterns of infancy, moving and vocalising from it until they can feel how that system shapes mood and attention.
- How it works: Experiential anatomy: touch, imagery, sound and movement explorations of body systems and developmental patterns, taught through the School for Body-Mind Centering founded in 1973.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuqXL-ua06g
- Images: https://www.bodymindcentering.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/bonnie-teaching.jpg
- Project page: https://www.bodymindcentering.com

#### Awareness Through Movement — Moshé Feldenkrais (1972)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Breath
- Idea: Its core claim, that every action involves moving, sensing, feeling and thinking together, is the practical non-dualism soma designers adopt when they design from Feldenkrais lessons.
- What it is: Feldenkrais's book explains why we act according to our self-image and gives twelve lessons, such as lifting the head or coordinating flexors and extensors, that readers do lying on the floor.
- How it works: Theory chapters on self-image and learning followed by twelve scripted Awareness Through Movement lessons; Harper & Row, 1972.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062503220/awareness-through-movement/ (Harper & Row 1972)
- Images: https://i.harperapps.com/covers/9780062503220.jpg

#### Continuum — Emilie Conrad (1967)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Breath, Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Conrad saw the body as fluid, continuous with the oceans and with early life forms; designing from this view means working with undulation and resonance instead of discrete commands.
- What it is: Practitioners lie or sit and combine breaths and sounds with very small wave-like movements, then rest and sense the aftermath, often discovering spiralling motions that feel more like water than muscle.
- How it works: Breath and sound sequences, micro-movement, and 'open attention' rests between explorations; founded by Emilie Conrad in 1967.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, More-than-human
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAacwbfveys
- Images: https://continuummovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/emilie-1.png
- Project page: https://continuummovement.com

#### Iyengar Yoga — B. K. S. Iyengar (1966)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Breath, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Iyengar used precise alignment to bring awareness into every part of the body, down to the skin and the breath; his props show how external objects can help a body feel from within, a precedent for supportive soma design artefacts.
- What it is: Students hold yoga postures with exact attention to alignment, using belts, blocks, blankets and chairs so that each person can feel the intended action of the pose in their own body.
- How it works: Detailed alignment instruction, long holds, sequencing and props, set out in Light on Yoga (1966); yoga as practised in Western studios.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity, Care & healing
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs4ZqJwR14o
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Eyal_Shifroni_in_Vasisthasana_with_props.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/BKS_Iyengar.jpg
- Project page: https://bksiyengar.com

#### Feldenkrais Method — Moshé Feldenkrais (1949)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Feldenkrais held that we act according to our self-image, and that sensing, feeling, thinking and moving change together; Höök's soma design group trains in Feldenkrais before designing, and its Soma Mat and Breathing Light grew out of Feldenkrais lessons.
- What it is: A teacher talks a group through slow, small, often lying-down movement variations (Awareness Through Movement); in Functional Integration the teacher guides one person's movement by touch. People notice how a small change in one part reorganises the whole self.
- How it works: Verbally guided sequences of slow, reduced-effort movements with attention to differences, plus hands-on lessons; first set out in Body and Mature Behavior (1949).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1bjUmxkf5Q
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Feldenkrais_Awareness_Through_Movement_Lesson.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Moshe_Feldenkrais_Demonstrates_Functional_Integration.png
- Project page: https://feldenkrais-method.org

#### Eutony — Gerda Alexander (1940)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Eutony treats tone as a relation between person and situation: good tension is the one that fits the moment, so a design can aim to tune tension rather than to relax the user.
- What it is: People lie, sit or move while sensing skin, bones and the space inside the body, often with bamboo sticks or balls under them, to find a flexible, well-adapted tone rather than simply relaxing.
- How it works: Contact with the floor and small objects, attention to skin and bone, and 'transport' of pressure through the skeleton; Alexander founded her Copenhagen school in 1940 and named the method in 1956.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srJWpSTGTQo
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Gerda_Alexander.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerda_Alexander

#### Ideokinesis — Mabel Elsworth Todd, Lulu Sweigard (1937)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Ideokinesis shows that an image is already a motor act: thinking a movement reorganises posture, so imagery is a design material for the body.
- What it is: Lying still in 'constructive rest', a person imagines movements along the skeleton, for example the spine lengthening down or the thigh bones sinking, without doing them, and the body's alignment changes in response.
- How it works: Guided imagery of 'lines of movement' in a supine rest position, from Mabel Todd's The Thinking Body (1937) and Lulu Sweigard's research on imagery and alignment.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL6916763W (Book, 1937)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nG1DdSkF4o
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideokinesis

#### Contrology (Pilates) — Joseph Pilates (1934)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Breath, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Pilates wrote that Contrology 'begins with mind control over muscles', a mind-over-body model of movement education; comparing it with Feldenkrais or Gindler shows what shifts when control gives way to sensing.
- What it is: A sequence of precise floor exercises and exercises on spring-loaded apparatus such as the Reformer, done with coordinated breathing and attention to the body's centre.
- How it works: Mat and apparatus exercises with breath and core engagement, taught in Pilates's New York studio and set out in Your Health (1934) and Return to Life Through Contrology (1945).
- Lens: Body politics, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQnLYoUHzps
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Pilates_reformer.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilates

#### Laban Movement Analysis — Rudolf Laban, Irmgard Bartenieff (1928)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Laban treated effort as the inner attitude of the mover made visible, so movement quality is felt meaning; Schiphorst and Fdili Alaoui (a Certified Movement Analyst) use LMA to design and model how movement feels.
- What it is: A language for observing and doing movement in four categories, Body, Effort, Shape and Space; movers explore Effort qualities such as light or strong, sudden or sustained, direct or indirect, bound or free, and feel how each changes intention and mood.
- How it works: Observation, notation (Kinetography Laban, 1928) and embodied exploration of Effort, Shape and Space, extended by Lisa Ullmann, Irmgard Bartenieff and Warren Lamb; taught by certification programs such as LIMS.
- Lens: Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X437LVhmeeg
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Laban_and_pupils.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Laban-Effort-graph-labeled.jpg
- Project page: https://labaninstitute.org

#### Alexander Technique — F. Matthias Alexander (1910)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Alexander called the self a 'psycho-physical' unity and showed that sensory appreciation can be unreliable; noticing and inhibiting a habit is itself an estrangement method, and Shusterman's somaesthetics discusses it at length.
- What it is: In lessons, a teacher's light hands and verbal 'directions' help a person pause before an everyday act such as sitting, standing or speaking, and let the head-neck-back relation free up. The person discovers that what feels 'right' is often just habitual.
- How it works: One-to-one lessons with light touch, practising 'inhibition' (pausing the habitual response) and 'direction' in daily activities; first set out in Man's Supreme Inheritance (1910).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Estrangement, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEmQHuYt404
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Poster_made_to_advertise_services_of_F_M_Alexander.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Learning_Alexander_Technique_with_Graham_Fandrei_%2828692247726%29.jpg
- Project page: https://alexandertechniqueusa.org

### Qi, Tai Chi, Yoga & Zen

Practices of body-mind unity from Asia: qigong, tai chi, yoga, zazen, aikido, butoh roots.

#### Baduanjin Qigong (Eight Pieces of Brocade) — Chinese Health Qigong Association (2003)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Breath, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: A short daily sequence can join breath, stretch and attention so that the body is felt as one moving whole.
- What it is: Eight standing movements, such as 'holding up the heavens with both hands' and 'drawing the bow to shoot the eagle', done slowly with coordinated breath; the sequence dates back to the Song dynasty and was standardised as Health Qigong in 2003.
- How it works: Twelve-minute routine of eight movements with preparatory and closing postures, each paired with slow nasal breathing and mental focus.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Care & healing, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc1jeKAb6tM
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Baduanjin_qigong_edit1.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baduanjin_qigong

#### Zen Shiatsu — Shizuto Masunaga (1977)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Therapeutic touch is a two-way listening: the practitioner's own relaxation and attention are part of what the receiver feels.
- What it is: The giver uses relaxed body weight rather than muscle, keeping one 'mother hand' still while the other explores, and feels for kyo (empty) and jitsu (full) areas along extended meridians.
- How it works: Floor-based pressure and stretches on a futon, guided by Masunaga's meridian charts and hara (abdominal) diagnosis, set out in his book Zen Shiatsu (1977).
- Lens: Care & healing, Intercorporeality, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chul6S4OvsU
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Anma_Tebiki_%281835%2C_introduction_page%29.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shizuto_Masunaga

#### Noguchi Taisō — Noguchi Michizō (1964)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Ask the body rather than command it: Noguchi's motto 'karada ni kiku' (listen to the body) makes sensing weight the basis of moving well.
- What it is: Practitioners hang, sway and ripple the body, imagining it as 'a leather bag filled with water' in which bones and organs float, and let weight and momentum do the moving; taught at Tokyo University of the Arts and in Noguchi's own classes from 1964.
- How it works: Relaxation and wave exercises (nyoro-nyoro, hanging forward bends), taught without fixed goals, alongside Noguchi's writings such as Genshi Seimeitai to shite no Ningen (1972).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBuJICU89jQ
- Project page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/野口体操

#### Cheng Man-ch'ing's 37-Posture Tai Chi Form — Cheng Man-ch'ing (1950)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Relaxation is not collapse: the practice trains a body that is soft yet structured, a state many Western somatic and dance teachers later adopted.
- What it is: A shortened Yang-style form of 37 postures that takes about ten minutes, emphasising total relaxation, a 'beautiful lady's hand' and rooting through the feet; Cheng taught it in Taipei and from 1964 at the Shr Jung school in New York.
- How it works: Short form codified in Cheng's Thirteen Chapters on Tai Chi Chuan (Zhengzi Taijiquan Shisan Pian), taught with push hands and Chinese medicine.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_BKwlpOAkk
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Cheng_Man-ching.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheng_Man-ch%27ing

#### Seitai and Katsugen Undō (Spontaneous Regenerative Movement) — Noguchi Haruchika (1950)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Pain & inner sensations, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The body has its own intelligence of recovery: stepping back from control lets involuntary movement rebalance body and mood.
- What it is: After a few preparatory breaths and twists, practitioners let the body move by itself, shaking, stretching or swaying without conscious direction; Noguchi Haruchika proposed katsugen undō in the decade after 1945 as part of Seitai.
- How it works: Group or solo sessions of spontaneous movement, combined with yuki (attentive hand contact) and taiheki (body-type) observation.
- Lens: Care & healing, Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAXrDW1deyU
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/Haruchika-noguchi-portrait.jpg
- Project page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/活元運動

#### Aikido — Morihei Ueshiba (1942)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Harmony can be trained physically: sensing and joining another's momentum turns conflict into shared movement.
- What it is: Partners practise throws and pins in which the defender blends with the attacker's movement, leads it in circles and redirects it, rather than blocking force with force; Ueshiba adopted the name aikido in 1942.
- How it works: Paired kata practice (nage and uke) of techniques such as shihōnage and iriminage, with breathing exercises and falls (ukemi).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Sa0PLquFg
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/A%C3%AFkido-shihoo_nage.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido

#### Yang-Style Tai Chi Chuan — Yang Chengfu (1934)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Breath
- Idea: Softness is a form of sensing: by moving slowly and staying relaxed, practitioners learn to feel weight, breath and another person's intention through the body.
- What it is: A slow, continuous solo form of about 85–108 movements, practised with a relaxed, rooted stance and paired with push hands (tuishou), in which two partners keep contact and learn to feel and yield to each other's force.
- How it works: Form practice of weight shifts and spiralling movement from the dantian, standardised by Yang Chengfu and set down in his 1934 manual Taijiquan Tiyong Quanshu.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, Intercorporeality
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Twc_Zaezcg
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Yang-single_%28restoration%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Pushing_hands_by_yatish.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang-style_tai_chi

#### Zhan Zhuang (Standing Like a Post) — Wang Xiangzhai (1928)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Breath, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Stillness is a rich movement practice: standing reveals tensions, shifts and inner motion that busy movement hides.
- What it is: The practitioner stands still for many minutes, knees soft and arms held as if embracing a tree, attending to breath, tension and the subtle sensations of the standing body; Wang Xiangzhai made it the core training of Yiquan from the late 1920s.
- How it works: Held postures (the 'hunyuan' or tree-hugging stance and others) practised with relaxed breathing and imagery, gradually lengthened from minutes to an hour.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeYzjnCt5vA
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Wang_Xiangzhai.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Nitzan_Oren_practicing_Zhan_Zhuang.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhan_zhuang

#### Zazen (Seated Zen Meditation, Fukanzazengi) — Dōgen Zenji (1227)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Breath, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Posture is practice: aligning spine, breath and attention is already the realisation, not a means to some later insight.
- What it is: Sitting upright on a cushion in full or half lotus, hands in the cosmic mudra, eyes half open and breath left natural, just sitting (shikantaza) without chasing thoughts; Dōgen's Fukanzazengi (1227) gives the instructions.
- How it works: Daily sitting periods in a zendō, alternating with walking meditation (kinhin), guided by Dōgen's instructions on posture, breath and non-thinking.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eacYQsCvWU
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Kodo_Sawaki_Zazen.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Fukan-Zazengi-Instructions-for-Zazen-1233.png
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen

### Meditation, Mindfulness & Breath

Mindfulness, body scan, breathwork and contemplative practice.

#### Full Catastrophe Living — Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Breath, Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: The subtitle names its stance: using the wisdom of your body and mind together; it is the standard reference for the body scan used in HCI studies.
- What it is: Kabat-Zinn's book lays out the MBSR program week by week, with the body scan, sitting meditation and mindful yoga, for people living with stress, pain and illness.
- How it works: Program description, guided practices and patient stories from the UMass Stress Reduction Clinic; Delacorte, 1990 (revised 2013).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/89149/full-catastrophe-living-revised-edition-by-jon-kabat-zinn-preface-by-thich-nhat-hanh-foreword-by-joan-borysenko/ (Delacorte 1990)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru87wojiBTo
- Images: https://images3.penguinrandomhouse.com/smedia/9780345536938

#### Body Scan — Jon Kabat-Zinn (1979)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations, Breath
- Idea: The body scan is the simplest tool for turning inward and making the body available to design; KTH's Teaching Soma Design course (DIS 2019) used body scans with Feldenkrais to widen students' design space.
- What it is: Lying down, a person moves attention slowly through the body, from the toes of one foot up to the crown of the head, noticing whatever sensations are present, including none, and breathing into each region.
- How it works: A 30–45 minute guided sweep of attention through body regions, adapted in MBSR from the Burmese Vipassana tradition of U Ba Khin and S. N. Goenka.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DTmGtznab4

#### Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) — Jon Kabat-Zinn (1979)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Breath, Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: MBSR framed attention to bodily sensation as a secular clinical skill; its body-first practices became the default template that many biofeedback and wellbeing technologies imitate, often without the non-striving attitude.
- What it is: An eight-week course in which participants learn the body scan, sitting meditation on the breath and gentle yoga, and bring non-judging attention to pain, stress and daily routines.
- How it works: Weekly group sessions, a day-long retreat and daily home practice with guided recordings; started at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqWIqRwCzJA
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Jon_Kabat-Zinn_%282018%29.png
- Project page: https://www.ummhealth.org/center-mindfulness

#### Mindful Breathing and Walking Meditation (Plum Village) — Thich Nhat Hanh (1975)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Breath, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Mindfulness is bodily: coming back to breath and feet reunites body and mind in the present moment.
- What it is: Walking slowly and matching steps to in- and out-breaths ('I have arrived, I am home'), and returning to the breath when a bell sounds; taught in The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975) and at Plum Village.
- How it works: Everyday practices of mindful breathing, walking, eating and bells of mindfulness, spread through books, retreats and the Plum Village community founded in 1982.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Pzn6NK4VQ
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Thich_Nhat_Hanh_12_%28cropped%29.jpg
- Project page: https://plumvillage.org/practice/walking-meditation

#### Deep Listening — Pauline Oliveros (1971)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Breath, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Oliveros distinguished hearing from listening: listening is a bodily, relational attention that can be trained, which invites designers to treat sound as something the whole soma takes part in.
- What it is: Groups perform text scores that ask them to listen to everything, including their own body sounds and the room, and to sound or stay silent in response; workshops mix body work, dreams and listening walks.
- How it works: Listening and sounding exercises, text scores (Sonic Meditations, 1971) and group retreats; named Deep Listening after a 1988 recording in the Fort Worden cistern.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Intercorporeality, More-than-human
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgfgve0quYE
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/OliverosOM20.jpg
- Project page: https://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu

#### Vipassana Meditation (as taught by S. N. Goenka) — S. N. Goenka (1969)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Breath, Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: The technique treats mind and body as one flow of changing sensation and trains equanimity towards it; it is a direct source of the clinical body scan that soma design workshops use.
- What it is: In a silent ten-day residential course, meditators first watch the breath at the nostrils (Anapana) and then sweep attention systematically through bodily sensations, observing them without reacting.
- How it works: Ten-day silent retreats with fixed timetables, recorded instructions and evening discourses, offered free worldwide since Goenka began teaching in India in 1969.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmcgGP-RSGc
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Global_Vipassana_Pagoda_2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.dhamma.org

#### The Perceptible Breath (Der Erfahrbare Atem) — Ilse Middendorf (1965)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Breath, Voice, sound & listening, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Middendorf's rule 'I let my breath come, I let it go, and wait until it comes by itself' contrasts with breath-pacing technology: the designer's job may be to make breath perceptible rather than to control it.
- What it is: Sitting or lying, people let the breath come and go by itself and sense where it moves in the body, using pressure points, stretches, vowel sounds and a teacher's touch to explore breath 'spaces'.
- How it works: Breath sensing with pressure points, movement, vowel resonance and hands-on work; Middendorf founded her breath-therapy institute in Berlin in 1965.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Ys151xqhg
- Project page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilse_Middendorf

#### Sensory Awareness — Charlotte Selver, Elsa Gindler (1938)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Gindler and Selver held that everyday acts, done attentively, are enough: noticing how you sit is already practice, which licenses designers to work with ordinary acts rather than special exercises.
- What it is: In a class, people simply sit, stand, lie, walk, lift a stone or touch a partner's head, and are asked open questions about what they sense, with no correct form to reach.
- How it works: Experiential 'experiments' in everyday activities guided by questions rather than instructions, from Gindler's Berlin work; Selver taught it in the US from 1938 and at Esalen from 1963.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDSKUBt-Z9k
- Project page: https://www.sensoryawareness.org

### Somatic Dance & Improvisation

Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, Continuum, Halprin, Butoh, Deborah Hay.

#### Gaga — Ohad Naharin (2003)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Gaga puts listening to sensation before telling the body what to do, and keeps earlier instructions active while new ones arrive; it is a model for designing layered, continuous guidance rather than step-by-step commands.
- What it is: A teacher talks continuously, layering images such as 'float', 'shaking' or letting the body melt, while dancers or non-dancers keep moving for an hour without mirrors, attending to sensation, effort and pleasure.
- How it works: Improvised classes guided by layered verbal imagery, without mirrors, in Gaga/dancers and Gaga/people tracks; developed with Batsheva from the 1990s and named Gaga in 2003.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Pleasure & play, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBTWp-6PgFQ
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Ohad_Naharin._Herzliya_Conference_2016_2034_%28cropped%29.jpg
- Project page: https://www.gagapeople.com

#### My Body, The Buddhist — Deborah Hay (2000)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Hay gives the body agency in the creative process and treats perception as the dance; for designers it shows how to write from the body in the first person.
- What it is: Nineteen short chapters with titles such as 'my body likes to rest' and 'my body is bored by answers', in which Hay reports what her dancing body taught her about attention and self.
- How it works: Short first-person essays linking choreographic practice and Buddhist ideas of the self, with a foreword by Susan Foster; Wesleyan University Press, 2000.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819563286/my-body-the-buddhist/ (Wesleyan University Press 2000)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLbGprgCoOo
- Images: https://wesleyan-university-us.imgix.net/covers/9780819563286.jpg

#### Underscore — Nancy Stark Smith (1990)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The Underscore gives structure to emergence: a common score of states lets many bodies improvise together without a leader, a model for designing open-ended collective somatic experiences.
- What it is: A long group improvisation, often three hours or more, that follows a shared map of phases: arriving alone, the 'small dance', expanding into space and contact with others, and slowly returning to stillness and reflection.
- How it works: Scored group improvisation with named phases and graphic symbols, developed by Nancy Stark Smith from 1990 within the Contact Improvisation community.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFWRF0WXkAs
- Project page: https://contactquarterly.com

#### Body Weather — Min Tanaka (1985)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The body is weather: always changing and shaped by its environment, so training means becoming sensitive to forces rather than fixing a technique.
- What it is: Dancers train through farm labour, a demanding physical workout and 'manipulations', in which one partner, eyes closed, is moved and touched by another; Min Tanaka founded Body Weather Farm in 1985.
- How it works: Workshops and farm residencies combining 'MB' (muscles/bones) conditioning, partnered manipulations and image-based improvisation.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Estrangement, Intercorporeality
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLKSUUQVIuo
- Images: https://www.bodyweather.net/index_files/dequinceyco-body-weather2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.bodyweather.net

#### Six Viewpoints — Mary Overlie (1978)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The Viewpoints treat attention as a skill that can be split into channels; designers use this to structure what participants notice in embodied ideation and bodystorming.
- What it is: Performers practise noticing and working with six materials of performance, space, shape, time, emotion, movement and story, one at a time, in solo and group improvisations.
- How it works: Improvisation exercises organised by six 'viewpoints', taught in NYU's Experimental Theater Wing since 1978 and later adapted by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://vimeo.com/160501353
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Mary_Overlie.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Overlie

#### Contact Improvisation — Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith (1972)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Contact Improvisation shows that two bodies can think together through touch, faster than conscious decision; for designers of social touch it offers a trained vocabulary of listening through skin and weight.
- What it is: Two or more dancers keep a rolling point of physical contact, sharing weight, falling, lifting and following momentum; the 'Small Dance' of standing still and sensing the reflexes that keep you upright is its basic exercise.
- How it works: Duet improvisation through shared weight, rolling contact and reflexes, practised in classes and open jams; initiated by Steve Paxton in 1972 (Magnesium) and documented in the Videoda film Fall After Newton (1987).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression, Pleasure & play
- Video: https://vimeo.com/181794954
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Contact_Improvisation_Trio_Dojo_Florence.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Steve_Paxton_2012.jpg
- Project page: https://contactquarterly.com

#### Skinner Releasing Technique — Joan Skinner (1966)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: In Skinner Releasing, technique and creativity are the same act: alignment is found through imagination rather than correction, a stance close to soma design's joining of craft and felt experience.
- What it is: Dancers are led through poetic images, such as being suspended by threads or moving like seaweed, often with a partner's hands-on support, until held tension releases and movement becomes spontaneous.
- How it works: Image-guided classes, partner 'hands-on' studies and improvisation, first shared with students at the University of Illinois in 1966–67.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_kvkPfI07c
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_Releasing_Technique

#### Ankoku Butoh (Dance of Darkness) — Tatsumi Hijikata (1959)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Dancing from inner images rather than steps lets the body become other than itself, a method for making the habitual body strange.
- What it is: A dance form begun by Hijikata's Kinjiki (1959) in which dancers move very slowly, crouched and distorted, guided by image scores (butoh-fu) that ask them to become insects, ash or a body being eaten.
- How it works: Training through butoh-fu image notations, walking exercises and extreme slowness, developed by Hijikata with Kazuo Ohno in 1960s Tokyo.
- Lens: Estrangement, Movement & expression, Body politics
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNV0T5zI7VI
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/16/Tatsumi_Hijikata.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butoh

#### Authentic Movement — Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler (1958)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The practice separates 'I move' from 'I am moved' and trains a non-judging inner witness, a first-person method that designers can borrow for describing felt experience without evaluation.
- What it is: A mover closes their eyes and waits for movement to arise, following it without planning, while a witness sits at the edge and watches; afterwards both speak about their experience in the first person.
- How it works: Eyes-closed movement with an external witness and first-person spoken reflection; from Whitehouse's Jungian 'movement in depth' (1950s), developed by Janet Adler into the mover–witness discipline.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcZGUTy5wYk
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Movers.jpg
- Project page: https://disciplineofauthenticmovement.com

### Somatic Therapy & Healing

Focusing, Somatic Experiencing, Hakomi and body-based approaches to trauma and pain.

#### The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk (2014)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Heartbeat, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The book brought the idea that recovery must go through the body to a mass audience; some of its neuroscience claims are contested, so designers should read it as a framing rather than as evidence.
- What it is: Van der Kolk describes how trauma changes brain and body, including interoception and heart rate variability, and reviews treatments from EMDR and neurofeedback to yoga and theatre.
- How it works: Clinical narrative and research review on trauma, interoception and body-based therapies; Viking, 2014.
- Lens: Care & healing, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/313183/the-body-keeps-the-score-by-bessel-van-der-kolk-md/ (Viking 2014)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTefkqYQz8g
- Images: https://images1.penguinrandomhouse.com/smedia/9780143127741

#### Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma — Peter A. Levine (1997)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The book treats the body as healer and trauma as a physiological process, offering designers a cautious model for working with arousal and safety.
- What it is: Levine asks why wild animals, threatened constantly, rarely stay traumatised, and describes how humans can let frozen survival energy discharge through felt sensation.
- How it works: Popular book in four parts (the body as healer, symptoms, transformation, first aid) with self-exercises; North Atlantic Books, 1997, with Ann Frederick.
- Lens: Care & healing, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9781556432330 (North Atlantic Books 1997)
- Images: https://images.penguinrandomhouse.com/cover/9781556432330

#### Somatic Experiencing — Peter A. Levine (1989)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Levine treats trauma as an incomplete bodily response rather than only a memory; his ideas of titration (small doses) and pendulation (swinging between states) are useful pacing rules for any design that stirs strong feeling.
- What it is: A practitioner helps a client track small bodily sensations, such as warmth, trembling or the urge to push, and moves attention slowly between activation and resources so that stuck survival responses can complete.
- How it works: Talk-and-sensation sessions using interoceptive tracking, titration and pendulation, developed by Levine from the 1970s and formalised under this name in the late 1980s; clinical evidence is still limited.
- Lens: Care & healing, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByalBx85iC8
- Project page: https://traumahealing.org

#### Hakomi Method — Ron Kurtz (1981)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Hakomi assumes that core beliefs are organised in the body and can be studied in mindful states; its gentle 'probes' are a template for designing stimuli that reveal rather than direct felt experience.
- What it is: The client settles into mindfulness and the therapist offers a small experiment, such as a phrase ('you are welcome here') or a light touch, then both study the spontaneous bodily and emotional reaction.
- How it works: Mindfulness-based assisted self-study with verbal and touch 'probes', built on principles of nonviolence, organicity and mind-body holism; developed by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s, taught by the Hakomi Institute since 1981.
- Lens: Care & healing, First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcRda7-tsXU
- Project page: https://hakomiinstitute.com

#### Rosen Method Bodywork — Marion Rosen (1980)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Breath, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Rosen Method's touch listens rather than manipulates; it models how a device that touches the body could invite awareness instead of correcting posture.
- What it is: The client lies on a table while the practitioner rests hands on places where breath does not move and muscles are held, and gently names what they notice, so feelings connected to that holding can surface.
- How it works: Gentle 'listening' touch combined with dialogue about sensation and breath, rooted in Gindler's work via Lucy Heyer; the Rosen Institute was formed in 1980.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Care & healing, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuGMM9njS24
- Project page: https://rosenmethod.org

#### Focusing — Eugene Gendlin (1978)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: It makes the felt sense practical: a designer can use the same steps to articulate what a prototype feels like before having words for it.
- What it is: Gendlin's popular book teaches the six Focusing steps for finding and staying with a bodily 'felt sense' of a problem until it shifts.
- How it works: A step-by-step manual with examples from therapy and everyday life; Everest House 1978, later Bantam.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/59035/focusing-by-eugene-tgendlin-phd/ (Everest House 1978)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFIBvofcRNA
- Images: https://images4.penguinrandomhouse.com/smedia/9780553278330

#### Tamalpa Life/Art Process — Anna Halprin, Daria Halprin (1978)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The process assumes that body, feeling and imagination speak the same story in different languages, so moving between them (the 'psychokinetic visualisation' loop) deepens both; designers can borrow this loop for somatic reflection.
- What it is: Participants move a theme from their life, draw what they felt, speak or write about it, and dance again, cycling between body, image and word; Anna Halprin developed it from her own dances through cancer.
- How it works: Movement, drawing and verbal reflection in a structured cycle, informed by the RSVP Cycles scoring method; taught by the Tamalpa Institute founded in 1978.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Care & healing, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVQ50oG2bnE
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Anna_Halprin_Breath_Made_Visible.jpg https://tamalpa.org/wp-content/uploads/about_03-1200x550.jpg
- Project page: https://www.tamalpa.org

#### Rolfing Structural Integration — Ida Rolf (1971)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Rolf treated posture as an organisation of the whole person in gravity, with emotional and bodily holding inseparable; its health claims are not supported by evidence, but it shaped how somatics thinks about fascia and touch.
- What it is: A series of ten hands-on sessions in which a practitioner works slowly and deeply on connective tissue and gives movement prompts, aiming to reorganise how the whole body stands and moves in gravity.
- How it works: Ten-session manual therapy protocol ('the recipe') on fascia combined with movement education, developed from the 1940s and taught by the Rolf Institute founded in 1971.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Vwd7-GA3o
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Rolfing.jpg
- Project page: https://rolf.org

#### Focusing — Eugene Gendlin (1969)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Gendlin showed that meaning is bodily before it is verbal: the felt sense knows more than we can say, which grounds first-person methods where designers articulate what a design feels like.
- What it is: A person turns attention to the middle of the body and waits for a vague 'felt sense' of a situation, then tries words or images against it until one fits and the body registers a 'felt shift'.
- How it works: Six steps (clearing a space, felt sense, handle, resonating, asking, receiving), practised alone or in listening partnerships; first described in a 1969 paper from Gendlin's psychotherapy research with Carl Rogers.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1037/h0088716 (Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice 1969)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tvGdqIA27I
- Project page: https://focusing.org

#### Dance/Movement Therapy — Marian Chace (1942)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Chace showed that mirroring another's movement is a form of empathy that can reach where words cannot; designers of synchrony and shared biosignals are working in the same territory.
- What it is: In a Chace circle, a therapist picks up and reflects each participant's movements and rhythms, builds a shared group rhythm and uses it to open expression and contact among people who may not speak.
- How it works: Group circles with mirroring, rhythmic group action, symbolism and verbal reflection; begun by Chace with psychiatric patients at St. Elizabeths Hospital in 1942.
- Lens: Care & healing, Intercorporeality, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lEYgtyLA8k
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Chace

## Soma Design Methods

How to design from the body: first-person inquiry, estrangement, somatic training of the designer, bodystorming, material exploration, articulating felt experience.

### First-Person & Autobiographical Methods

The designer's own felt experience as data: first-person research, autoethnography, autobiographical design.

#### Validity and Rigour in Soma Design: Sketching with the Soma — Anna Ståhl, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Madeline Balaam (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The designer's felt sense can be trained, tested against others and made accountable; that is where the rigour of soma design lies.
- What it is: Describes 'sketching with the soma' — the iterative, felt trying-out of materials and movements on one's own body — and argues for what makes such first-person design rigorous and valid.
- How it works: Analysis of several soma design processes, identifying practices of sensitisation, iteration and shared articulation.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3470132 (ACM TOCHI 28(6), 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGYlVdYWcsg

#### The Designer's Body as Resource in Design — Dag Svanæs (2020)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Imagining, remembering and enacting a felt experience are different bodily resources; a designer can switch among them on purpose.
- What it is: Maps how designers use their own bodies in design by combining point of view (first, second, third person) with tense (past, present, future), and shows each combination in practice.
- How it works: Conceptual framework grounded in Merleau-Ponty and illustrated with student design projects and the authors' practice.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376430 (CHI 2020)

#### A Sample of One: First-Person Research Methods in HCI — Andrés Lucero, Audrey Desjardins, Carman Neustaedter, Kristina Höök (2019)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: When the researcher is also the participant, the body that lives with the design becomes the instrument of knowing.
- What it is: A DIS workshop that gathered autoethnography, autobiographical design, soma design and other first-person methods to discuss their rigour, ethics and value in HCI.
- How it works: Workshop with position papers and hands-on sessions; it led to a TOCHI special issue on first-person methods (2021).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3301019.3319996 (DIS 2019 Companion)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXmJNp9R-m4

#### Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design — Kristina Höök, Katherine Isbister, Caroline Hummels, Thecla Schiphorst (2018)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: To design for felt experience, designers must first examine their own; first-person inquiry is disciplined practice, not self-indulgence.
- What it is: A 22-author paper in which soma designers each describe a first-person design case and together argue that the designer's own felt experience is a legitimate source of design knowledge.
- How it works: Collective paper that grew out of the CHI 2017 Soma-Based Design Theory workshop, gathering cases from breathing, dance, heat, sound and play.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics5010008 (Informatics 5(1):8, 2018)
- Images: https://pub.mdpi-res.com/informatics/informatics-05-00008/article_deploy/html/images/informatics-05-00008-g001.png
- Project page: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9709/5/1/8

#### Revealing Tensions in Autobiographical Design in HCI — Audrey Desjardins (2018)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Using your own life as data demands care about what you expose and how honestly you report your own body and home.
- What it is: Reflects on the tensions of autobiographical design — between researcher and participant, private life and publication, genuine need and research agenda — using the authors' own long-term projects.
- How it works: Reflective analysis of the authors' autobiographical design projects (with Aubree Ball), structured as five tensions.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196781 (DIS 2018)

#### Autobiographical Design in HCI Research — Carman Neustaedter, Phoebe Sengers (2012)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Long, genuine use by the designer's own life and body surfaces the small frictions and pleasures that short studies never reach.
- What it is: Defines autobiographical design — building and living with a system you made for yourself — and shows through interviews with practitioners that it yields knowledge ordinary studies miss.
- How it works: Interview study with researchers who had designed for themselves, synthesised into features of the method.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2318034 (DIS 2012)

#### Transferring Qualities from Horseback Riding to Design — Kristina Höök (2010)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Years of bodily learning with another living body reveal interaction qualities — subtlety, rhythm, mutual attunement — that screens rarely offer.
- What it is: Höök's autoethnography of learning to ride a horse: how rider and horse come to communicate through subtle shifts of weight and muscle, and which of those qualities design could borrow.
- How it works: First-person autoethnographic account drawn from the author's years of riding lessons, analysed for design qualities.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality, More-than-human
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1868914.1868943 (NordiCHI 2010)

#### Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology — Susan Kozel (2007)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The researcher's dancing body can be a precise instrument for understanding technology, if its experience is described with care.
- What it is: Kozel's book that researches telematic dance, motion capture and wearables from inside her own performing body, developing phenomenology as a hands-on research method.
- How it works: Book (MIT Press, Leonardo series) combining Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology with first-person accounts of the author's performances.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262113106.001.0001 (MIT Press 2007)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv7Vp3NPKw4
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780262113106-L.jpg?default=false

### Estrangement & Making Strange

Disrupting habitual movement and perception to notice the body anew.

#### Estrangement through Silence — Jonas Fritsch, Kristina Höök, Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Anna Ståhl (2025)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Silence is not an absence but a presence full of sound and contact; shared silence tunes designers to themselves, each other and the environment.
- What it is: Over four workshops across 18 months, mostly outdoors, the authors kept long periods of shared silence; the collective silence worked as an estrangement method that revealed how people and things shape one another.
- How it works: Four first-person workshops with prolonged collective silence during activities such as cooking and designing (with Pedro Sanches and Vasiliki Tsaknaki).
- Lens: Estrangement, Attunement & appreciation, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735711 (DIS 2025)

#### Embodied Design Ideation Methods: Analysing the Power of Estrangement — Danielle Wilde, Oscar Tomico (2017)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Disturbing how the body usually moves and senses is a reliable way to make designers notice possibilities they would otherwise overlook.
- What it is: Compares embodied ideation methods from three design practices and shows how estrangement — odd props, unusual constraints, unfamiliar ways of moving — opens up new design ideas.
- How it works: Comparative analysis of workshop methods by Wilde, Vallgårda and Tomico, identifying strategies of estrangement.
- Lens: Estrangement, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025873 (CHI 2017)

#### Moving and Making Strange: An Embodied Approach to Movement-Based Interaction Design — Lian Loke, Toni Robertson (2013)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Only when a familiar movement becomes strange do we feel it again; that renewed feeling is the starting point for design.
- What it is: A design methodology with tools for making habitual movement strange, so that designers can notice, describe and design from how movement feels, looks and is sensed by machines.
- How it works: Methodology with three perspectives (mover, observer, machine), using movement scores, somatic exercises and notation, built from dance-based design projects.
- Lens: Estrangement, Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2442106.2442113 (ACM TOCHI 20(1), 2013)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cGcSdDeN9E

#### Making by Making Strange: Defamiliarization and the Design of Domestic Technologies — Genevieve Bell, Phoebe Sengers (2005)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: What is most familiar — including our own bodily habits — is hardest to design for until it is made strange.
- What it is: Uses ethnographic and historical material to make the ordinary home look strange, so designers can question assumptions built into domestic technology.
- How it works: Defamiliarization strategies from literary theory and anthropology (cross-cultural comparison, historical reading, cultural critique).
- Lens: Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1067860.1067862 (ACM TOCHI 12(2), 2005)

### Somatic Training of the Designer

Feldenkrais lessons, body scans and movement practice to sharpen the designer's sensitivity (somaesthetic appreciation).

#### Towards a Contemplative Research Framework for Training Self-Observation in HCI — Kristina Mah, Lian Loke (2021)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath
- Idea: Observing one's own body-mind is a skill; contemplative traditions offer tested ways to train it.
- What it is: Uses the researcher's own practice of Tonglen compassion meditation to propose a framework for training self-observation, so first-person HCI research can rest on cultivated attention.
- How it works: Autoethnographic study of compassion cultivation combined with micro-phenomenological description, synthesised into a contemplative research framework.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3471932 (ACM TOCHI 28(6), 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDm2kT4B-kA

#### Teaching Soma Design — Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Madeline Balaam, Anna Ståhl, Kristina Höök (2019)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia, Heat & temperature
- Idea: Somaesthetic sensitivity can be taught; slowing down with the body first changes what students go on to design.
- What it is: Reports soma design courses in which students did Feldenkrais-style body scans and movement exercises, then explored heat, vibration and shape-change on their own bodies before designing.
- How it works: Analysis of several soma design courses and workshops with somatic exercises, material explorations and design briefs.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3322327 (DIS 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUFMwrBHxE

#### Cultivating Kinaesthetic Awareness through Interaction — Yves Candau, Jules Françoise, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Thecla Schiphorst (2017)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Awareness of movement grows through attention practices; interaction can support that growth rather than replace it.
- What it is: Draws on somatic practices and embodied cognition to propose how interactive systems — here movement sonification — can help people cultivate kinaesthetic awareness.
- How it works: Theoretical synthesis of Feldenkrais-style somatic education and enactive cognition, grounded in a movement-sound design study.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3077981.3078042 (MOCO 2017)

#### Move to be Moved — Kristina Höök, Anna Ståhl, Toni Robertson, Thecla Schiphorst (2016)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: You cannot learn to design for movement by talking about it; the designer's own body has to be moved.
- What it is: A CHI 2016 workshop where participants learned soma design by moving: somatic exercises, sharing of movement-based design cases and hands-on exploration.
- How it works: Workshop organised by a large group of movement and soma design researchers, alternating movement practice with discussion.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2856470 (CHI 2016 Extended Abstracts)

#### Practicing Somaesthetics — Wonjun Lee, Richard Shusterman (2014)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Training the designer's own body awareness before ideation shifts ideas toward bodily experience: somatic practice is a design tool.
- What it is: Design students did somaesthetic awareness exercises before ideating interactive products, and the study compared their ideas with those produced without the practice.
- How it works: Workshop study (likely comparing practice and control conditions) with somaesthetic exercises drawn from Shusterman's pragmatic somaesthetics, followed by ideation and analysis of the resulting concepts.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598561 (DIS 2014)

#### Somatic Techniques for Experience Design (CHI courses) — Thecla Schiphorst, Lian Loke, Kristina Höök (2013)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia, Breath
- Idea: Designers can learn, in a few hours, to use breath, attention and movement as instruments for sensing experience.
- What it is: Hands-on CHI courses — 'Body, Whys & Videotape' (2013) and 'Designing for Sensory Appreciation' (2020) — that teach HCI practitioners somatic exercises for designing and evaluating experience.
- How it works: Course with case studies, video and in-class somatic exercises drawn from Laban, Feldenkrais and other practices.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3375056 (CHI 2020 Extended Abstracts (course))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI36LoVwk6w

### Bodystorming & Embodied Sketching

Ideating with and through moving bodies, props and play.

#### Sensory Bodystorming for Collocated Physical Training Design — Laia Turmo Vidal, Elena Márquez Segura (2018)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Vibration & haptics, Light & vision
- Idea: Sensory feedback is best designed inside the shared activity, where trainer and trainee feel each other's movement.
- What it is: A bodystorming variant in which trainers and trainees try out sensory props — lights, sounds, vibrations — during real training sessions to imagine technology that supports learning movement together.
- How it works: Workshops in circus and fitness training settings using simple sensory props, analysed for design qualities (with Annika Waern).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3240167.3240224 (NordiCHI 2018)

#### Bodystorming for Movement-Based Interaction Design — Elena Márquez Segura, Laia Turmo Vidal (2016)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: For movement design, the ideas worth keeping are the ones that feel right in the body during the activity itself.
- What it is: Adapts bodystorming to movement-based interaction: participants explore movement, props and early technology together in the actual activity setting.
- How it works: Analysis of bodystorming sessions in movement-based design projects (with Asreen Rostami).
- Lens: Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201611174655 (Human Technology 12(2), 2016)

#### Embodied Sketching — Elena Márquez Segura, Laia Turmo Vidal (2016)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Bodies at play are sketching tools; the felt, social qualities of an activity can be explored before they are engineered.
- What it is: A family of ideation methods in which designers and users sketch with their moving bodies, props and play in real settings, before any technology exists.
- How it works: Synthesis of several design projects (games, physiotherapy, dance) using bodystorming, embodied play tests and minimal props.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858486 (CHI 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI1GUPjrXjQ

#### Bodystorming as Embodied Designing — Dennis Schleicher (2010)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Acting a scenario out with the whole body produces knowledge that talking and sketching on paper do not.
- What it is: An interactions article that presents bodystorming as embodied thinking: physically acting out a situation to generate and test design ideas.
- How it works: Practitioner account with guidance for running bodystorming sessions (with Peter Jones and Oksana Kachur).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1865245.1865256 (ACM interactions 17(6), 2010)

#### Embodied Imagination: A Hybrid Method of Designing for Intimacy — Lone Koefoed Hansen, Susan Kozel (2007)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Imagination is embodied: moving with another person makes possible technologies for intimacy felt before they are built.
- What it is: A method that combines dance improvisation with design scenarios so that participants imagine future intimate technologies through their own bodies.
- How it works: Workshops mixing improvisation scores, props and discussion, developed around wearable and intimate technologies.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1080/14626260701743200 (Digital Creativity 18(4), 2007)

#### Understanding Contexts by Being There: Case Studies in Bodystorming — Antti Oulasvirta (2003)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Ideas come differently when the body is in the situation; being there is a way of thinking.
- What it is: Case studies in which designers generated ideas while physically in the real setting — a bus, a home, a kindergarten — rather than in a meeting room.
- How it works: Four bodystorming case studies comparing idea quality and process with conventional brainstorming.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-003-0238-7 (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 7(2), 2003)

#### Experience Prototyping — Marion Buchenau, Jane Fulton Suri (2000)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure
- Idea: The quickest way to understand a felt experience is to have it, in your own body, with rough props.
- What it is: Describes IDEO's practice of letting designers and clients live through a situation — wearing a pager, carrying a heart-patient's load — to understand how a design would feel.
- How it works: Case descriptions from IDEO projects using role-play, props and simulated situations at different design stages.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/347642.347802 (DIS 2000)

### Soma-Based Material Exploration

Feeling materials, actuators and biosignals on the body: Soma Bits, somaesthetic toolkits, somadata.

#### Soma Express Kit — Michi Kanda (2023)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Blind and low-vision people's heightened somatic sensitivity is expertise: designing from it produces non-visual, shared experiences for everyone.
- What it is: A toolkit of wearable physiological sensors with haptic and sound modules that lets people with visual impairment express their somaesthetic experience of a place to sighted partners in real time.
- How it works: Wearable physiological sensing combined with multi-sensory haptic and audio output modules, used in collaborative sessions (with Kai Kunze, Keio KMD).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3627050.3631571 (IoT 2023)

#### Sketching Soma Bits — Charles Windlin, Kristina Höök (2022)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Heat & temperature, Vibration & haptics, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: Designers need materials they can feel on their own body within minutes; that immediacy is what lets the soma lead the design.
- What it is: Describes the Soma Bits toolkit — small, soft modules that give heat, vibration and shape-change on the body, plus sensors — and how designers use it to sketch felt experiences directly on their skin.
- How it works: Modular hardware toolkit with actuators and sensors in fabric shapes, used and refined in workshops and courses (with Jarmo Laaksolahti).
- Lens: Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533510 (DIS 2022)

#### From Biodata to Somadata — Miquel Alfaras, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Kristina Höök (2020)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Skin conductance & arousal, Breath
- Idea: Data about the body becomes meaningful when it is felt by the body; turning biodata into somadata keeps experience and measurement together.
- What it is: Proposes 'somadata': biosignals such as muscle tension or breathing explored as design material through felt feedback on the body, instead of charts on a screen.
- How it works: Design workshops where designers wore EMG and breathing sensors mapped to sound, vibration and heat, analysed as material exploration.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, First-person & felt experience, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376684 (CHI 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zohoISiOZmQ

#### Crafting the Body-Tool — Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Lian Loke (2014)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: A wearable is not added to the body; it becomes part of how the body feels itself.
- What it is: A body-centred perspective on wearables in which the body and the worn object are crafted together as one 'body-tool' through felt exploration.
- How it works: Design study with wearable props and somatic exploration, drawing on phenomenology and somaesthetics.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598546 (DIS 2014)

#### TECHTILE Toolkit — Kouta Minamizawa (2012)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Touch becomes a design material once it can be recorded and replayed: designers learn by feeling and remixing textures with their own hands.
- What it is: A kit of a microphone, an amplifier and vibration actuators that lets anyone record the feel of an action, such as pouring marbles into a cup, and play it back into another object or hand; used in workshops where people sketch with touch.
- How it works: Audio-based haptic recording: contact microphones capture vibration, which is amplified and sent to voice-coil actuators attached to cups, paper or skin.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2343456.2343478 (SIGGRAPH 2012 Emerging Technologies)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoztAbSlpfU

### Articulating & Evaluating Felt Experience

Micro-phenomenology, body maps, soma trajectories, the Sensual Evaluation Instrument, somatic connoisseurship.

#### Body Maps: A Generative Tool for Soma-based Design — Karen Anne Cochrane, Kristina Mah, Anna Ståhl, Lian Loke (2022)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Drawing where and how something is felt helps people notice and share sensations they could not put into words.
- What it is: Body maps — outlines of a body that people draw and colour to locate sensations and feelings — used as a generative tool for soma design rather than only as a record.
- How it works: Workshops with body-map templates, drawing materials and somatic exercises, analysed across several soma design studies.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3490149.3502262 (TEI 2022)

#### Focusing for Interaction Design: An Introspective Somatic Method — Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Lian Loke (2022)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Meaning often begins as an unclear bodily feeling; staying with it patiently lets understanding and emotion emerge together.
- What it is: Adapts Eugene Gendlin's Focusing into steps designers can use to attend to a vague bodily 'felt sense' and let it unfold into words, images and design ideas.
- How it works: Method developed through first-person studies and workshops (following the authors' 2018 Design Journal technique paper).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501978 (CHI 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5e0WW1k5Fc

#### Articulating Soma Experiences using Trajectories — Paul Tennent, Kristina Höök, Steve Benford, Vasiliki Tsaknaki (2021)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: A soma experience has a shape in time; mapping that shape helps designers orchestrate transitions rather than single effects.
- What it is: Soma trajectories: a way of drawing and describing how a felt experience unfolds over time — moments of attention, sensation and transition — for design and analysis.
- How it works: Extends Benford's trajectories framework with first-person accounts from several soma design projects.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445482 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ACi7LS9mj4

#### Articulating Experience: Reflections from Experts Applying Micro-Phenomenology to Design Research in HCI — Mirjana Prpa, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Thecla Schiphorst (2020)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath
- Idea: Getting people to describe how an experience unfolds — not what they think about it — takes practice from both interviewer and interviewee.
- What it is: Interviews expert practitioners on how they use micro-phenomenology in HCI design research, and draws out its strengths, pitfalls and training needs.
- How it works: Qualitative study with experienced micro-phenomenology practitioners in design and HCI (with Philippe Pasquier).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376664 (CHI 2020)

#### Designing for Kinesthetic Awareness — Jules Françoise, Yves Candau, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Thecla Schiphorst (2017)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Subtle changes in bodily awareness are invisible to logs and surveys; guided second-person inquiry can bring them into words.
- What it is: Studies an interactive movement-sonification system and uses second-person interviews, inspired by micro-phenomenology, to reveal how people's kinesthetic awareness shifts.
- How it works: User study with a sonification system and second-person interview protocol, analysed for dimensions of kinesthetic experience.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025714 (CHI 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pqkj8FbWaA

#### Tacit Narratives: Surfacing Aesthetic Meaning by Using Wearable Props and Focusing — Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Lian Loke (2017)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Objects on the body can act as handles for felt meanings that are otherwise hard to reach.
- What it is: Participants wear simple props and follow Focusing steps to bring tacit, bodily meanings of an experience into narrative.
- How it works: Workshop study combining wearable props, guided Focusing and narrative analysis.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3024969.3024979 (TEI 2017)

#### Self-Evidence: Applying Somatic Connoisseurship to Experience Design — Thecla Schiphorst (2011)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Touch & pressure
- Idea: The felt sense, when trained, is evidence; designers can learn to trust and articulate it.
- What it is: Introduces somatic connoisseurship: using the trained felt sense of somatic practitioners as evidence in designing and evaluating experience.
- How it works: Essay drawing on somatics (Laban, Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering) and the author's wearable and installation works.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979640 (CHI 2011 Extended Abstracts)

#### Design Representations of Moving Bodies for Interactive, Motion-Sensing Spaces — Lian Loke, Toni Robertson (2009)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: How a designer notates movement shapes what they can feel and design; choose representations that keep the mover's experience.
- What it is: Compares ways of representing movement for design — Labanotation, video, scores, personas of movement — and what each lets designers see about the moving body.
- How it works: Design case of an interactive motion-sensing space, with representations drawn from dance notation and interaction design.
- Lens: Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2008.11.003 (International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 67(4), 2009)

#### On Being Supple: In Search of Rigor without Rigidity — Katherine Isbister, Kristina Höök (2009)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Evaluating felt, bodily experience needs methods as flexible as the experience itself.
- What it is: Proposes 'supple' interaction — social, emotional, bodily — and asks how to evaluate it with rigour but without the rigid metrics of task performance.
- How it works: Position paper drawing on the authors' affective and movement-based systems (eMoto, SenToy, games).
- Lens: Affective loops, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1518701.1519042 (CHI 2009)

#### The Micro-Phenomenological Interview — Claire Petitmengin (2006)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Much of felt experience is pre-reflective; careful questioning can bring it into awareness without imposing interpretations.
- What it is: An interview technique that guides a person back into one specific past moment and helps them describe, in fine detail, what they felt and did — gestures, sensations, shifts of attention.
- How it works: Second-person interview protocol (evocation of a singular experience, open 'how' questions, redirection from content to process).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-006-9022-2 (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 5, 2006)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFU9YVuNXQg
- Project page: https://www.microphenomenology.com

#### The Sensual Evaluation Instrument — Katherine Isbister, Kristina Höök (2006)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Feelings are bodily; letting people answer with their hands captures affect that words and rating scales flatten.
- What it is: A set of eight smooth, abstract sculpted objects that people hold and arrange to show how they feel while using a system, as a nonverbal alternative to questionnaires.
- How it works: Hand-sized sculpted objects made by an artist co-author, tested in user and cross-cultural studies (with Jarmo Laaksolahti).
- Lens: Affective loops, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1124772.1124946 (CHI 2006)

### Strong Concepts, Qualities & Ethics

Intermediate-level design knowledge from soma design: strong concepts, design qualities, felt ethics.

#### Change and Be Changed: Looking Back at 10 Years of the Soma Design Research Program — Kristina Höök, Jonas Löwgren, Anna Ståhl (2026)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Soma design changes the designer as much as the design; a research program built on the felt body must account for that change.
- What it is: A TOCHI retrospective on ten years of the soma design research program: what its methods, prototypes and concepts achieved, and how doing it changed the designers themselves.
- How it works: Retrospective analysis of design examples and concepts, assessing the program's generativity, transferability and scope.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3793670 (ACM TOCHI 2026)

#### Five Political Provocations for Soma Design: A Relational Perspective on Emotion and Politics — Rachael Garrett, Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Kristina Höök (2024)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Felt experience is shaped between bodies and by society; designing for the soma therefore means designing within politics.
- What it is: Five provocations on the politics of soma design — ways of knowing, the self, felt ethics and right action, the pursuit of happiness, and justice and the emotional labour of transformation.
- How it works: Conceptual paper combining soma design, political theory and Sara Ahmed's The Cultural Politics of Emotion (with Pasko Kisić-Merino and Pedro Sanches).
- Lens: Body politics, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3686169.3686213 (Halfway to the Future 2024)

#### Voicing Discomfort, Communicating Breakdowns: Design Exploration of Felt Ethics in a Body-Based Workshop — Kristina Popova (2024)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Ethical breakdowns are first felt as discomfort; giving people ways to voice it keeps bodies safe and design honest.
- What it is: A soma-design workshop with interaction designers that explores ethics through the discomfort felt in interpersonal bodily interaction, and how participants make that discomfort shared.
- How it works: Body-based workshop grounded in soma design and the ethics of care, analysed from video recordings and post-workshop interviews (with Arife Dila Demir, Joo Young Park and Rob Comber).
- Lens: Body politics, Intercorporeality, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3679318.3685375 (NordiCHI 2024)

#### Felt Ethics: Cultivating Ethical Sensibility in Design Practice — Rachael Garrett, Kristina Popova, Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Kristina Höök (2023)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Ethics is not only reasoning after the fact; discomfort and care felt in the body during design are ethical signals worth attending to.
- What it is: Argues that ethical judgment in design is also felt, and describes practices that cultivate designers' bodily ethical sensibility during design work.
- How it works: Analysis of soma design and HRI design processes, identifying practices of felt ethical attention.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580875 (CHI 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVN61ogAV5k

#### Intercorporeal Biofeedback for Movement Learning — Laia Turmo Vidal, Elena Márquez Segura (2023)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Muscle tension (EMG), Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Movement is learned between bodies; biofeedback works best when it supports that intercorporeal exchange instead of a lone user and a screen.
- What it is: A strong concept: biofeedback shared between trainer and trainee, so that both can see or feel one body's inner activity and learn the movement together.
- How it works: Strong concept articulated from several training-technology design cases, with its design qualities (with Annika Waern).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3582428 (ACM TOCHI 30(3), 2023)

#### An Annotated Soma Design Process of the Pelvic Chair — Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam (2022)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Soma design knowledge lives in the process; annotating that process shows how felt judgments steer the design.
- What it is: An annotated portfolio of the whole soma design process behind the Pelvic Chair, a chair that helps people feel their pelvic floor, making each design move and its felt reason visible.
- How it works: Annotated portfolio method applied to a first-person soma design process (with Marianela Ciolfi Felice and Irene Kaklopoulou).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533469 (DIS 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HspE-Al7_Y0

#### Making New Worlds: Transformative Becomings with Soma Design — Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam, Kristina Höök (2022)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Working through the body transforms who we are; soma design is also a practice of changing how bodies are allowed to live.
- What it is: Argues that soma design changes designers and users, not only products, and reads soma design projects as ways of becoming — and of imagining other worlds for bodies.
- How it works: Theoretical reading of soma design cases through feminist new materialism and transformation (with Rob Comber).
- Lens: Body politics, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502018 (CHI 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvlBEyPYZXw

#### Vulnerability as an Ethical Stance in Soma Design Processes — Kristina Popova, Rachael Garrett, Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Kristina Höök (2022)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Designing from the body means being exposed; vulnerability handled with care produces both better knowledge and fairer processes.
- What it is: Examines moments in soma design where designers expose their bodies and feelings, and argues that holding vulnerability with care is itself an ethical stance.
- How it works: Reflective analysis of first-person soma design processes and workshops (with Airi Lampinen).
- Lens: Body politics, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501994 (CHI 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eTw27UrRlQ

#### Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case — Kristina Höök, Steve Benford, Paul Tennent, Vasiliki Tsaknaki (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Feeling, thinking and moving are one process; methods that treat the designer's soma as data make that non-dualism practical.
- What it is: A TOCHI article that uses a series of soma design projects to show what design looks like when it refuses the split between mind and body, self and other, subject and object.
- How it works: Theoretical paper built from case projects by KTH and Nottingham teams, analysed as design strategies for non-dualistic design.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3462448 (ACM TOCHI 28(6), 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RycXfX3vL4Q

#### Soma Design and Politics of the Body — Kristina Höök, Sara Eriksson, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard (2019)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Feeling your own body more finely also makes visible the social norms written into it; soma design has to engage those politics.
- What it is: A short paper arguing that design tends to repeat dichotomies such as body-mind, male-female and emotion-thinking, and that closer somatic engagement with digital materials can help designers bypass them and counter privilege.
- How it works: Position paper reflecting on the KTH group's soma design projects through non-dualism and feminist qualities such as pluralism and participation (with Ciolfi Felice, Campo Woytuk, Kilic Afsar, Tsaknaki and Ståhl).
- Lens: Body politics, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3363384.3363385 (Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019)

#### Designing with the Body: Somaesthetic Interaction Design — Kristina Höök (2018)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Design starts from a body-mind trained to feel more finely; the designer's own soma is the first instrument of design, not an afterthought.
- What it is: Höök's book that defines soma design: it tells how she learned Feldenkrais and horseback riding, walks through the Soma Mat, Breathing Light and other cases, and sets out a soma design manifesto, theory and methods.
- How it works: Book (MIT Press, Design Thinking, Design Theory series) combining Shusterman's somaesthetics, first-person design accounts and a catalogue of methods such as estrangement, somatic training and soma-based material exploration.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11481.001.0001 (MIT Press 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oIngFrfZD4
- Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780262038560-L.jpg?default=false
- Project page: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262038560/designing-with-the-body/

#### The Somatic Turn in Human-Computer Interaction — Lian Loke, Thecla Schiphorst (2018)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Somatic practices give designers disciplined ways to attend to the body-mind as a whole, which is what makes soma design possible.
- What it is: An interactions article that names HCI's 'somatic turn': designers drawing on somatic practices to treat felt, first-person experience as central to design.
- How it works: Short overview essay linking Feldenkrais, Laban, Body-Mind Centering and other somatics to HCI methods.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3236675 (ACM interactions 25(5), 2018)

#### Soma-Based Design Theory — Kristina Höök, Caroline Hummels, Katherine Isbister, Elena Márquez Segura (2017)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Theory of soma design is built by doing it together with bodies in the room, not only by reading.
- What it is: A CHI 2017 workshop where soma designers moved, touched and discussed together to work out a shared theory of soma-based design; its cases became the 2018 first-person paper.
- How it works: One-day workshop combining somatic exercises, sharing of first-person design cases and collective writing.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3027063.3027082 (CHI 2017 Extended Abstracts)

#### Somaesthetic Appreciation Design — Kristina Höök, Anna Ståhl (2016)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Heat & temperature, Breath
- Idea: Systems for bodily awareness work when they guide lightly and leave room for the person's own felt sense to lead.
- What it is: The CHI paper behind the Soma Mat and Breathing Light that names design qualities for systems of somaesthetic appreciation: subtle guidance, making space and intimate correspondence.
- How it works: Research-through-design with Feldenkrais-trained designers, heat and light prototypes, and first-person and user studies.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858583 (CHI 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHTv_YqFjEk

#### Seven Principles to Design for Embodied Sensemaking — Caroline Hummels (2015)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: People make sense of the world by moving in it; design should support that bodily sensemaking, not bypass it.
- What it is: Seven principles for designing systems that support sensemaking through the body, grounded in enactive cognition rather than information processing.
- How it works: Principles derived from enactivism and phenomenology and illustrated with TU/e design projects (with Jelle van Dijk).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2677199.2680577 (TEI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVq80-6dLok

#### Somaesthetic Design — Kristina Höök, Anna Ståhl (2015)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Heat & temperature, Breath
- Idea: Technology can be designed to slow us down and help us feel our own body-mind more richly, instead of pulling attention outward.
- What it is: An interactions cover story that introduced somaesthetic design to a broad HCI audience, using the Soma Mat, heat and breath-driven light as examples of technology that turns attention inward.
- How it works: Magazine essay drawing on Feldenkrais-inspired design workshops and prototypes built in Höök's group.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2770888 (ACM interactions 22(4), 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t22T4AwdU-E

#### Strong Concepts: Intermediate-Level Knowledge in Interaction Design Research — Kristina Höök, Jonas Löwgren (2012)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Felt design knowledge can be shared without flattening it into rules: name the interaction pattern and show the cases.
- What it is: Defines strong concepts: design ideas that sit between a single artefact and a general theory, can be reused across designs, and are grounded in examples. Soma design uses them to share what it learns.
- How it works: Conceptual paper illustrated with strong concepts such as social navigation and seamfulness, later used for soma design concepts.
- Lens: Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2362364.2362371 (ACM TOCHI 19(3), 2012)

## Somaesthetic Interaction Design

Interactive systems that help us feel our own body-mind more richly: soma mats, breathing lights, heat, shape-change, sound and garments.

### Somaesthetic Appreciation & Attunement

Systems that slow us down and direct attention inward: Soma Mat, Breathing Light, guided body scans.

#### Soma Mat — Martin Jonsson, Anna Ståhl, Kristina Höök (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heat & temperature, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Slow, subtle heat does not signal anything; it quietly draws attention to parts of the body we rarely feel.
- What it is: The Soma Mat is a padded mat with heating elements beneath its surface; lying on it during a guided body scan, the listener feels warmth appear under the body part the recorded voice names.
- How it works: Heat pads under a sculpted felt surface are switched in sequence with a Feldenkrais-inspired body-scan recording; the user study examined heat as an aesthetic material (inertia, subtleness, heat transfer).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2839462.2839487 (TEI 2016)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/58851b397677d0295424829a85331041347eb3c2/3-Figure3-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/1cde192fe629ab02c0c5bcfda880f59cce16e194/4-Figure2-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/1cde192fe629ab02c0c5bcfda880f59cce16e194/3-Figure1-1.png

### Designing with Breath

Breath as input, output and shared rhythm.

#### Breathing Mirror — Ziyue Piao (2026)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Breath, Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Body data works best as a mirror for first-person recall, not as a verdict: seeing one's breath brings back the felt experience of playing.
- What it is: Pianists wear a breathing belt while playing and afterwards watch their breathing aligned with the music, using it to recall and describe what their body was doing at each moment.
- How it works: Stretch-sensor breathing belt synchronised with audio and MIDI, plus an annotation interface used in stimulated-recall interviews with pianists.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body data & ambiguity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01974 (NIME 2026)
- Images: https://arxiv.org/html/2609.01974v1/images/GummiStra_Belt.jpeg

#### Soma Corset — Pavel Karpashevich, Pedro Sanches, Rachael Garrett, Yoav Luft, Kelsey Cotton, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Kristina Höök (2022)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure
- Idea: When a garment mirrors your breath in tight loops, the line between wearer and technology blurs, and not always comfortably.
- What it is: The Soma Corset senses breathing around the torso and answers with inflating pads, so the garment can feel like a harmonious partner, an organic 'other' with its own will, or a twisted mirror of one's own breath.
- How it works: Breathing sensors and inflatable actuators placed over the diaphragm, intercostal muscles and lower back, run in closed sensing-actuation loops and explored by the design team over a long soma design process.
- Lens: Estrangement, Technology that touches back, More-than-human
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3490498 (ACM TOCHI 2022)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/c493d77955a0fbf485736178fff1a2b4db941a38/9-Figure2-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/c493d77955a0fbf485736178fff1a2b4db941a38/8-Figure1-1.png

#### Breathing Garment — Annkatrin Jung, Miquel Alfaras, Pavel Karpashevich, Kristina Höök (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Touch & pressure, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: Deep pressure can direct attention to the muscles and bones of breathing; the most evocative rhythm sits between following and leading the breath.
- What it is: A garment with inflatable cushions presses firmly on the torso in relation to the wearer's breathing, sometimes following it, sometimes leading it.
- How it works: A breathing sensor drives pneumatic actuators placed symmetrically and asymmetrically on the torso, inspired by Deep Pressure Therapy; first-person explorations led to 'breathing correspondence' interactions.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Technology that touches back, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445533 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_1t7TjxnCk

#### Breathing Shell — Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Kelsey Cotton, Pavel Karpashevich, Pedro Sanches (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Shape-change & inflatables, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Being sensed is itself a bodily experience; a sensor that is felt makes the relation between body and data reciprocal.
- What it is: Designed with a classical singer, the Breathing Shell is a wearable breathing sensor that also presses back on the body, so the singer feels 'the sensor feeling you'.
- How it works: A new sensing mechanism built from shape-change (inflatable) technology around the singer's torso, developed through soma design sessions on non-habitual breathing.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Technology that touches back, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445628 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY82dGWywj8

#### aSpire — Kyung Yun Choi (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Breath can be guided by touch rather than by instruction: a soft rhythm on the body invites slower breathing without adding mental load.
- What it is: A small pneumatic device clipped to a strap or belt inflates air pouches against the body at a slow, personalised rhythm, and breathing tends to follow; tested with car passengers during real commutes.
- How it works: Array of individually inflating air pouches driven by a mobile pump and valves, with adjustable pattern, intensity and frequency (MIT Media Lab).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Technology that touches back, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451602 (CHI 2021 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aIHXcMv-qM

#### Breathing Light — Anna Ståhl, Martin Jonsson, Kristina Höök (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Light & vision
- Idea: Seeing your breath softly reflected in ambient light lets you notice breathing without trying to control it.
- What it is: Breathing Light is a lamp with a curtain of fabric and strings that encloses a person lying beneath it; the light slowly dims in and out with their breathing.
- How it works: A sensor on the chest measures breathing movement and drives a dimmable lamp inside a fabric and string enclosure; evaluated together with the Soma Mat, and later in a three-month home study.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2889464 (CHI 2016 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kAX5YRJkJw
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/58851b397677d0295424829a85331041347eb3c2/4-Figure4-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/58851b397677d0295424829a85331041347eb3c2/2-Figure1-1.png

### Touching Back: Heat, Vibration & Shape-Change

Technology that acts on the skin and body: heat, vibration, inflatables, shape-changing surfaces.

#### Shape-Changing Car Seats — Madeline Balaam, Anna Ståhl, Guðrún Margrét Ívansdóttir, Kristina Höök, Caroline Yan Zheng (2024)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Touch on large, heavy parts of the body can link somatic experience to the rational tasks of driving, so the car's intelligence is felt rather than displayed.
- What it is: With a car manufacturer, the team co-designed touch patterns for a shape-changing driver's seat: re-engaging in driving, disengaging, saying farewell and being held while turning.
- How it works: A low-fidelity inflatable prototyping tool on a racing seat, used in a soma design workshop with the manufacturer's designers.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3661518 (DIS 2024)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/6ab6d94919fb0abd93165123064d0ccffe4bbe71/6-Figure2-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/6ab6d94919fb0abd93165123064d0ccffe4bbe71/8-Figure3-1.png

#### OmniFiber — Ozgun Kilic Afsar (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Shape-change & inflatables, Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: A textile that behaves like muscle lets movement be taught and shared through the fabric we already wear.
- What it is: OmniFiber is a thin fluidic fibre that contracts and senses its own strain, so it can be woven or knitted into garments that move, squeeze and guide the body.
- How it works: Fluidic artificial muscle fibres (under 1.8 mm) with integrated soft sensors, woven into on-body haptic devices for embodied learning (with the MIT Media Lab Tangible Media Group).
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3472749.3474802 (UIST 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtlL-0eb0xc

#### Preemptive Action — Shunichi Kasahara, Jun Nishida (2019)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The sense of 'I did it' depends on timing: assistance that arrives in step with one's intention is felt as one's own movement.
- What it is: Electrical muscle stimulation makes the user's hand react faster than it would alone, and by timing the stimulation just before the person's own reaction, users still feel that they moved.
- How it works: Reaction-time studies varying EMS onset relative to natural reaction, with sense-of-agency ratings (with Pedro Lopes, University of Chicago).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300873 (CHI 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BT8REEJibM

#### Shaking the World / Save YourSelf!!! — Taro Maeda, Hideyuki Ando (2005)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Balance is felt, not given: when technology writes directly to the vestibular sense, the ground itself seems to move and the body's certainty becomes strange.
- What it is: A headset passes weak currents behind the ears (galvanic vestibular stimulation) so the wearer feels pulled left or right; the related art piece Save YourSelf!!! lets visitors feel their balance being shifted from outside.
- How it works: Bilateral GVS electrodes on the mastoids driven by a small current controller; the art version likely drives the current from sensor input.
- Lens: Estrangement, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1187297.1187315 (SIGGRAPH 2005 Emerging Technologies)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPeWwvsnaaQ

### Sound, Voice & Sonification

Hearing the body: movement sonification, singing, the voice as felt.

#### Corsetto — Ozgun Kilic Afsar, Yoav Luft, Kelsey Cotton, Claudia Núñez-Pacheco (2023)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Breath, Shape-change & inflatables, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Haptic gestures on the torso can bridge inner and outer sensation, so listening to a voice becomes a shared intercorporeal experience.
- What it is: Corsetto is a robotic garment worn by audience members during a live opera performance; it enacts haptic gestures that echo the singer's upper-body movements, adding a felt 'fourth voice' to Morton Feldman's Three Voices.
- How it works: Soft robotic (likely fluidic fibre) actuators in a corset-like garment play composed haptic gestures synchronised with a live singer; audience experiences were studied with micro-phenomenological interviews.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581294 (CHI 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML_A_L2u280

#### The Body Electric — Kelsey Cotton, Pedro Sanches, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Pavel Karpashevich (2020)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Breath, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: An instrument designed from the singer's felt breathing can unsettle control and open new ways of relating to one's own voice.
- What it is: The Body Electric is a singing corset that captures the breathing movements of the singer's torso and uses them to shape the soundscape, so the instrument steers the singer's voice as much as the singer steers the instrument.
- How it works: Breathing sensors on a corset stream biofeedback to a live electronic composition; performed in Hamburg in July 2020 and documented as a NIME paper.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Movement & expression, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.21428/92fbeb44.ec9f8fdd (NIME 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5DbL4XyBsU

#### Sarka — Ilias Bergström, Martin Jonsson (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Sound feedback can support attention to the body only if it stays quiet enough not to become the thing you listen to.
- What it is: Sarka is a mat that sonifies how a person lying on it distributes their weight and how intensely each part of the body moves, to support inward listening during body-awareness exercises.
- How it works: Sensing of weight distribution and movement across zones of the mat (likely pressure sensors) drives an interactive sonification designed through Somaesthetic Appreciation Design.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2948910.2948922 (MOCO 2016)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/cd5a659b9d8a65cff778c9b909b61bcdb2e86318/4-Figure2-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/cd5a659b9d8a65cff778c9b909b61bcdb2e86318/1-Figure1-1.png

### Garments, Textiles & Soft Wearables

Clothing and soft materials that sense and touch: corsets, shirts, e-textiles.

#### Inside the Mirror, Wearing My Own Body — Pavel Karpashevich, Kristina Höök (2026)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Attending to felt, ambiguous experiences reveals a monstrous category that user-experience frameworks miss; such experiences deserve design attention rather than removal.
- What it is: Looking back on four wearable systems, the authors describe felt experiences that were at once pleasant and unpleasant, comforting and frightening, human-like and machinic, and read them through monster theory.
- How it works: Retrospective first-person analysis of shape-changing and actuated wearables using concepts such as fusion, fission, massification and incompleteness (with Jeffrey Bardzell).
- Lens: Estrangement, Body-mind unity, More-than-human
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790753 (CHI 2026)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/46f2883425394b2f11137ff595de6bd8992ef412/6-Figure5-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/46f2883425394b2f11137ff595de6bd8992ef412/5-Figure2-1.png

#### The Breathing Wings — Vasiliki Tsaknaki (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure, Breath
- Idea: A material that touches you slowly can blur the boundary between garment and body and make the shoulder blades felt again.
- What it is: The Breathing Wings is a wearable over the shoulder blades whose soft shape-changing parts swell and embrace the back, inviting the wearer to feel a neglected part of the body.
- How it works: Autobiographical soma design with soft inflatable and shape-change materials, documented as a pictorial.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3461778.3462054 (DIS 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BcjnEDwakU

#### Nebula — Vasiliki Tsaknaki (2015)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: A garment's drape can itself be the interface: implicit movement, not commands, carries the expression.
- What it is: Nebula is a heavy studded cloak that turns both intentional gestures and the incidental swing of its folds into sound, so the wearer hears how they move.
- How it works: Metal studs act as a sensing material and visual feature in a draped heavy fabric; a sound design exploits the garment's material qualities (with sound researcher Ludvig Elblaus at KTH).
- Lens: Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3294109.3295623 (TEI 2019)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/81b83d6431712aa2e5de7e65dbf2fe04156c71e7/2-Figure1-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/81b83d6431712aa2e5de7e65dbf2fe04156c71e7/6-Figure3-1.png

## Affective Loops & Biodata

Emotion as a bodily, felt process: affective loops, biosignals as design material, interoception, and the ambiguity of body data.

### Affective Loops

Systems where emotion is co-produced through gesture and response: eMoto, Affective Diary, SenToy.

#### As Light as You Aspire to Be — Ana Tajadura-Jiménez (2019)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Altering the felt body can support physical activity without numbers or targets, but the effect depends on each person's weight and body ideals and fades when the sound stops, which design must take seriously.
- What it is: Sound-altering footwear (the 'Magic Shoes' line of work) tested during exertion such as gym stepping and stair climbing: lighter footstep sounds made people feel lighter even while working hard, depending on the body they aspired to.
- How it works: A wearable senses footsteps and alters their sound in real time; two studies in exertion contexts measured body perception, emotion and after-effects (CHI 2019).
- Lens: Affective loops, Care & healing, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300888 (CHI 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw_LC-YpjFw
- Project page: https://imbodylab.com/ana-tajadura-jimenez/

#### As Light as Your Footsteps — Ana Tajadura-Jiménez (2015)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: The felt size and weight of the body is not fixed: changing one sound of one's own movement shifts body image, emotion and gait together, showing them as one process.
- What it is: Shoes with microphones pick up the wearer's footsteps and play them back through headphones with the high frequencies raised or lowered; walkers feel lighter or heavier, walk differently and report a changed mood.
- How it works: Real-time frequency shifting of footstep sounds captured by shoe-mounted microphones; body-weight estimates, emotion ratings, galvanic skin response and gait were measured (CHI 2015).
- Lens: Estrangement, Affective loops, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702374 (CHI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tcx6F5y6Rw
- Project page: https://imbodylab.com/ana-tajadura-jimenez/

#### Emotions Mediated Through Mid-Air Haptics — Marianna Obrist (2015)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: How a touch feels, where, how fast and how strong, carries emotion in non-arbitrary ways, so felt qualities of touch are a vocabulary for affective design.
- What it is: One group of people designed mid-air ultrasound touch patterns on the palm to express emotions such as happy, sad, excited and afraid; two further groups recognised and validated them.
- How it works: An ultrasonic mid-air haptic array; participants composed haptic descriptions for emotions, which were reviewed and validated by two other groups (CHI 2015).
- Lens: Affective loops, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702361 (CHI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOxuFmsxBY

#### Incendiary Reflection — Shigeo Yoshida (2013)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Light & vision, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Emotion flows from the felt and seen face inward: changing the body's expression changes the feeling, not only the other way round.
- What it is: A mirror-like display subtly deforms the viewer's face in real time into a slight smile or frown; people who see themselves smiling report feeling more positive and rate things more favourably.
- How it works: Camera and real-time facial image warping shown on a display framed as a mirror, with studies on emotion and preference (University of Tokyo, Hirose-Narumi lab).
- Lens: Affective loops, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2459236.2459243 (Augmented Human 2013)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ORSFameZZI
- Project page: http://www.shigeodayo.com/incendiary_reflection.html

#### Affective Loop Experiences — Kristina Höök (2009)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Emotions are processes constructed in interaction, starting from bodily, cognitive and social experience; the user, not the system, holds the responsibility for interpreting them.
- What it is: Höök's essay defines the affective loop: a system that is influenced by and influences the user corporeally, drawing on eMoto, the Affective Diary and other SICS systems.
- How it works: Conceptual analysis of a series of built systems (eMoto, FriendSense, Affective Diary) and their user studies, published in a theme issue on computation of emotions.
- Lens: Affective loops, Body-mind unity, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0202 (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 2009)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_GBHgADRr4
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/a4980adb3deee93c75ff36c412b0ba0467a6a5ba/3-Figure1-1.png

#### How Emotion Is Made and Measured — Kirsten Boehner, Phoebe Sengers (2007)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Design should help people experience, interpret and reflect on their own emotions rather than have a system decide what they feel, which is the ground of affective loops.
- What it is: A critique of affective computing's 'informational' view of emotion as an internal state to be sensed and transmitted, proposing instead an 'interactional' view in which emotion is made in social and cultural interaction.
- How it works: A theoretical argument drawing on social and cultural accounts of emotion, with design examples of interactional systems (International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2007; with Rogério DePaula and Paul Dourish).
- Lens: Affective loops, Body-mind unity, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2006.11.016 (International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 2007)

#### eMoto — Petra Sundström, Anna Ståhl, Kristina Höök (2004)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Light & vision
- Idea: Emotion is not a label to select but a process that starts in the body; the interface should pull the user into it physically and leave the interpretation to them.
- What it is: eMoto is a mobile messaging service in which the sender expresses emotion by how they move and squeeze a stylus; the text is sent against an animated background of colours and shapes chosen that way.
- How it works: A pressure- and motion-sensing stylus maps effort and shape of gesture (from Laban analysis) to a circular space of animated colour backgrounds; tested with friends in everyday use.
- Lens: Affective loops, Movement & expression, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-004-0301-z (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 2004)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/d4fc400539b03fed6e3e52b2120f9d95c2729658/2-Figure4-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/a4980adb3deee93c75ff36c412b0ba0467a6a5ba/4-Figure2-1.png

#### SenToy — Ana Paiva, Kristina Höök (2003)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Emotion can be entered into a system as a whole-body gesture, so the player has to act the feeling out to use it.
- What it is: SenToy is a plush doll with motion sensors that players move and squeeze to make game characters happy, sad, angry or afraid in the fantasy game FantasyA.
- How it works: Sensors in the doll's body and limbs (likely accelerometers and position switches) classify gesture patterns (e.g. bouncing for happy, covering the eyes for fear), derived from a Wizard of Oz study at SICS.
- Lens: Affective loops, Movement & expression, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/s1071-5819(03)00048-x (International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 2003)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/73b66a6b4c4bc8e975ca3f6b446c6efe307439e5/3-Figure1-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/73b66a6b4c4bc8e975ca3f6b446c6efe307439e5/5-Figure2-1.png

#### Affective Computing — Rosalind Picard (1997)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Heartbeat
- Idea: It put the body's signals at the centre of computing with emotion; soma design keeps that attention to the body but questions the idea that emotion can be read off it as a label.
- What it is: The book that named and founded affective computing: computing that relates to, arises from or deliberately influences emotion, including wearable sensing of physiological signals.
- How it works: A monograph combining emotion theory, signal processing, pattern recognition and early wearable prototypes from the MIT Media Lab.
- Lens: Affective loops, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1140.001.0001 (MIT Press 1997)

### Biosignals as Design Material

EDA, heart rate, EMG, EEG turned into felt experience: from biodata to somadata.

#### Can You Hear My Heartbeat? — R. Michael Winters (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: A heartbeat heard, not seen, reaches the listener's body directly and can open an embodied path to empathy.
- What it is: In a lab study, 27 people recognised others' emotions while sometimes hearing that person's heartbeat; hearing it shifted their emotional perspective and raised their sense of 'feeling what the other was feeling'.
- How it works: Within-subjects emotion recognition task with auditory heartbeat conditions and empathy measures (CHI 2021; with Bruce Walker and Grace Leslie).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445545 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N9GOKW1mbA

#### Significant Otter — Fannie Liu (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heartbeat
- Idea: Sensing made communication feel easier and more authentic, but also raised worries about who authors a feeling; biosignals work best as suggestions the person can accept or refuse.
- What it is: A watch and phone app for romantic partners: the app reads the sender's heart rate and suggests matching animated otters (calm, excited, angry…) to send, and the partner can respond with otter gestures such as a hug.
- How it works: Apple Watch heart rate informs a small set of suggested otter animations; a one-month study with 20 couples compared sensing off and on (CHI 2021).
- Lens: Affective loops, Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445200 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oub3OY5j7Z8
- Images: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2021/june/images/otter-900x600.jpg
- Project page: https://research.snap.com/publications/significant-otter-understanding-the-role-of-biosignals-in-communication.html

#### ThermoPixels — Muhammad Umair, Miquel Alfaras (2020)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Heat & temperature, Light & vision
- Idea: Making your own representation of arousal, with your hands, turns biodata into something personal you can regulate emotion with.
- What it is: ThermoPixels is a crafting toolkit of thermochromic materials, heating elements and skin conductance sensors with which people make their own colour-changing displays of physiological arousal.
- How it works: GSR sensing drives heating elements under thermochromic paint and fabric; 20 participants created personalised shapes and colours in 10 workshops.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Attunement & appreciation, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395512 (DIS 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IhgPrDsXzI

#### Animo — Fannie Liu (2019)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heartbeat
- Idea: A biosignal shared as an expressive, abstract form lets people feel close without words, while leaving the meaning of the body's state open to both.
- What it is: A smartwatch app that turns the wearer's heart rate into a small animated shape, an 'animo', that close friends or partners can send to each other as a lightweight way of saying how they are.
- How it works: Smartwatch heart rate drives the colour and motion of an animated shape, likely with features for dyadic sending and viewing; a two-week field study with 34 participants (IMWUT 2019).
- Lens: Affective loops, Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3314405 (IMWUT 2019 (UbiComp))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE-H8bYmlgs

#### Breeze — Jérémy Frey (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Vibration & haptics, Light & vision
- Idea: Sharing breath invites bodily attunement: matching another's breathing is itself a way of understanding their emotion, from the inside.
- What it is: A pendant worn around the neck that senses the wearer's breathing and relays it to a partner's pendant as light, vibration or sound; people often breathed along with the feedback to sense what the other felt.
- How it works: A wearable pendant measures breathing and renders digital breathing patterns through visual, audio and haptic output; patterns were evaluated for emotional interpretation in a lab study (CHI 2018).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174219 (CHI 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPQ8-hbWKyM
- Images: https://labs.ullo.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/breeze_teaser.jpg
- Project page: https://labs.ullo.fr/projects/breeze/

#### HeartChat — Mariam Hassib (2017)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heartbeat
- Idea: Adding a live body signal to text restores some of the felt presence that written messages lose, supporting empathy as well as raising questions about privacy.
- What it is: A mobile chat app that attaches the sender's heart rate, sensed by a wearable, to messages, so friends and partners can glimpse each other's bodily state while texting.
- How it works: Heart rate from a wearable sensor is displayed in the chat interface in several forms; evaluated in a field study with pairs of users (CHI 2017).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025758 (CHI 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elTsjD4wBuE

#### Teegi — Jérémy Frey (2014)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Brain (EEG), Touch & pressure, Light & vision
- Idea: Turning an abstract brain signal into a figure one can hold makes one's own inner activity approachable and felt, rather than a chart to be decoded.
- What it is: A small tangible character on whose head a person's own EEG activity is projected in real time; by handling and turning it, novices explore what their brain is doing as they move, close their eyes or relax.
- How it works: EEG headset signals are processed in real time and projected onto a tracked figurine with spatial augmented reality; an exploratory study with novice users (UIST 2014).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2642918.2647368 (UIST 2014)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxiARWdgSCU
- Images: https://phd.jfrey.info/images/teaser_teegi.jpg
- Project page: https://phd.jfrey.info/projects/teegi/

#### Metaphone — Vygandas Šimbelis, Kristina Höök (2013)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Heartbeat, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: A slow, machine-like response to one's pulse can feel strangely relaxing: machine aesthetics can make the living body stand out by contrast.
- What it is: Metaphone is a large machine on two wheels that rolls across a sheet of watercolour paper, dripping paint and making sound according to the visitor's skin conductance and heart rate.
- How it works: GSR and heart-rate sensors drive a rotating shaft that drips paint onto paper on the floor, with a soundscape following the biosignals; six invited commentators interacted with it.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Attunement & appreciation, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557152 (CHI 2014)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BpBc7UuclI

#### Swarming Emotional Pianos — Erin Gee (2012)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Skin conductance & arousal, Breath
- Idea: Visitors meet two windows onto one emotional body, the face and the physiology, and feel how much, and how little, of feeling survives the translation into data.
- What it is: Six robotic chime instruments surround a projection of an actress moving through extreme emotions; her recorded heartbeat, sweat and breathing drive the robots' musical outbursts.
- How it works: Custom biosensors recorded heart rate, skin conductance and respiration during timed emotional performances; the data drives servo-mallets on aluminium-tube robots.
- Lens: Affective loops, Body data & ambiguity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8crC5vGj44A
- Images: https://eringee.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/erin_gee-swarming_emotional_pianos-1.jpg
- Project page: https://eringee.net/swarming-emotional-pianos/

#### Understanding Heart Rate Sharing — Petr Slovák, Joris H. Janssen (2012)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heartbeat
- Idea: A heartbeat shared between people is not neutral data but a 'physiosocial' cue: it carries intimacy and responsibility and must be designed for as a relationship.
- What it is: A qualitative study of people sharing their heart rate with others in everyday situations, which found that a shared heartbeat can feel intimate and create connection, and that its meaning depends on the relationship.
- How it works: Qualitative field study of heart rate sharing across social settings, analysed to map the dimensions of a 'physiosocial space' (CHI 2012; with Geraldine Fitzpatrick).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2208526 (CHI 2012)

#### Intimate Heartbeats — Joris H. Janssen (2010)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: The heartbeat is felt as one of the most intimate body signals; hearing it gives technology a way to mediate closeness through the body, with the care that intimacy requires.
- What it is: A set of studies, including one in an immersive virtual environment, showing that people perceive another's heartbeat as an intimate signal and that hearing it changes how close they feel to that person.
- How it works: Survey and experimental studies on the perceived intimacy of heartbeats, including an immersive virtual environment study of interpersonal distance (IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 2010; with Jeremy Bailenson and others).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/t-affc.2010.13 (IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 2010)

#### Heart Chamber Orchestra — TERMINALBEACH (2006)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: A performance is a loop between bodies and sound: the players' excitement shapes the score, and the score shapes their excitement.
- What it is: Twelve classical musicians wear heart sensors; their heartbeats generate the musical score in real time, which they read from screens and play, so the music feeds back into the hearts that write it.
- How it works: ECG sensors stream the musicians' heartbeats to software that generates notation and visuals live on stage.
- Lens: Affective loops, Intercorporeality
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3FJ4YYJC0U

#### Pulse Room — Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (2006)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Light & vision
- Idea: One's own heartbeat, seen as light among hundreds of others, is felt both as intimately personal and as part of a collective pulse.
- What it is: A visitor grips a sensor and a bare light bulb above starts to flash with their heartbeat; the pulse then moves along a field of hundreds of bulbs, each blinking with the heartbeat of an earlier visitor.
- How it works: A heart-rate sensor on a handle drives up to 300 incandescent bulbs through dimmers, keeping the most recent recordings; the combined pulses are also heard.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Shown at: 52nd Venice Biennale, Mexican Pavilion (2007)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/33929373
- Images: https://www.lozano-hemmer.com/image_sets/pulse_room/kanazawa_2025/pulse_room_kanazawa_2025_ko_001_t.jpg https://canadianart.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pulse_room11-1000x628.jpg
- Project page: https://www.lozano-hemmer.com/pulse_room.php

### Interoception & the Inner Body

Heartbeat, gut, breath and inner sensations made perceptible or altered.

#### Mettāmatics — George Poonkhin Khut (2020)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Breath
- Idea: Feelings of compassion and gratitude have a bodily signature; a slow interface lets people sense that shift in themselves, a 'being as a way of doing'.
- What it is: A meditation artwork in which a guided loving-kindness practice, a real-time visualisation and a soundscape respond to changes in the participant's heart rate variability.
- How it works: A fingertip or earlobe pulse sensor feeds heart rate variability into visuals and sound, paired with guided mettā meditation (with Callum Howard; TEI 2020).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3374920.3375286 (TEI 2020)
- Images: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6572a8653a6cba0345e9e3cb/6572cc375a2d8a284b57b09d/65a33498eafaaf1208540946/1705202744813/george-khut-mettamatics-TEI2019-installation-view-1920x1080.jpg?format=1500w
- Project page: https://www.georgekhut.com/media-art/mettamatics

#### ambienBeat — Kyung Yun Choi (2020)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Vibration & haptics, Touch & pressure
- Idea: The body entrains to rhythms it feels: a calm beat on the skin can guide the heart below the level of deliberate effort.
- What it is: A wristband that taps a gentle pulse on the skin at a rhythm slightly slower than the wearer's heart rate, helping the heart settle without the wearer having to watch a screen or follow instructions.
- How it works: Wrist-worn tactile actuator paired with heart rate sensing, delivering a personalised 'calming heartbeat' pattern (MIT Media Lab, Tangible Media Group).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3374920.3374938 (TEI 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SzRCJtwrxg

#### Heart Sounds Bench — Noura Howell (2019)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Biosensing can affirm being alive rather than diagnose or score; heart sounds felt as intimate yet anonymous invite rest and a sense of shared life, while respecting each person's right to stay opaque to data.
- What it is: A red public bench that amplifies the heart sounds of the people sitting on it into the surrounding space, and also plays back recorded heartbeats of earlier sitters.
- How it works: Heart sounds, likely picked up with stethoscope-style microphones, are amplified through speakers without labels or scores, and past sitters' recordings are replayed; a study with 19 participants in public space (CHI 2019).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Shown at: Extension of Self, Georgia Tech Art Gallery (2022)
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300910 (CHI 2019)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/314159216
- Images: https://nourahowell.com/static/img/1000px_wide/red_bench.jpg https://nourahowell.com/static/img/1000px_wide/hsbv3.jpg
- Project page: https://nourahowell.com/projects/heart_sounds_bench.html

#### How Emotions Are Made — Lisa Feldman Barrett (2017)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Heartbeat, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Every feeling starts from the body's own budget of energy and sensation; emotion is body-mind activity, which undercuts designs that 'detect' emotions as fixed categories.
- What it is: A book presenting the theory of constructed emotion: emotions are not fixed circuits or universal expressions but are built by the brain from interoceptive sensations, concepts and context.
- How it works: Synthesis of neuroscience, psychology and anthropology on predictive processing, interoception ('body budgeting') and emotion concepts (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Affective loops
- Paper: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/ (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gks6ceq4eQ
- Images: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/06/BookTemplate_Square_HowEmotionsMade.jpg
- Project page: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/

#### EmotionCheck — Jean Costa (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Emotion is partly built from how we read our body: feeling a slower heartbeat can calm us, a reminder that interoceptive feedback is itself persuasive.
- What it is: A wrist device that lets anxious users feel, through vibration, a heart rate slower than their real one; believing their heart was calm, people reported less anxiety.
- How it works: A wearable renders vibrotactile heartbeats at a false, slower rate; tested in an anxiety-inducing task with physiological and self-report measures (UbiComp 2016).
- Lens: Affective loops, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2971648.2971752 (UbiComp 2016)

#### Knowing Your Own Heart — Sarah Garfinkel (2015)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heartbeat
- Idea: Feeling the body well is not one thing: a design that trains or displays interoception should say whether it addresses accuracy, belief or the awareness between them.
- What it is: A study showing that how accurately people detect their heartbeat, how well they believe they sense their body, and how well their confidence tracks their accuracy are three separate abilities.
- How it works: Heartbeat tracking and discrimination tasks, confidence ratings and questionnaires with 80 participants (Biological Psychology, 2015; with Anil Seth, Hugo Critchley and others).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.11.004 (Biological Psychology 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI_gG49sV2s

#### doppel — doppel, Manos Tsakiris (2015)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Rather than measuring the body and telling us about it, technology can speak to the body in its own rhythms and let it respond.
- What it is: A wristband that taps a heartbeat-like rhythm on the inside of the wrist; a slow rhythm is meant to calm and a faster one to energise, without displaying any data.
- How it works: A vibrotactile actuator produces heartbeat-like pulses at a chosen tempo; a controlled study found lower skin conductance and anxiety before public speaking (Scientific Reports, 2017).
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02274-2 (Scientific Reports 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU_UEcvbJW8
- Project page: https://feeldoppel.co.uk/pages/science

#### Turning Body and Self Inside Out — Jane Aspell (2013)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Light & vision
- Idea: The inner heartbeat helps locate the self in space: making interoception visible outside the body can move where 'I' feel I am.
- What it is: Participants saw a projected image of their own body outlined by a silhouette that flashed with their heartbeat; when the flashing was in sync, they identified more with the virtual body and felt touch displaced toward it.
- How it works: A cardio-visual full-body illusion: real-time video of the participant's body with a heartbeat-synchronous or asynchronous illuminated silhouette, measuring self-identification, self-location and tactile perception (Psychological Science, 2013; with Olaf Blanke and others).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613498395 (Psychological Science 2013)

#### Distillery: Waveforming — George Poonkhin Khut (2012)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Light & vision
- Idea: Directing attention quietly inward to the heartbeat reveals how mind and body answer each other moment by moment.
- What it is: A gallery version of Khut's heart-rate-controlled tablet work: visitors hold a sensor and watch forms bloom as their heart rate changes, beside video portraits of earlier participants recalling what they thought and felt.
- How it works: Heart-rate sensing on iPads drives generative visuals and sound; shown with three vertical video portraits of participants' first-person accounts.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Shown at: 2012 National New Media Art Award (winner), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_dvtZzqK90
- Images: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6572a8653a6cba0345e9e3cb/6572cc375a2d8a284b57b09d/65a31ea6a57eae28c787c6b7/1705194648691/Distillery-Estee-Wah-photo-by-Julia-Charles.jpg?format=1500w
- Project page: https://www.georgekhut.com/media-art/distillery-waveforming

#### BrightHearts — George Poonkhin Khut (2011)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Breath, Light & vision
- Idea: Relaxation can be learned as a felt skill: a gentle, playful mirror of the heart gives a child a way to act on fear from inside the body.
- What it is: An iPad app in which glowing, overlapping circles change colour and size as a child's heart rate slows, used to help children relax during painful and recurring hospital procedures.
- How it works: A pulse sensor streams heart rate to the app, which maps slowing heart rate to visual and sound changes; developed with Dr Angela Morrow at The Children's Hospital at Westmead and evaluated in clinical pilot studies.
- Lens: Care & healing, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/papr.12655 (Pain Practice 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfUeXEZ8dYE
- Images: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6572a8653a6cba0345e9e3cb/6572cc375a2d8a284b57b09d/65a28ca6f4576c6533190d94/1755912521535/brighthearts-heart-rate-biofeedback-app-ipad-red-2048.jpg?format=1500w
- Project page: https://www.georgekhut.com/media-art/brighthearts-app

#### Just a Heartbeat Away from One's Body — Manos Tsakiris, Ana Tajadura-Jiménez (2011)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Interoception anchors the sense of owning one's body: the better we feel from inside, the less our body-image is pulled around by what we see.
- What it is: People counted their own heartbeats and then took part in the rubber hand illusion; those who sensed their heartbeat less accurately more readily felt a rubber hand as their own.
- How it works: Heartbeat perception task to measure interoceptive sensitivity, followed by the rubber hand illusion with proprioceptive drift and questionnaires (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2011).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.2547 (Proceedings of the Royal Society B 2011)

#### Les Archives du Cœur — Christian Boltanski (2008)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Voice, sound & listening, Light & vision
- Idea: The sound of a heartbeat is at once anonymous and unmistakably a living person; hearing it in the dark makes one's own life felt as fragile and shared.
- What it is: An archive of recorded human heartbeats, collected from people around the world since 2008 and housed on Teshima island, Japan, where visitors listen to strangers' hearts, record their own, and stand in a dark room where a bulb pulses with a heartbeat.
- How it works: Heartbeats are recorded in a recording room (likely with a stethoscope-style microphone), stored in a small permanent museum for listening, and visitors take their own recording home on CD; a heart room links a bulb to amplified heartbeat sound.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Intercorporeality
- Shown at: Setouchi International Art Festival, Teshima (2010)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-8OtBaeYTA
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Les_Archives_du_C%C5%93ur.jpg https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/boltanski_kv_thumb_01_pc.jpg
- Project page: https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/boltanski.html

#### Cardiomorphologies — George Poonkhin Khut (2004)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Breath, Light & vision
- Idea: Seeing and hearing one's heart and breath in slow, simple forms turns attention inward; participants learn by doing how thought, feeling and physiology change together.
- What it is: A seated participant watches a floor-to-ceiling, mandala-like projection of concentric circles and hears a soundscape that expand and contract with their own breath and heart rate over a 20–30 minute session.
- How it works: Heart rate and chest or abdominal breathing sensors drive real-time video and sound (with Lizzie Muller, Greg Turner and John Tonkin); experience was studied through post-session interviews.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/mmul.2007.70 (IEEE MultiMedia 2007)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efiDTIpiHR4
- Images: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6572a8653a6cba0345e9e3cb/6572cc375a2d8a284b57b09d/65a25f3d60057e7829a8216b/1705151654572/cm2_Website-1038-x-576.jpg?format=1500w
- Project page: https://www.georgekhut.com/media-art/cardiomorphologies

#### How Do You Feel? Interoception — A. D. (Bud) Craig (2002)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Heartbeat, Heat & temperature
- Idea: Pain, temperature, itch, hunger and heartbeat belong to one sense of the body's inner state, and that sense is the stuff that subjective feeling is made of.
- What it is: A review that redefines interoception as the sense of the physiological condition of the entire body, carried by a dedicated pathway to the insular cortex, and links it to feelings and emotional awareness.
- How it works: Review of neuroanatomical and functional imaging evidence on the lamina I spinothalamocortical pathway and the insula (Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2002).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn894 (Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2002)

### Body Data, Reflection & Ambiguity

Self-tracking reconsidered: open interpretation, ambiguity, reflection rather than measurement.

#### Diffraction-in-action: Lived Data — Pedro Sanches, Noura Howell, Vasiliki Tsaknaki (2022)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Heartbeat, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Data about a body is lived: it changes what it measures, and designers learn most by staying with its messiness over time.
- What it is: Five biodata case studies, in which design researchers lived with their own data in slow, open-ended ways, show how the data became entangled with their everyday lives rather than standing apart as objective measurement.
- How it works: Five first-person biodata case studies analysed through Karen Barad's agential realism and diffraction.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, First-person & felt experience, More-than-human
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502029 (CHI 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z79h46zTKA

#### Fabulating Biodata Futures — Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Pedro Sanches, Noura Howell (2022)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Breath, Heartbeat
- Idea: Biodata need not be individual and diagnostic; it can be a medium for living and knowing together with other bodies.
- What it is: The paper synthesises design research on biodata and offers three fabulations, Weaving Alongside, Diffracting Selves and Collective Affect, that imagine biodata shared among diverse human and non-human bodies.
- How it works: Thematic synthesis of design exemplars followed by speculative fabulation written by an international group of biodata design researchers.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, More-than-human, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533477 (DIS 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLcnlKI3vHM

#### Emotional Biosensing: Exploring Critical Alternatives — Noura Howell (2018)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Heartbeat
- Idea: Emotion is not a hidden state that sensors reveal; designs that return interpretation to the feeling person resist the reduction of the body-mind to a category.
- What it is: A critical study of emotion-sensing products and research that reads their promises against their assumptions, and sketches alternatives in which biosensing supports people's own emotional meaning-making.
- How it works: Critical analysis of emotional biosensing technologies, drawing on design research and critical theory (CSCW / PACM HCI 2018).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3274338 (CSCW 2018 (PACM HCI))
- Images: https://nourahowell.com/static/img/largest/spire_feel_oura.jpg
- Project page: https://nourahowell.com/projects/emotional_biosensing.html

#### Ripple — Noura Howell (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Heat & temperature
- Idea: Emotional biosensing raises the question of who has interpretive authority over a feeling, the person or the data; a subtle garment display keeps that authority with the wearer's own felt sense.
- What it is: Everyday shirts with thermochromic pinstripes embroidered on the sleeve that shift colour at moments of heightened skin conductance; friends, housemates and couples wore them in daily life.
- How it works: A Bitalino skin conductance sensor feeds an Arduino that heats embroidered conductive thread coated with thermochromic pigment when a spike is detected; a field study with pairs of wearers (CHI 2018).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, First-person & felt experience, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174005 (CHI 2018)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/363031801
- Images: https://nourahowell.com/static/img/1000px_wide/ripple_shirts.jpg https://nourahowell.com/static/img/1000px_wide/inlay_embroidery.jpg
- Project page: https://nourahowell.com/projects/ripple.html

#### A Quantified Past — Chris Elsden (2016)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Body data gains meaning when it is tied back to lived experience and memory; design should support reminiscence and ambiguity, not only goals.
- What it is: A study of how self-trackers look back on their old personal data, arguing that tracking is also a way of remembering one's life, not only of monitoring performance.
- How it works: Qualitative interviews with Quantified Self practitioners about revisiting their data, leading to design considerations for remembering (Human-Computer Interaction journal; with David Kirk and Abigail Durrant).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2015.1093422 (Human-Computer Interaction 2016)

#### Hint — Noura Howell (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Heat & temperature
- Idea: A body signal worn in public becomes a social cue whose meaning is made together; keeping it ambiguous lets people treat arousal as joy, embarrassment or nothing, instead of a verdict on what they feel.
- What it is: A T-shirt whose screen-printed thermochromic pattern slowly changes colour when the wearer's skin conductance rises; pairs of friends wore it while talking and tried to read what the change meant.
- How it works: A skin conductance sensor and microcontroller detect sudden rises and heat conductive thread under thermochromic ink; studied with pairs of friends in conversation (DIS 2016).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Affective loops, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901850 (DIS 2016)
- Images: https://nourahowell.com/static/img/1000px_wide/hint_shirt.jpg https://biosense.berkeley.edu/files/2018/03/3Hint.jpg
- Project page: https://biosense.berkeley.edu/portfolio/biosignals-as-social-cues-designing-color-changing-clothing-displays/

#### Affective Diary — Anna Ståhl, Kristina Höök, Jarmo Laaksolahti (2006)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Body data works best as an open mirror: vague shapes invite people to remember how the day felt instead of telling them what they felt.
- What it is: The Affective Diary pairs a biosensor armband with a tablet diary: in the evening, the day's arousal and movement appear as ambiguous, colourful body figures next to the user's text messages and photos, and the user can scribble on them.
- How it works: A SenseWear armband logs galvanic skin response and step counts; a Tablet PC renders them as abstract, posture-like figures on a timeline with mobile phone data; studied with users over several weeks (with Microsoft Research Cambridge).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Affective loops, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-008-0202-7 (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 2008)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/55385d09e20b61373302e23cc8971577caa57d79/6-Figure1-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/55385d09e20b61373302e23cc8971577caa57d79/9-Figure4-1.png

#### Staying Open to Interpretation — Phoebe Sengers (2006)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Leaving body data ambiguous is a design resource: it invites people to bring their own felt sense and context to what a signal means.
- What it is: An argument that interactive systems, and their evaluations, should support many valid interpretations by users rather than one meaning fixed by the designer.
- How it works: Conceptual analysis with examples from the authors' own design projects and evaluation practices (DIS 2006; with Bill Gaver).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1142405.1142422 (DIS 2006)

#### Bio Mapping — Christian Nold (2004)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: A skin conductance peak says little on its own; its meaning comes from the walker's memory and from collective discussion, making body data a starting point for shared stories.
- What it is: Participants walk their neighbourhood wearing a skin conductance sensor linked to GPS; afterwards they annotate the peaks of arousal on a map together, producing community 'emotion maps' of places such as Greenwich and San Francisco.
- How it works: A galvanic skin response logger and a GPS unit record arousal and position; mapping software visualises tracks, and group workshops add annotations (published as Emotional Cartography, 2009).
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Intercorporeality, Body politics
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mVYKVrIXs4
- Images: http://www.softhook.com/biomap.jpg
- Project page: http://biomapping.net/

## Movement, Dance & Somatic Art

The moving body in dance, performance, sport, play and art, and the computing built around it.

### Dance & Technology

Choreography, sensing and projection with and for dancers.

#### AISOMA / Living Archive — Wayne McGregor (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: An archive of a choreographer's bodily style can become a partner that dancers answer with their own bodies.
- What it is: A machine-learning tool trained on 25 years of McGregor's filmed choreography that proposes new movement phrases in response to a dancer's pose.
- How it works: Pose estimation over archival video trains a sequence model that generates continuations; developed with Google Arts & Culture Lab.
- Lens: Movement & expression, More-than-human
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qshkvUOc35A
- Images: https://waynemcgregor.com/assets/4Research/Living-Archive/_1455x825_crop_center-center_75/GoogleLivingArchive_carousel_GAC_2.jpg
- Project page: https://waynemcgregor.com/research/aisoma

#### Radical Choreographic Object [RCO] — Sarah Fdili Alaoui (2017)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: A choreographic object can be shared: the audience learns by moving, not by watching.
- What it is: A participatory dance performance by Jean-Marc Matos and Sarah Fdili Alaoui in which audience members join dancers in scored, interactive movement.
- How it works: Performance with movement scores and interactive media, staged in community venues in the Toulouse area (2017–2018).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3181403 (CHI 2018 Extended Abstracts (Art))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkPGWT4btw4
- Images: https://saralaoui.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/RCO-50.jpg
- Project page: https://saralaoui.com/2017/02/rco/

#### MotionComposer — Palindrome (Robert Wechsler) (2016)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: When any movement can make music, people with limited mobility can feel their own movement as expressive.
- What it is: A camera device that turns any movement, from a wave of the arm to a blink, into music, designed so that people with very different abilities can dance and compose together.
- How it works: Stereo/depth and video tracking with sound environments tuned for small and large movements, developed with therapists and disabled users.
- Lens: Care & healing, Movement & expression, Pleasure & play
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aDj7Ma_HkE
- Images: https://motioncomposer.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Bild1_MotionComposer-in-Action.jpg
- Project page: https://motioncomposer.de/

#### SKIN — Sarah Fdili Alaoui (2016)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Muscle tension (EMG), Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Integrating technology into dance creates tensions; experience interviews show what 'inner movement' made audible means to dancers and audience.
- What it is: An interactive dance piece in which sensors map the dancers' inner movement and bodily sensations to sound and video on stage; its making was studied through interviews with the team and audience.
- How it works: Research-through-practice: iterative cycles of choreography and interaction design with wearable sensing, then micro-phenomenological (explicitation) interviews.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Movement & expression, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3322289 (DIS 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdin4bVr5tQ
- Project page: https://saralaoui.com/2016/02/skin/

#### Huang Yi & KUKA — Huang Yi (2015)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Partnering a machine depends on timing and attention more than on sensing: the dancer's own attunement makes the robot feel like a partner.
- What it is: Huang Yi dances a duet with an industrial KUKA robot arm that he programmed himself, mirroring and answering its movements; a light on the arm's tip draws lines across his body.
- How it works: Choreography keyframed by hand, pose by pose, into the robot's controller over many hours, then performed live with dancers.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression, More-than-human
- Shown at: TED 2017
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy6tPmFlN34
- Images: https://huangyistudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/huangyiandkuka_TED2017_01.jpg
- Project page: https://www.huangyistudio.com

#### Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced — William Forsythe (2009)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Choreography is a system of attention between dancers; data can show how bodies cue and align with each other.
- What it is: An online set of visualisations that reveal the hidden counterpoint in Forsythe's dance for 17 dancers and 20 tables: cues, alignments and timing between bodies.
- How it works: Annotation of multi-camera video of the dance, turned into animations and interactive objects by The Forsythe Company and Ohio State University (Palazzi, Zuniga Shaw).
- Lens: Movement & expression, Intercorporeality
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH 2009 Art Gallery
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1667265.1667306 (SIGGRAPH 2009 Art Gallery)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2REtWg6-bo
- Images: https://synchronousobjects.osu.edu/assets/img/portfolio/SO-1.jpg
- Project page: https://synchronousobjects.osu.edu/

#### Choreographic Language Agent — Wayne McGregor (2008)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Choreography is thinking with the body; an agent can provoke that thinking without replacing it.
- What it is: Software that generates abstract, moving visual prompts for dancers to translate into movement; its interactive form 'Becoming' was used to create the piece Atomos (2013).
- How it works: Rule-based and generative graphics developed with cognitive scientists and digital artists, projected in the studio as a creative partner during rehearsal.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Movement & expression
- Shown at: Thinking with the Body, Wellcome Collection 2013–14
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAgDYA7tJOo
- Images: https://waynemcgregor.com/assets/2Work/Atomos/_1455x825_crop_center-center_75/atomoscreation_carousel_ravideepres_CLA2_230118_161057.jpg
- Project page: https://waynemcgregor.com/research/choreographic-language-agent

#### Glow — Chunky Move (Gideon Obarzanek with Frieder Weiss) (2006)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision
- Idea: Projection that answers the body in real time can make the dancer's own kinesphere visible and strange.
- What it is: A 27-minute duet between a dancer on the floor and projected light that tracks, outlines and extends her body as it moves.
- How it works: Infrared camera tracking from above drives real-time generative graphics projected onto the floor (software by Frieder Weiss).
- Lens: Movement & expression, More-than-human
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4He543_a80
- Images: https://chunkymove.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ChunkyMovesGLOW.PhotoRomAnthoni_PerformerKristyAyre_300dpi_2.webp
- Project page: https://chunkymove.com/works/glow/

#### Touching — Palindrome (Robert Wechsler) (2004)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Contact between bodies, not individual gestures, becomes the instrument.
- What it is: Two dancers wrestle, lean and press their hands together, and every moment of skin-to-skin contact becomes audible: the harder or longer they touch, the more the sound changes.
- How it works: A body-contact sensor worn by both dancers measures when and how firmly they touch and drives sound in real time (Palindrome's EyeCon-era systems, likely with Frieder Weiss).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfjU-lbHdvo

#### Improvisation Technologies — William Forsythe (1999)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Dancers think with imagined geometry inside and around the body; making that inner imagery visible makes it teachable.
- What it is: A video lecture series in which Forsythe demonstrates his improvisation principles while graphic lines drawn over the video show the imagined points, lines and planes his body moves through.
- How it works: Digitised lecture-demonstrations with line annotations, published as a CD-ROM by ZKM Karlsruhe for training Ballett Frankfurt dancers.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogsdGjAtyDc
- Images: https://zkm.de/system/files/styles/default_metatag/private/field_media_image/2023/03/01/121656/0103_1999_William-Forsythe-Improvisation-Technologies.jpg?itok=0MhVgG1P
- Project page: https://zkm.de/en/publication/william-forsythe-improvisation-technologies

#### In Plane (MidiDancer) — Mark Coniglio / Troika Ranch (with Dawn Stoppiello) (1994)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Sensing from inside the joints ties media to felt bending rather than to how the body looks from outside.
- What it is: A solo in which dancer Dawn Stoppiello wears the MidiDancer suit: the bending of her own elbows, knees and hips controls the video image and music around her.
- How it works: Flex sensors on the joints transmit wirelessly to a computer that maps joint angles to MIDI-controlled video and sound.
- Lens: Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MyT3E44KC4
- Project page: https://troikaranch.org/

#### Life Forms — Tom Calvert, Thecla Schiphorst, Merce Cunningham (1989)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Designing for choreographers meant building around how they think movement in the body, with dancers' bodies still testing every idea.
- What it is: A figure-animation program in which choreographers sketch and sequence body shapes on screen; Merce Cunningham used it from 1989 to compose dances such as Trackers (1991).
- How it works: Keyframe animation of articulated human figures with a stance/body editor, timeline and spatial stage view, developed iteratively with choreographers at Simon Fraser University.
- Lens: Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/169059.169113 (CHI 1993)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKbWX-9HKeo

### Movement & Computing

Modelling movement quality: Laban effort, MOCO, interactive machine learning for movement.

#### Motion-Sound Mapping through Interaction — Jules Françoise, Frédéric Bevilacqua (2018)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Mapping by demonstration lets people design body-sound feedback from their own movement sense instead of programming it.
- What it is: People demonstrate a movement together with a sound they imagine for it; the system learns the relation so they can then play and feel their movement as sound.
- How it works: Interactive machine learning (Gaussian mixture and hidden Markov regression) trained on a few demonstrations of paired motion and sound.
- Lens: Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3211826 (ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems)

#### Seeing, Sensing and Recognizing Laban Movement Qualities — Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Jules Françoise, Thecla Schiphorst (2017)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Muscle tension (EMG), Whole body-mind
- Idea: Movement experts' embodied knowledge should shape what the machine measures; adding physiological signals captures qualities that position alone misses.
- What it is: Certified Laban Movement Analysts helped choose sensors and features so that a computer could recognise Effort qualities such as lightness, strength and sustainment.
- How it works: Multimodal capture (motion capture, accelerometers, EMG) with features designed with LMA experts, evaluated against expert annotations of Laban Efforts.
- Lens: Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025530 (CHI 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cafivJpiYUE
- Images: https://saralaoui.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/dancer_sensors.jpg
- Project page: https://saralaoui.com/2015/03/effortmodeling/

#### Choreographic Inscriptions — Lian Loke (2016)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Technology quietly scripts how we move; naming those scripts in movement-quality terms lets designers choose them.
- What it is: A framework for noticing how devices and social norms 'choreograph' everyday movement, described in Laban Effort and Shape terms.
- How it works: Combines actor-network inscriptions with Laban Movement Analysis, demonstrated on a case study of an affective gesture-based mobile device.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201605192619 (Human Technology)

#### DANCE: Sonifying Movement Qualities — Antonio Camurri (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Movement qualities can travel between senses: a felt quality in one body can be heard by another.
- What it is: Qualities such as lightness, heaviness and fragility in a dancer's movement are analysed live and turned into sound, with the aim that blind and sighted people can 'see' dance through listening.
- How it works: EyesWeb-based real-time analysis of motion-capture and inertial data into a multi-layered model of qualities, sonified with designed sound (EU H2020 DANCE project, with choreographer Virgilio Sieni).
- Lens: Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2948910.2948927 (MOCO 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HGSuuzbgAM
- Images: http://dance.dibris.unige.it/user_files/images/DANCE_Mocap-2.png
- Project page: http://dance.dibris.unige.it/

#### Vocalizing Dance Movement — Jules Françoise, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Thecla Schiphorst, Frédéric Bevilacqua (2014)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The voice is a bodily bridge: sounds made by movement experts let others hear and learn a movement quality from inside.
- What it is: Dancers vocalize while moving; the system learns the link between their voice and Laban Effort qualities and then sonifies new movement so dancers can hear their own quality.
- How it works: Vocalizations of movement experts recorded with motion data train a probabilistic motion-sound mapping; explored in a dance pedagogy workshop.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598582 (DIS 2014)

#### A Light Touch (Movement Qualities as Interaction Modality) — Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Frédéric Bevilacqua (2012)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision
- Idea: Using movement quality, rather than trajectory, as input invites exploratory and expressive movement.
- What it is: An installation where a spot of light moves with the quality of a visitor's hand movement, how it moves, not where it goes.
- How it works: Hand motion is tracked and classified into dance-derived movement qualities that drive the behaviour of a projected light spot; evaluated in a user experiment.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: DIS 2012 Art Exhibition, Newcastle
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2318071 (DIS 2012)
- Images: https://saralaoui.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/installation.jpg
- Project page: https://saralaoui.com/2015/03/a-light-touch/

#### MO – Modular Musical Objects — Nicolas Rasamimanana, Frédéric Bevilacqua (2011)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Instruments can be 'finished' by the player: the meaning of a gesture comes from how the body uses the object.
- What it is: Small wireless motion-sensing modules that can be attached to balls, hands or everyday objects, turning shaking, tapping and throwing into music.
- How it works: Wireless inertial sensor modules with accessories, mapped to sound through gesture following and recognition software from IRCAM's Interlude project.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1935701.1935704 (TEI 2011)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhps_U2E9OM

#### Gesture Follower — Frédéric Bevilacqua (2010)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Following the continuous time of a gesture, rather than only recognising it at the end, keeps the performer's timing and feel in the sound.
- What it is: A system that learns a gesture from one example and then follows it in real time, so a sound can be stretched or compressed to the pace at which the gesture is performed.
- How it works: Hidden-Markov-model-based real-time alignment of multidimensional sensor data to recorded templates, used with dancers and musicians at IRCAM.
- Lens: Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12553-9_7 (Gesture in Embodied Communication and Human-Computer Interaction (LNCS))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dSU8MeJlz4
- Project page: https://ismm.ircam.fr/

#### Understanding Movement for Interaction Design — Lian Loke, Toni Robertson (2007)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Each framework makes a different aspect of the moving body visible; designers need dance-derived vocabularies to see movement quality.
- What it is: Compares several frameworks for describing movement, from HCI models to Labanotation, by applying them to players of a camera-based body game.
- How it works: Analytic comparison of frameworks on video of EyeToy game play, with Laban-based notation of players' movements.
- Lens: Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-006-0132-1 (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing)

#### EyesWeb — Antonio Camurri (2000)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Expressive, emotional qualities of movement can be modelled directly, not only positions and gestures.
- What it is: An open software platform that extracts expressive cues from video of dancers (contraction, fluidity, impulsiveness) and maps them to music and media in real time.
- How it works: Visual-programming environment with computer-vision modules for full-body motion features (quantity of motion, contraction index), developed at InfoMus Lab, Genoa.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1162/014892600559182 (Computer Music Journal)
- Project page: http://www.casapaganini.org/

### Exertion, Sport & Somatic Play

Exertion games, body-centric play, physical training and sport.

#### The Body as Its Own Best Sensor — Jakob Tholander (2025)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Breath, Heartbeat
- Idea: A trained body senses more finely than the watch; sports technology should support these somatic sensitivities rather than replace them.
- What it is: Through an autobiographical study of everyday long-distance running with a basic sports watch, Tholander describes how runners sense pace, effort and terrain with their whole body.
- How it works: Autoethnography of running practice and data use, distilled into six themes for sports technology design.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body data & ambiguity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713607 (CHI 2025)

#### Boards Hit Back — Yoav Luft, Pavel Karpashevich, Kristina Höök (2023)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Estrangement in soma design lets practitioners break habits and cultivate new ones, fused with thought and feeling.
- What it is: An interactive wooden training dummy for martial arts was designed with and by a martial arts expert, and the process changed both the expert's practice and the expert.
- How it works: Soma design process around a sensor-equipped wooden dummy, reported through a phenomenological first-person account of the practitioner.
- Lens: Estrangement, Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580722 (CHI 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTISUBb1gyc

#### Physical Warm-up Games — Elena Márquez Segura, Laia Turmo Vidal (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Warm-ups tune body and mind together; light, open-ended technology can support that tuning without taking over.
- What it is: Studies warm-up games in physical education and circus training, and adds open-ended wearables to them, to show how warm-ups prepare people physically, socially and mentally.
- How it works: Collection of warm-up games from teachers online plus design interventions with wearable light/sound artefacts in a circus training course.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Attunement & appreciation, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445163 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD9P-kBwDRk

#### Ari, the eBike — Josh Andres, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2019)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Muscle tension (EMG)
- Idea: When a machine acts on your effort, the felt question is how to share control of your own body's work.
- What it is: An electric bike that knows the traffic-light timing ahead and adds or holds back motor power so rider and bike reach the green light together.
- How it works: An eBike augmented with traffic-light data and motor control, plus light cues, studied with riders on city routes.
- Lens: More-than-human, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3322307 (DIS 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GCnU0QjGl8
- Images: http://exertiongameslab.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ava.jpg
- Project page: https://exertiongameslab.org/projects/ari-the-green-light-ebike

#### Experiencing the Body as Play — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Richard Byrne, Josh Andres (2018)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Designing for the Leib (the lived body) as well as the Körper (the object body) turns play into a way of feeling oneself.
- What it is: Argues that games are moving from using the body as a controller to letting players experience their own body as the play itself, and offers design tactics for it.
- How it works: Two phenomenological perspectives (Körper and Leib) applied to the lab's and others' bodily games to derive a suite of design tactics.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Pleasure & play, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173784 (CHI 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DK7pBNJEAE

#### The Guts Game — Zhuying Li (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Heat & temperature, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The inside of the body can be played with: making core temperature a game goal turns hidden physiology into felt, shared awareness.
- What it is: Two players each swallow a temperature-sensing capsule and compete over a day or more to raise or lower their core body temperature on command; the game ends when the capsule leaves one player's body.
- How it works: Ingestible core-temperature sensor pill transmitting to a phone app with tasks; interview study with 14 players yielding themes of bodily awareness, integration, agency and discomfort (Exertion Games Lab).
- Lens: Pleasure & play, First-person & felt experience, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242681 (CHI PLAY 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLtPxjy3jNQ
- Images: https://i0.wp.com/exertiongameslab.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/guts_game-300x244.jpg
- Project page: https://exertiongameslab.org/projects/the-guts-game

#### Designing for Bodily Interplay in Social Exertion Games — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2017)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Social exertion is felt between bodies; designers can tune how much bodies meet in physical and virtual space.
- What it is: A design dimension for how players' bodies act on one another in exertion games, from parallel play side by side to interdependent pushing, blocking and cooperating.
- How it works: Conceptual framework (parallel vs. interdependent play, across physical and virtual space) derived from the lab's exertion game designs and studies.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3064938 (ACM TOCHI)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-BoqB6eskM

#### Balance Ninja — Richard Byrne, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Vertigo makes the usually invisible vestibular sense felt, and can be shaped as a playful, shared experience.
- What it is: Two players balance on a line while electrodes behind their ears disturb their sense of balance; each player's movements control the vertigo felt by the opponent.
- How it works: Galvanic vestibular stimulation whose strength is likely driven by the other player's tracked movement; studied with 20 players to derive vertigo-game design strategies.
- Lens: Estrangement, Pleasure & play, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968080 (CHI PLAY 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfHaKFiAyOQ
- Images: http://exertiongameslab.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/balance_ninja-300x169.jpg
- Project page: https://exertiongameslab.org/projects/balance-ninja

#### Movement-Based Game Guidelines — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Katherine Isbister (2014)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Good movement games are designed for how movement feels and looks to others, not for sensing accuracy.
- What it is: Ten design guidelines for movement games, drawn from expert designers, such as 'celebrate movement articulation' and 'embrace ambiguity' in sensing.
- How it works: Guidelines derived from interviews and workshops with movement-game designers and prior work, organised by movement requirements, feedback and social aspects.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557163 (CHI 2014)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQM3xg6IjD4
- Project page: https://exertiongameslab.org/projects/design-tool-movement-based-game-guidelines

#### Musical Embrace — Amy Huggard, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2013)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Social awkwardness and close bodily contact can be a resource for play, not something to avoid.
- What it is: Two strangers play a music game by hugging a large pillow-like controller between them and moving together to steer it.
- How it works: A soft controller with embedded motion sensing, observed at public events to derive strategies for 'facilitating social awkwardness'.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2493432.2493518 (UbiComp 2013)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LmUyIqdpRo
- Images: http://exertiongameslab.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/musical_embrace3.jpg
- Project page: https://exertiongameslab.org/projects/musical-embrace

#### The Design Space of Body Games — Elena Márquez Segura, Jin Moen (2013)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: When sensing is limited, the room, the rules and the other players carry the felt experience.
- What it is: Defines body games as games whose main pleasure is bodily engagement, and shows how the physical and social setting can matter as much as the technology.
- How it works: Literature study plus design experiments with children playing multiplayer games on the BodyBug wearable.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466461 (CHI 2013)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDlI2ZiUXF0

#### Hanging off a Bar — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2012)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Exertion can be felt without movement: sustained effort and muscle burn are the play.
- What it is: Players hang from an exercise bar above a projected river for as long as they can, like an action hero; the game is almost all effort and almost no movement.
- How it works: An exercise bar with sensing of whether the player is still hanging, with projected graphics and sound; observed at three public events.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2212776.2212384 (CHI 2012 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLDEr4XO4wg
- Project page: https://exertiongameslab.org/projects/hanging-off-a-bar

#### Johann Sebastian Joust — Die Gute Fabrik (2011)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Removing the screen turns attention back to bodies, balance and each other.
- What it is: A screenless game for motion controllers: players must keep their controller still while trying to jostle others'; when Bach's music slows, the controllers become more sensitive.
- How it works: PlayStation Move controllers measure acceleration against a threshold that changes with the tempo of the Brandenburg Concertos.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: IndieCade 2011 Official Selection
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Ei9fgFAOs
- Images: http://jsjoust.com/images/jsjoust-photo04.jpg
- Project page: https://www.gutefabrik.com/joust.html

#### BodyBug — Jin Moen (2007)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Movement interaction should start from people's own movement experience, drawing on modern dance, rather than from sensor capabilities.
- What it is: A small creature-like device that slides along a strap worn on the body and reacts to the wearer's movement, inviting full-body, dance-like play.
- How it works: Accelerometer-equipped device that climbs a wire strapped to the body, designed from movement workshops; later sold as Oriboo.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1226969.1227021 (TEI 2007)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5PVmKfiaCY

#### Jogging over a Distance — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2007)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Mapping effort, not speed, lets people of different fitness run 'together' and feel each other's exertion.
- What it is: Two runners in different places talk through headsets while jogging; if one runs harder than usual relative to their heart rate, their voice seems to come from ahead, otherwise from behind.
- How it works: Heart-rate monitors and mobile phones compare each jogger's heart rate to a personal target and place the partner's voice in spatial audio accordingly.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Pleasure & play, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1866029.1866062 (UIST 2010)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWJjIbWmaN4

#### hipDisk — Danielle Wilde (2007)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: An awkward, funny wearable can extend how people move and make the torso's range of motion newly felt.
- What it is: Two stiff disks worn around the hips and chest sound a note when the wearer bends their torso to bring the disks' edges together, so the body becomes a playable instrument.
- How it works: Contact points around the edges of the two disks trigger tones, so each torso tilt plays a pitch; explored in performance and workshops.
- Lens: Estrangement, Pleasure & play, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1386/padm.4.1.7_1 (International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htsy_ldbOag

#### Kick Ass Kung-Fu — Perttu Hämäläinen (2004)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: A full-body mirror with gentle 'cheats' like slow motion lets people feel like skilled martial artists and train real moves.
- What it is: Players fight virtual opponents with real kicks and punches, seeing their own video image on a large screen with slowed-down, exaggerated jumps.
- How it works: Camera-based silhouette tracking composited into a game world projected on two screens, with time-manipulation of jumps; tested with martial-arts practitioners.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Movement & expression
- Shown at: Pixelache 2005, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1054972.1055081 (CHI 2005)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhdJM9pIsvQ

#### Breakout for Two (Exertion Interfaces) — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2003)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Physical effort itself creates social bonding; 'exertion interfaces' made tiring the body a design goal.
- What it is: Two players in different cities kick a real ball against a wall that shows the other player life-size; hitting projected blocks scores points, like tennis across a video net.
- How it works: Life-size videoconference projected on a wall, with sensors detecting where a real soccer ball hits; compared with a keyboard version in a study.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/642611.642709 (CHI 2003)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8cASgpFQgM

### Performance, Voice & Opera

Somatic performance, the singing body, opera with machines.

#### Wings Against the Veil of Light — Jiabao Li, Rosemary Candelario (2024)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Butoh's practice of 'emptying the human shell' becomes a way to feel another species' body from inside.
- What it is: Butoh dancers wearing wings made of zippers and rulers chirp like crickets by rubbing them together, enacting how light pollution makes male crickets call at the wrong time.
- How it works: Site-specific performance at The Contemporary Austin, choreographed by Rosemary Candelario from a cricket butoh score adapted from Hijikata's bug notation.
- Lens: More-than-human, Movement & expression, Estrangement
- Shown at: The Contemporary Austin, Laguna Gloria, 2024
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-doIkBdPkg
- Images: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58688c8a6a496327e937e35b/c3932ec7-6a6b-4671-96ce-bc5808b54847/Jiabao+Li_Cricket_Butoh+0.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58688c8a6a496327e937e35b/1730851572775-050B68ZON2C30S1RQKM0/Jiabao+Li+cricket+2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.jiabaoli.org/wings-against-the-veil-of-light

#### Wire Costume (Reinterpreting Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet) — Pavel Karpashevich, Pedro Sanches (2018)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Light & vision
- Idea: Restricting and altering the senses creates a new soma to train into; the costume's character is only revealed once it is worn and danced.
- What it is: Inspired by Oskar Schlemmer's Bauhaus Triadic Ballet, the Wire Costume restricts the dancer's lower body and turns arm movements into LED 'sparks' and 'waves' on a tutu-like wire skirt.
- How it works: Motion sensing on the arms drives LED light sequences in a wire costume; designed with cultural research, expert interviews and a dancer's rehearsals (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar with KTH).
- Lens: Estrangement, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173635 (CHI 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_32Tl6zLGTU

#### Corpus Nil — Marco Donnarumma (2016)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision
- Idea: Human and machine form a hybrid body; bodily norms are unsettled when a machine co-shapes how a body moves and sounds.
- What it is: A performer moves slowly in near darkness while an autonomous system listens to his muscles' electrical and acoustic signals and answers with sound and light.
- How it works: Biophysical sensors (Xth Sense bioacoustic and bioelectric) on the limbs feed machine-learning algorithms that autonomously drive sound and light (premiered at ZKM, 2016).
- Lens: More-than-human, Body politics, First-person & felt experience
- Shown at: Prix Ars Electronica 2017, Award of Distinction (Sound Art); Bains Numériques 2018, 1st Prize Performing Arts
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAIh8FxLMtk
- Images: https://marcodonnarumma.com/live/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Marco-Donnarumma_Corpus-Nil_1_web_by-onuk.jpg
- Project page: https://marcodonnarumma.com/works/corpus-nil/

#### The Vocal Chorder — Carl Unander-Scharin, Åsa Unander-Scharin (2013)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Designed from the singer's own bodily experience on stage, it lets the whole singing body, not only the voice, shape the music.
- What it is: A large instrument of steel wires that an opera singer pushes, leans on and bends while singing, to control their own accompaniment.
- How it works: Sensors measure the bending of tensioned steel wires and map it to tempo and accompaniment; developed through autobiographical design and stage material explorations, with Kristina Höök.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557050 (CHI 2014)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxUGb6rmFos
- Images: https://www.operamecatronica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/scharin_MB-6778_3sp_hi.jpg
- Project page: https://www.operamecatronica.com/

#### 2 — Tao Ye (2011)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Continuous circular movement makes the whole body a single flowing line; stamina turns into a meditative, felt state.
- What it is: Two dancers in grey, hair loose, keep moving continuously for the whole piece, their bodies circling, folding and releasing without a pause or a narrative.
- How it works: Part of TAO Dance Theater's numbered series, built on Tao Ye's 'circular movement system' of releasing weight through the spine; premiered at the M.A.D.E festival in Umeå in 2011.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3_EzVGfxvs
- Images: https://www.taodancetheater.com/Content/assets/images/home_performances_img.jpg
- Project page: https://www.taodancetheater.com

#### Xth Sense — Marco Donnarumma (2011)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Music can come from inside the body: the felt effort of muscles, not visible gesture, drives the sound.
- What it is: A wearable instrument that amplifies the sound of the performer's own muscle contractions and blood flow and shapes it into live music.
- How it works: Microphone sensors on the arms capture mechanomyographic (MMG) vibrations, which software analyses and processes into sound; free and open hardware (created 2010).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity, Movement & expression
- Shown at: 1st Prize, Guthman Musical Instrument Competition 2012
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4jz_7PDVfo
- Images: https://marcodonnarumma.com/live/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/marco-donnarumma_xthsense_speakers_1000px.jpg
- Project page: https://marcodonnarumma.com/works/xth-sense/

#### Robocygne — Åsa Unander-Scharin, Carl Unander-Scharin (2010)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Moving a dancer's felt movement into a machine body makes both the robot and the ballet strange, and asks what expression survives the transfer.
- What it is: A small robot performs the dying swan from Swan Lake, its movements recorded from the choreographer's own body.
- How it works: Humanoid robot programmed from motion recordings of Åsa Unander-Scharin, built with Mälardalen University, to Tchaikovsky's music arranged by Carl Unander-Scharin.
- Lens: More-than-human, Movement & expression, Estrangement
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6ohpNi_BpY
- Images: https://www.operamecatronica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/3.png
- Project page: https://www.operamecatronica.com/robocygne/

#### Pichet Klunchun and Myself — Jérôme Bel, Pichet Klunchun (2005)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: A dance body is a body of knowledge: putting it into words, in dialogue with a foreign body, reveals assumptions that neither could see alone.
- What it is: Sitting face to face, French choreographer Jérôme Bel and Thai khon dancer Pichet Klunchun ask each other questions and demonstrate movements, explaining what their bodies know and why.
- How it works: Staged conversation and demonstration created in 2005 and toured internationally.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body politics, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biR7pV-hzR4
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pichet_Klunchun

#### Moon Water — Lin Hwai-min (1998)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Breath, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: An Eastern somatic practice can become a stage language: the audience sees qi and breath moving through bodies trained from the inside.
- What it is: Cloud Gate dancers move in slow, continuous tai chi-based flows to Bach's cello suites while water gradually covers the stage and mirrors reflect their bodies; the company trains daily in tai chi daoyin, meditation and martial arts.
- How it works: Choreography built from tai chi daoyin (developed by Hsiung Wei) and meditation training, with water and mirror scenography.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: New York Times best dance of 2003 (Anna Kisselgoff)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmTplJXenAg
- Images: https://www.cloudgate.org.tw/sites/default/files/u1005/MetaInfo_CG_1200x630.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Cloud_Gate_Theater_Tamsui_02.jpg
- Project page: https://www.cloudgate.org.tw/en

#### Admiring La Argentina — Kazuo Ohno, Tatsumi Hijikata (1977)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Memory lives in the body and can be danced: an old body becomes fully expressive when it moves from felt memory rather than technique.
- What it is: A solo in which Ohno, then in his seventies, in a woman's dress and hat, evokes the Spanish dancer Antonia Mercé, whom he had seen in 1926, moving between trembling fragility and joy; directed by Hijikata.
- How it works: Solo butoh performance premiered in Tokyo in 1977 and toured internationally after its showing at the Nancy International Festival.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body-mind unity
- Shown at: Dance Critics' Circle Award (Japan); Nancy International Festival
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG4H4yeNHs0
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Kazuo_Ohno.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Ohno

### Somatic & Participatory Art

Art that works directly on the visitor's senses and body: Lygia Clark, Rebecca Horn, Char Davies.

#### Surging Verticality — Lian Loke, George Poonkhin Khut (2011)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Feldenkrais-style guidance shows that artist care and the visitor's receptivity are part of the interface.
- What it is: A body-focused interactive artwork in which an artist guides a visitor through touch and slow movement to sense how their skeleton holds them upright.
- How it works: Prototype built by applying the Feldenkrais Method to proprioception and touch, tested with audiences and reflected on by the artist-researchers.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1935701.1935747 (TEI 2011)

#### Electric Stimulus to Face — Daito Manabe (2008)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: When an outside signal moves your face, the link between expression and feeling becomes strange and visible.
- What it is: Electrodes on the faces of Manabe and his friends deliver electrical muscle stimulation driven by music, so their faces twitch and grimace in rhythm while they sit still.
- How it works: Custom EMS device controlled from music software, with myoelectric sensors in later tests to pass facial movement between people.
- Lens: Estrangement, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLAma-lrJRM
- Project page: https://www.daito.ws/en/

#### soft(n) — Thecla Schiphorst (2007)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The paper that introduced Shusterman's somaesthetics to HCI: design for how touch feels, not only for what it triggers.
- What it is: A group of soft, pillow-like networked objects responds when people hold, stroke or hug them, passing touch on to each other as vibration, light and sound.
- How it works: Soft tangible objects with embedded touch sensing and vibration/light/sound actuators, networked so that touching one affects others; designed with V2_Lab.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Technology that touches back, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: DEAF07, Rotterdam
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1520340.1520345 (CHI 2009 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDXBxeRoOw
- Images: https://v2.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/softn.png
- Project page: https://v2.nl/archive/works/soft-n

#### Célula Nave — Ernesto Neto (2004)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Posture, balance & proprioception, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Soft, weighted, body-scale sculpture makes visitors feel gravity, tension and softness with the whole body.
- What it is: A large soft architecture of stretched fabric held down by eighteen legs of sand-filled stockings, made for the central hall of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
- How it works: Stretch fabric and eighteen legs made of eight sand-filled socks each (about eight kilos per sock), installed from the artist's written instructions.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Pleasure & play
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSl5QJCuOlE

#### Ephémère — Char Davies (1998)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Breath, Posture, balance & proprioception, Light & vision
- Idea: Moving between landscape and body interior suggests that the felt body and the world share one living process.
- What it is: A breath-and-balance VR work in three layers (landscape, earth and the inside of the body), where organs and seeds appear and fade with the seasons.
- How it works: Same breath-sensing vest and balance interface as Osmose, with time-varying generative imagery and spatial sound.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, More-than-human
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCWaMll0leI
- Images: https://www.immersence.com/images/ephemere/Eph_Autumn_Flux_I_600.jpg https://www.immersence.com/images/ephemere/016_Ephemere_Installation_View_2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.immersence.com/ephemere/

#### Bodymaps: Artifacts of Touch — Thecla Schiphorst (1996)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Touch is a two-way, intimate act: a surface that 'wants' contact makes visitors aware of how and why they touch.
- What it is: A white velvet table shows a projected image of the artist's body; when visitors stroke, press or hover over it, the image and sound respond in ways that are hard to predict.
- How it works: Fifteen electric-field sensors and eight force-sensitive resistors under the velvet sense proximity, touch and pressure and drive video and sound through a deliberately opaque rule set.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH 97 Art Gallery
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/259081.259172 (SIGGRAPH 97 Visual Proceedings)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DrCM8pJVYI

#### Ping Body — Stelarc (1996)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Being moved from outside makes the felt boundary between voluntary and involuntary movement vivid.
- What it is: Internet traffic moves Stelarc's body: network ping times are turned into electrical muscle stimulation, so his arms and legs jerk without his intention.
- How it works: Ping values to global internet domains are mapped to a muscle-stimulation system on his limbs; his own movements also drive a robotic Third Hand.
- Lens: Estrangement, More-than-human, Body politics
- Shown at: DEAF96, Rotterdam
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45MOlsFGSHI
- Project page: https://stelarc.org/

#### Osmose — Char Davies (1995)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Breath, Posture, balance & proprioception, Light & vision
- Idea: Tying navigation to breath and balance turns VR into a meditative, embodied experience instead of hand-and-eye control.
- What it is: An immersive virtual space of trees, clouds and code navigated by breath and balance: breathe in to float up, breathe out to sink, lean to drift.
- How it works: Head-mounted display with a vest that senses chest expansion (breath) and tilt sensors for balance, inspired by scuba diving; real-time graphics on SGI computers.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/240806.240808 (ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54O4VP3tCoY
- Images: https://www.immersence.com/images/osmose/Osm_Tree_Pond_600.jpg https://www.immersence.com/images/osmose/Osm_Subt_Earth_600_v2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.immersence.com/osmose/

#### Very Nervous System — David Rokeby (1986)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Rokeby: the loop is fast enough that control dissolves into 'encounter and involvement', a felt partnership rather than command.
- What it is: Video cameras watch a person moving in an empty space and a computer answers every movement with sound, so the body plays the room like an instrument.
- How it works: Custom video-motion analysis of camera images, mapped in real time to synthesised and sampled sound (developed 1982–1991).
- Lens: Affective loops, Movement & expression, Body-mind unity
- Shown at: Ars Electronica 2009, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsR7EQgG7N0
- Images: http://www.davidrokeby.com/VNS_Potsdam_web.jpg
- Project page: http://www.davidrokeby.com/vns.html

#### Third Hand — Stelarc (1980)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: An added limb has to be learned from inside: the body remaps which muscles 'mean' a hand, a slow first-person training of body schema.
- What it is: A robotic right hand attached to Stelarc's arm is driven by muscle signals from his abdomen and legs; he spent years learning to write with three hands.
- How it works: Electromyographic (EMG) electrodes on abdominal and leg muscles control the grasp, rotation and release of a mechanical hand built in Japan.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Estrangement, More-than-human
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1CVc6A9YA
- Images: https://stelarc.org/media/img/projects-overview/3rdhand2.jpg
- Project page: https://stelarc.org/_activity-20265.php

#### Estruturação do Self (Structuring of the Self) — Lygia Clark (1976)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Heat & temperature, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Objects exist only in relation to a body: weight, warmth and texture on the skin can reorganise body memory and sense of self.
- What it is: A therapeutic practice in which Clark placed 'relational objects' (air bags, stones, shells, bags of water and seeds) on the body of a person lying down, in sessions lasting months.
- How it works: Individual sessions with hand-made relational objects applied to the client's body, developed from 1976 until her death in 1988.
- Lens: Care & healing, Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckQEQ4HKCE8

#### Videoplace — Myron Krueger (1975)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The whole, unencumbered body can be the interface; no gloves, goggles or controllers are needed to feel present.
- What it is: Visitors see their live silhouettes on a large screen, where they can play with graphic creatures, draw with their fingers and touch the silhouettes of people in another room.
- How it works: Real-time camera silhouette extraction on custom hardware, composited with graphics and linked between separate rooms.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Pleasure & play, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/317456.317463 (CHI 1985)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqZyZrN3Pl0

#### Pencil Mask — Rebecca Horn (1972)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: The body becomes a drawing instrument; the drawing is a trace of how the head and neck felt their way across the wall.
- What it is: A mask of fabric straps with pencils sticking out from the face; by rocking her head in front of a wall, Horn draws marks that record the rhythm of her movement.
- How it works: Wearable mask of straps and pencils, used in a filmed performance; the mask is in the Tate collection.
- Lens: Estrangement, Movement & expression
- Images: https://media.tate.org.uk/aztate-prd-ew-dg-wgtail-st1-ctr-data/images/.width-600_lfxgvMS.jpg
- Project page: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/horn-pencil-mask-t07847

#### Einhorn (Unicorn) — Rebecca Horn (1970)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: A small addition to the head changes posture, balance and pace completely; extension makes the whole body newly felt.
- What it is: A woman walks slowly through fields and woods wearing a tall white horn strapped to her head with bandages around her upper body.
- How it works: Wearable body sculpture of wood and fabric straps, performed outdoors and recorded on 16 mm film.
- Lens: Estrangement, First-person & felt experience, Body politics
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-uShAVpDLM

#### Éden — Hélio Oiticica (1969)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Oiticica called it a place for 'crelazer' (creative leisure): sensing with the whole body, slowly, is the work.
- What it is: A walk-through environment of sand, straw, water, leaves and small shelters where visitors go barefoot, lie down and rest.
- How it works: Installation of natural materials and enclosures (Ninhos, Bólides) first built for his exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Pleasure & play, Body-mind unity
- Shown at: Whitechapel Gallery, London 1969; To Organize Delirium, Carnegie Museum of Art 2016
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm6tvOfN80Y

#### Máscaras Sensoriais (Sensorial Masks) — Lygia Clark (1967)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Light & vision, Voice, sound & listening, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Blocking and altering the everyday senses turns the wearer inward and makes perception itself felt.
- What it is: Cloth hoods that cover the whole head, fitted with small bags of herbs at the nose, sound devices at the ears and lenses at the eyes, change how the wearer smells, hears and sees.
- How it works: Fabric masks in different colours, each with its own combination of scent sachets, ear devices and optical eyepieces.
- Lens: Estrangement, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kZ-WIORsZg
- Images: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0kZ-WIORsZg/hqdefault.jpg

#### O Eu e o Tu (The I and the You) — Lygia Clark (1967)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Knowing another person through touch alone reorganises the felt sense of self and other, including gendered expectations.
- What it is: Two people, hooded and unable to see, wear heavy suits joined by a tube; zippers on each suit open onto textures the other can explore by touch.
- How it works: Industrial plastic overalls lined with materials such as foam, rubber and water bags, with hoods and a connecting tube.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Estrangement, Body politics
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxfmJpfVY4

#### Respire Comigo (Breathe with Me) — Lygia Clark (1966)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Breath, Voice, sound & listening, Touch & pressure
- Idea: An object can lend the body a breath to follow; noticing its rhythm turns attention to one's own breathing.
- What it is: A rubber tube, closed at both ends, is stretched and released by the participant's hands so that it rhythmically 'breathes' next to their ear.
- How it works: A length of diving-hose rubber tube; its air sound and elasticity respond to hand pressure.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Shown at: Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988, MoMA 2014
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG2qmCYQ7Ps

#### Cut Piece — Yoko Ono (1964)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Stillness and exposure make the audience feel their own agency: the work is felt as much by those who cut as by the one who is cut.
- What it is: Ono kneels motionless on stage with a pair of scissors in front of her, and audience members come up one by one to cut away pieces of her clothing; first performed in Kyoto in 1964.
- How it works: Event score that Ono performed six times between 1964 and 2003; the 1965 New York performance was filmed by Albert and David Maysles.
- Lens: Body politics, Intercorporeality
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGMVqbEl-Y0
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_Piece_1964

#### Parangolé — Hélio Oiticica (1964)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind, Light & vision
- Idea: Colour and structure are completed by the dancing body; the wearer is at once artwork, performer and viewer.
- What it is: Layered capes, banners and tents of fabric and plastic that only come alive when worn and danced in, first by samba dancers of the Mangueira community in Rio.
- How it works: Wearable fabric constructions with painted colour fields and written phrases, activated through samba movement.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body politics, Pleasure & play
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaQBW7FitQE
- Images: https://mam.rio/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2016-65-16-687x1024.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Gerardo_Mosquera_wearing_H%C3%A9lio_Oiticica%27s_parangol%C3%A9_Da_adversidade_vivemos.JPG
- Project page: https://mam.rio/historia/parangole-em-opiniao-65/

#### Caminhando (Walking) — Lygia Clark (1963)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The work is the act: meaning lives in the time and attention of the participant's hands, not in an object.
- What it is: The participant cuts a paper Möbius strip lengthwise with scissors, again and again, choosing where to go until the strip becomes too thin to cut.
- How it works: A paper strip, glue and scissors; instructions invite anyone to perform it.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sP-uT5DQLM
- Images: http://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/images/20243.jpg?w=2000&h=2000
- Project page: https://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/3822/walking-on-a-mobius-strip/

#### Electric Dress — Atsuko Tanaka (1956)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Light & vision, Heat & temperature, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Wearing technology is a bodily risk and a felt state: heat, weight, light and danger enclose the wearer inside the machine.
- What it is: A garment of about 200 painted light bulbs and tubes, weighing over 50 kg, that flashed in sequence while Tanaka wore it at the 2nd Gutai Art Exhibition in Tokyo in 1956.
- How it works: Hand-painted incandescent and fluorescent lamps wired to a flashing controller, worn as a kimono-like costume.
- Lens: Body politics, Estrangement
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DcNEpJMBbY
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsuko_Tanaka_(artist)

#### Challenging Mud — Kazuo Shiraga (1955)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The whole body can be the brush: making becomes a struggle of flesh with material, felt from inside and left as trace.
- What it is: Stripped to his underwear, Shiraga threw himself into a pit of mud, clay and cement and wrestled with it, leaving the churned surface as the work; performed at the First Gutai Art Exhibition in Tokyo in 1955.
- How it works: Action performed three times in the exhibition yard, documented by photographs and film.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body-mind unity
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xCg79GrWaM
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Shiraga

## Intimate, Feminist & Queer Soma

Designing for bodies that design has ignored or made taboo: menstruation, pleasure, fertility, menopause, queer and trans bodies.

### Menstruation & Menarche

Touching and being in touch with the menstruating body.

#### Kuddi — Guðrún Margrét Ívansdóttir, Joo Young Park, Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam (2025)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Data felt through touch, 'visceralised' rather than visualised, can change one's relation to menstrual pain.
- What it is: Kuddi is a soft pillow with 12 inflatable pockets that touches and is touched in relation to the changing menstruating body; its designer lived with it for two menstrual cycles.
- How it works: Haptic data physicalisation with 12 inflatable pockets, evaluated autoethnographically over two cycles and analysed through narrative thick descriptions.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713221 (CHI 2025)

#### Touchware — Joo Young Park, Caroline Yan Zheng, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Madeline Balaam, Marianela Ciolfi Felice (2025)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Technology can touch a body in a vulnerable state with care, when it is designed for the diffuse, lingering qualities of discomfort.
- What it is: Touchware is a set of on-body touch probes that inflate or add weight, worn at work to engage with and care for menstrual discomfort.
- How it works: Pneumatic shape-change and weighted components developed through participatory soma design, deployed for two weeks with six participants in a workplace.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Care & healing, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714032 (CHI 2025)

#### Critiquing Menstrual Pain Technologies — Joo Young Park, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam (2024)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Most products try to hide menstrual pain; design should instead attend to it as a cyclical, chronic lived experience.
- What it is: An interaction critique of FemTech products for menstrual pain, read through feminist disability studies, ends in three design provocations.
- How it works: Interaction critique of FemTech market exemplars using feminist disability studies as the analytical lens.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642691 (CHI 2024)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPOFbrspHgY

#### Biomenstrual: Menstrual Care for More-than-Human Bodies — Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Nadia Campo Woytuk (2023)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Menstrual care can extend to soil and other species when the body is understood as more-than-human.
- What it is: Workshop participants made biodegradable menstrual artefacts from biomaterials that can be composted, returning the nutrients in menstrual blood to soil.
- How it works: Research through Design with three workshops and 20 participants, making tools and biomaterial artefacts.
- Lens: More-than-human, Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581083 (CHI 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9TaL5jPR50

#### Tactful Feminist Sensing — Nadia Campo Woytuk, Joo Young Park, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam (2023)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Sensing intimate fluids can stay close to the fleshy, tactile body instead of abstracting it into numbers.
- What it is: Design explorations, four concepts and one working prototype sense the conductivity of cervical mucus, adding touch-based bodily knowledge to fertility tracking.
- How it works: A conductivity sensor prototype for vaginal fluids, presented as a pictorial with material explorations of proximity, visibility and temporality.
- Lens: Body politics, Body data & ambiguity, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3563657.3595966 (DIS 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5bukX1SJhQ

#### Menstrual Garden — Jiabao Li (2022)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Giving menstrual pain a smell makes an inner, often hidden sensation shareable and discussable.
- What it is: A multisensory installation with scent bottles holding the smells of fresh menstrual blood, stagnant menstrual blood and menstrual pain, beside 3D-printed sculptures of proteins found only in menstrual blood, identified from the artist's own samples.
- How it works: Mass spectrometry of the artist's menstrual effluent over many cycles to build a menstrual blood proteome, translated into perfumes and 3D-printed protein models.
- Lens: Body politics, First-person & felt experience
- Shown at: Olfactory Art Keller, New York, 2022
- Images: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58688c8a6a496327e937e35b/1669072958670-Y5OZPGTKSBGKPQFVU1L0/Jiabao+Li+menstrual+garden+4-3.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58688c8a6a496327e937e35b/1669072954462-P6HVTCDOE9M9M4TRT58F/Jiabao+Li+menstrual+garden+2-2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.jiabaoli.org/menstrual-garden

#### Rethinking Menstrual Trackers Towards Period-Positive Ecologies — Anupriya Tuli, Neha Kumar (2022)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: A cycle is lived, not just predicted; period-positive design treats the menstruating body as something to be felt and talked about without shame.
- What it is: A critique of menstrual tracking apps and a proposal for period-positive design that supports how people feel and live with their cycles, not only how they log them.
- How it works: Review of menstrual tracking apps and design research with users in India, leading to a period-positive ecology framework.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517662 (CHI 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8JXJ76HghU

#### Menstrual Technologies Designed with Adolescents — Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Heat & temperature, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: Participatory soma design lets young people listen to and care for newly menstruating bodies instead of hiding them.
- What it is: Seven adolescents aged 16 to 18 used Menarche Bits in two workshops to design technologies that respond to menstrual cramps and to anxious feelings before a period, so they can keep playing sport.
- How it works: Two participatory soma design workshops with the Menarche Bits toolkit, run with sports clubs and a high school as part of menstrual advocacy.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445471 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6smyCA51U_g

#### Curious Cycles — Nadia Campo Woytuk, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Madeline Balaam (2020)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Touching and looking at one's own fluids builds self-knowledge and a nurturing appreciation of the changing body, against the stigma that teaches disgust.
- What it is: Curious Cycles is a set of objects that invite people to look at and touch their menstrual blood, saliva and cervical mucus over a full cycle.
- How it works: Research through Design: a kit of objects and interactions deployed with five participants over a menstrual cycle, with diaries and interviews.
- Lens: Body politics, First-person & felt experience, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376471 (CHI 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaDG-SHa4w

#### Menarche Bits — Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Ozgun Kilic Afsar, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Madeline Balaam (2020)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heat & temperature, Shape-change & inflatables, Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Warmth and pressure on the body can open conversations about menstruation and help young people trust their menstruating bodies.
- What it is: Menarche Bits is an open-ended kit of heat pads and soft shape-changing actuators, worn on the skin or in pockets of a stretchy garment, for young people to create body-worn technologies around their first periods.
- How it works: Soft robotic inflatables and heat elements that stimulate, press, heat and massage the skin and muscles; later used in participatory workshops with adolescents in sports clubs.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395592 (DIS 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcHno9yU3ws
- Images: https://www.kth.se/polopoly_fs/1.1486487.1782821190!/image/DSC_0172%20small.jpg
- Project page: https://www.kth.se/hct/mid/research/interaction-design/projects/menarche-bits-1.921962

#### Menstrual (Im)Mobilities and Safe Spaces — Anupriya Tuli, Shaan Chopra, Neha Kumar (2020)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The menstruating body is felt in public space: a missing toilet or a hostile room becomes pain, worry and a smaller world.
- What it is: A study of how menstruating people in urban India plan where they can go, change and rest, and how the lack of safe toilets and spaces restricts their movement during periods.
- How it works: Interviews and design activities with menstruators in India, analysed through mobility and safe-space lenses.
- Lens: Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376653 (CHI 2020)

#### Vivewell — Sarah Fox, Noura Howell (2019)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Body data about menstruation is never neutral; imagining who else reads it makes the politics of tracking a felt, not abstract, concern.
- What it is: A speculative workplace wellness product that tracks employees' menstrual cycles, presented through a fictional brochure and artefacts to show how current data practices could turn intimate body data into a tool of control.
- How it works: Speculative design: a fictional company's product materials built from existing menstrual-tracking and workplace-wellness data practices, used to provoke discussion.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3323695 (DIS 2019)

#### Learning from and with Menstrupedia — Anupriya Tuli, Shaan Chopra, Neha Kumar (2018)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Where the menstruating body is hidden, education that is friendly, visual and local is the first technology of care.
- What it is: A study of Menstrupedia, an Indian comic and website that teaches girls about periods, and of how young people, parents and teachers use it to talk about a taboo body.
- How it works: Qualitative study of Menstrupedia's content and of interviews with its users and creators in India.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3274443 (CSCW 2018 (PACM HCI))
- Images: https://www.menstrupedia.com/images/comic/preview/english/h9szlx5gx1el70x8wy9d.jpg
- Project page: https://www.menstrupedia.com

#### Menstruation Machine – Takashi's Take — Sputniko! (Hiromi Ozaki) (2010)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Feeling another body's cycle in your own body turns a gendered experience into shared, felt knowledge and questions who gets to have it.
- What it is: A metal device resembling a chastity belt, with a blood-dispensing system and electrodes that stimulate the lower abdomen, reproduces the pain and bleeding of a five-day period; in the music video a boy, Takashi, wears it to feel what menstruation is like.
- How it works: Wearable device with electrical abdominal stimulation and a blood reservoir, presented with a pop music video; made at the Royal College of Art.
- Lens: Body politics, Estrangement
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnb-rdGbm6s
- Images: https://storage.googleapis.com/production-os-assets/assets/6afd6133-e6f0-48e5-95f7-1b17034f2529
- Project page: https://sputniko.com/Menstruation-Machine

### Pleasure & Sexual Health

Pleasure, intimacy and sexual wellbeing as design topics.

#### Sentient Clit: The Pussification of BioTech — Jiabao Li, WhiteFeather Hunter (2024)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Biotech can be designed around felt pleasure: asking who owns an organ that can sense opens questions of consent and sentience.
- What it is: Video performances, lab experiments and digital art around growing clitoral tissue by 3D bioprinting stem cells from menstrual fluid, centring pleasure rather than reproduction.
- How it works: Primary cell culture from a menstrual cup to petri dish, 3D bioprinting and distribution of the work through social platforms such as OnlyFans.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Body politics
- Shown at: Exploratorium: Sexplorations
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkvH62jYCjM
- Images: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58688c8a6a496327e937e35b/714f6ccf-9ea2-4a1b-b5fd-38214abb33dd/Clitoris+bio+print+1-2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.jiabaoli.org/sentient-clit

#### Embodied Embroidery — Dianya Mia Hua, Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell (2023)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Embroidery can articulate felt pleasure where words fail, turning first-person sexual experience into shareable design knowledge.
- What it is: The first author, a woman with an invisible disability, tried other women's masturbation techniques on her own body and articulated each felt experience as an embroidered piece.
- How it works: First-person somaesthetic study guided by first-person perspective, intersubjectivity and articulation, with handmade embroidery as the articulation medium (pictorial).
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Pleasure & play, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3569009.3572803 (TEI 2023 (Pictorial))

#### What Can HCI Learn from Sexual Consent? — Yolande Strengers, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Consent is felt and negotiated moment to moment between bodies; technologies that touch or sense the body should be designed to ask, listen and stop.
- What it is: A feminist model of sexual consent (voluntary, ongoing, informed, specific and revocable) carried into interaction design, especially for technologies that act on or read the body.
- How it works: Conceptual transfer of feminist and sexual consent literature into design principles, with examples from bodily and intimate technologies.
- Lens: Body politics, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445107 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_9fklT2nLM

#### Open-Source 3D Clitoris Model — Odile Fillod (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Touch & pressure
- Idea: An organ of pleasure that textbooks drew as a dot becomes knowable when it can be held; tactile knowledge corrects a political omission.
- What it is: A free, life-size, 3D-printable model of the whole clitoris, including its internal bulbs and crura, released for schools and sex education.
- How it works: Anatomically based 3D model released under an open licence for anyone to print; used in French classrooms and exhibitions.
- Lens: Body politics, Pleasure & play
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Clitoris_3D_%28v2%29.jpg
- Project page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clitoris_3D_(v2).jpg

#### How HCI Talks about Sexuality — Gopinaath Kannabiran, Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell (2011)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Whole body-mind
- Idea: What a field will not say about bodies shapes what it can design for; naming the blind spot is the first step toward designing with desire and pleasure.
- What it is: A discourse analysis of HCI papers that mention sex and sexuality, showing how the field frames sexuality as risk, identity or health data while avoiding the sexual body itself.
- How it works: Critical reading of the HCI literature on sexuality, identifying discursive strategies, blind spots and research opportunities.
- Lens: Body politics, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979043 (CHI 2011)

#### Pleasure is Your Birthright: Digitally Enabled Designer Sex Toys — Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell (2011)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Vibration & haptics, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Designing for pleasure is designing for the whole felt body; leaving sexuality out of HCI is itself a norm about which bodies and experiences count.
- What it is: A study of how designers of high-end digital sex toys work, arguing that these vibrators are sophisticated interactive artefacts for embodied pleasure that HCI had refused to study.
- How it works: Interviews with sex toy designers and analysis of their process (critical immersion, conversations with users and sexual health experts, iterated 3D prototypes), framed as third-wave HCI.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1978979 (CHI 2011)

#### Sex Toys and Designing for Sexual Wellness — Anna Eaglin, Shaowen Bardzell (2011)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Sexual pleasure belongs to health: a toy that helps someone know what their body enjoys is a wellness device, not a joke.
- What it is: A user study of how people choose, use and talk about sex toys, turned into design principles for sexual wellness technology.
- How it works: Survey and interviews with sex toy users, analysed for experiences, barriers and preferences, leading to design principles.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979879 (CHI 2011 Extended Abstracts)

### Feminist HCI & Women's Health

Pelvic floor, fertility, pregnancy and the politics of tracking women's bodies.

#### Pelvic Chair — Anna Ståhl, Madeline Balaam, Marianela Ciolfi Felice (2022)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Shape-change & inflatables, Touch & pressure, Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Rhythmic, technology-initiated touch can build somatic literacy of a hidden muscle group: feeling tension and release where words fail.
- What it is: The Pelvic Chair uses soft latex air pockets in the seat to touch the outer pelvic floor in gentle rhythms, drawing attention to its anatomy, muscles and connections.
- How it works: Inflatable latex pockets with tuned layers, volume and timing, developed through an annotated soma design process (Ståhl et al., DIS 2022) and studied with 14 participants (Yadav et al., CHI 2025).
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713223 (CHI 2025)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouG7d90Hp-o

#### Removal as a Method — Sarah Homewood, Anna Vallgårda (2020)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Taking a tracker away shows what it was doing to the felt body; removal lets designers notice how data had replaced bodily attention.
- What it is: A first-person design method: the researcher stops using fertility and menstrual self-tracking tools and records how the felt sense of one's own cycle and body changes once the data is gone.
- How it works: Autoethnographic study in which the designer removes self-tracking technologies from daily life and documents the experience over time, proposed as a fourth-wave HCI method.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body data & ambiguity, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395425 (DIS 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvNc-aeR6nA

#### HCI and Intimate Care as an Agenda for Change in Women's Health — Teresa Almeida, Rob Comber, Madeline Balaam (2016)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Muscle tension (EMG)
- Idea: Feeling better starts from knowing and feeling the pelvic floor: designing for women's health means designing against the silence that keeps this part of the body unfelt.
- What it is: A study of urinary incontinence from the side of women and of pelvic floor therapists, which argues that HCI has ignored the intimate, leaking, ageing female body and sets out an agenda for designing intimate care.
- How it works: Interviews with women and physiotherapists about pelvic floor training, read through feminist HCI to derive knowledge, esteem and agency as design goals.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858187 (CHI 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXY-7MmEYjo

#### Make the Breast Pump Not Suck: A Feminist HCI Approach to Postpartum Technologies — Catherine D'Ignazio (2016)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Touch & pressure
- Idea: A device clamped to the breast for hours a day is a somatic experience; asking lactating people what it feels like reveals design that had ignored their bodies.
- What it is: An account of the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck hackathon at the MIT Media Lab, where parents, designers and clinicians redesigned the breast pump and the postpartum experience around it.
- How it works: Hackathon and participatory design with parents and experts, analysed through feminist HCI to reflect on process, inclusion and outcomes.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858460 (CHI 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnGcXgzJ9EA

#### Labella — Teresa Almeida, Rob Comber, Madeline Balaam (2015)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Light & vision, Muscle tension (EMG)
- Idea: Looking at one's own genitals through a playful interface turns a taboo into first-person bodily knowledge, from the 'very basics' to how the pelvic muscles feel when they work.
- What it is: A pair of marked underwear and a smartphone app: the woman points the phone at her own body and sees an augmented view of the vulva, then learns anatomy and pelvic floor exercises through it.
- How it works: Fiducial markers printed on underwear let a phone camera overlay 3D anatomy models on the body; the app guides identification of body parts and pelvic floor exercises; evaluated with women at home.
- Lens: Body politics, Attunement & appreciation, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858119 (CHI 2016)
- Images: https://imgix.bustle.com/mic/0svztmysgezjm7soktefkfbtfwdorjpmg4yhadm4zt6iecv8rt9ftth0ifnegl1n.jpg?w=1200&h=630&fit=crop&crop=faces&fm=jpg
- Project page: https://www.mic.com/articles/143637/labella-is-an-app-that-will-teach-you-to-get-to-know-your-vagina

#### Intimate Care: eTextiles for Pelvic Fitness — Teresa Almeida, Rob Comber, Madeline Balaam (2014)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Muscle tension (EMG), Touch & pressure
- Idea: A muscle most people cannot see or name becomes trainable once a soft material gives it a felt, readable response.
- What it is: Soft e-textile prototypes worn close to the body that help women locate and feel the pelvic floor muscles and learn to contract them correctly.
- How it works: Textile sensors and conductive fabric worn against the perineum pick up pelvic floor contraction and give feedback during training (early design exploration).
- Lens: Care & healing, Attunement & appreciation, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2598784.2602768 (DIS 2014 Companion)

#### Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design — Shaowen Bardzell (2010)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Design always assumes a user's body and life; feminist HCI makes that assumption visible and asks designers to answer for it.
- What it is: The paper that named feminist HCI: it proposes qualities such as pluralism, participation, advocacy, ecology, embodiment and self-disclosure to guide interaction design.
- How it works: Theoretical synthesis of feminist theory for interaction design, yielding a set of design qualities with examples.
- Lens: Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753521 (CHI 2010)

### Menopause, Ageing & Life Transitions

Bodies changing over a life: menopause, ageing, illness.

#### What Makes Us Most Human Is Also So Animal — Jiabao Li (2026)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Breastfeeding, the most intimate bodily act, is also what we share with other mammals: tasting it crosses the line between human and animal.
- What it is: A blind tasting in which visitors drink a line of milks from mammals, including the artist's own breast milk, cow, goat, camel, yak, bat and coyote, and try to guess the source.
- How it works: Performance and tasting made after the artist's pregnancy, part of the solo exhibition Womb Wetware (2026).
- Lens: More-than-human, First-person & felt experience, Body politics
- Shown at: Womb Wetware, tiat, San Francisco, 2026; Fusebox Festival, Austin, 2026
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k3acKrF-o8
- Project page: https://www.jiabaoli.org/what-makes-us-most-human-is-also-so-animal

#### Reclaiming the Body through Design: Menopause — Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Madeline Balaam (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Heat & temperature, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Menopause is an entanglement of physical and psychosocial change; design can recognise and transform it rather than only treat symptoms.
- What it is: Interviews with twelve women and a design workshop produced concepts that bring design close to the body during menopause, resisting its framing as a medical problem.
- How it works: Interviews with 12 women and a participatory design workshop with three, analysed from a holistic, body-first perspective.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445153 (CHI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr9K9ScP6BI

#### Parting the Red Sea: Lived Experiences of Menopause — Amanda Lazar, Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell (2019)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Heat & temperature, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: A body in transition is not a list of symptoms; its changes become meaningful through shared stories, so design should support that sense-making rather than only track signs.
- What it is: A study of a menopause forum on Reddit, where women make sense of hot flushes, bleeding and mood together, showing that the experience of menopause is social as much as bodily.
- How it works: Qualitative analysis of posts in a menopause subreddit, informed by feminist social science methods that centre women's lived experience.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300710 (CHI 2019)

### Queer & Trans Bodies

Soma design with and for queer, trans and non-normative bodies.

#### The Bodies of TEI — Katta Spiel (2021)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Designing 'for the body' always means designing for some bodies; soma design has to ask whose felt experience it takes as the norm.
- What it is: A review of papers at the TEI conference that asks which bodies embodied interaction design assumes, and finds a default body that is able, binary-gendered and normatively sized.
- How it works: Systematic analysis of TEI papers for how bodies are described, sensed and addressed, from a critical, queer and disability-studies stance.
- Lens: Body politics, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3430524.3440651 (TEI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UKwgW2Ok6Q

#### Designing Trans Technology — Oliver L. Haimson (2020)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Intimate & hormonal body, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Trans communities name body change as a design space of their own; design that centres them treats transition as care for a felt self.
- What it is: Participatory design sessions with 21 trans people that produced ideas for technologies for changing bodies, changing appearance, safety and finding resources.
- How it works: Participatory design workshops with trans participants, analysed into four categories of envisioned technologies and challenges.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376669 (CHI 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih3gPbmk4p8

#### Reimagining (Women's) Health: HCI, Gender and Essentialised Embodiment — Os Keyes, Katta Spiel (2020)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body
- Idea: Tying care to a presumed body leaves out the people whose felt bodies differ; health design should start from lived embodiment, not from categories.
- What it is: A critique of 'women's health' research in HCI that ties health needs to assumed female anatomy, and a call to design for trans, intersex and non-binary people whose bodies do not fit that model.
- How it works: Critical review of women's health literature in HCI, informed by trans and queer theory.
- Lens: Body politics, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3404218 (ACM TOCHI 2020)

#### Patching Gender: Non-binary Utopias in HCI — Katta Spiel, Os Keyes (2019)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Systems that fix gender also fix how bodies may be felt and read; non-binary utopias let design imagine bodies otherwise.
- What it is: A short speculative piece imagining technologies that treat gender as open and changeable rather than as a fixed binary field in a system.
- How it works: Speculative, utopian writing grounded in non-binary experience, proposing ways to 'patch' gender in computing.
- Lens: Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3310425 (CHI 2019 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQozcPAftps

#### Project Spectra — Alex A. Ahmed (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Breath
- Idea: The voice is a felt part of gendered embodiment; training it is somatic practice, and the trainee, not the software, decides what sounds right.
- What it is: A free, open-source voice training app built with an online community of trans people, with exercises, warm-ups, pitch tracking and goals each user sets for their own voice.
- How it works: Mobile app with real-time pitch tracking and guided exercises, developed through community-based participatory design on Discord and GitHub.
- Lens: Body politics, First-person & felt experience, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3434167 (CSCW 2021 (PACM HCI))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I6x4mlwChQ

## Health, Care & Wellbeing

Somatic approaches to pain, rehabilitation, stress and mental health, where feeling better starts from feeling more.

### Chronic Pain & Rehabilitation

Movement confidence, pain and physical rehabilitation.

#### Self-Tracking to Do Less — Sarah Homewood (2023)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Heartbeat, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: With a chronically ill body, the goal is to feel limits early; tracking can support listening to the body instead of pushing past it.
- What it is: An autoethnography of living with long COVID, in which the author used self-tracking to pace activity and rest, turning tracking from a tool for doing more into one for doing less.
- How it works: Longitudinal first-person account of self-tracking heart rate and activity for pacing, analysed to derive design implications for pacing technologies.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body data & ambiguity, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581505 (CHI 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FkcETHdxNc

#### Supporting Everyday Function in Chronic Pain Using Wearable Technology — Aneesha Singh, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze (2017)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Rehabilitation lives in ordinary movement; sensing the body during daily chores helps people pace and trust it where pain actually happens.
- What it is: A home study in which people with chronic pain used a movement-sonification wearable during everyday tasks such as cooking and cleaning, not only during exercise.
- How it works: Wearable sonification device deployed at home with people with chronic pain, studied through interviews and diaries.
- Lens: Care & healing, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025947 (CHI 2017)

#### Musically Informed Sonification for Chronic Pain Rehabilitation — Joseph W. Newbold, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Musical expectation is felt in the body; a phrase that wants to resolve can guide movement without the anxiety of numbers.
- What it is: A sonification that plays a musical phrase as a person with chronic pain stretches, resolving at the target point so the listener feels when to stop and when progress was made.
- How it works: Movement sensors drive harmonic musical phrases whose cadence resolves at a set range of motion; tested with people with chronic pain.
- Lens: Care & healing, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858302 (CHI 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrIKRs5FeQI

#### Go-with-the-Flow — Aneesha Singh, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze (2015)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Breath, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Sound gives a fearful body a new way to feel itself; hearing movement and breath rebuilds confidence to move, so feeling better starts from feeling more.
- What it is: A wearable that turns movement and breathing into sound while people with chronic pain exercise, so they can hear how far they have stretched and when they hold their breath.
- How it works: Smartphone-based wearable and Kinect versions track trunk movement and breathing and sonify them within user-defined exercise spaces; studied with people with chronic pain and physiotherapists.
- Lens: Care & healing, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2015.1085310 (Human–Computer Interaction (journal))
- Project page: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1472796/

#### Motivating People with Chronic Pain to Do Physical Activity — Aneesha Singh, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze (2014)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Pain is a felt state of body and mind together; technology for rehabilitation should rebuild trust in the moving body rather than count steps.
- What it is: Interviews with people living with chronic pain and with physiotherapists about why moving is hard, which found that fear, anxiety and lost trust in the body, not lack of information, hold people back.
- How it works: Qualitative interviews and focus groups with people with chronic pain and clinicians, leading to design opportunities for affect-aware activity support.
- Lens: Care & healing, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557268 (CHI 2014)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNmVlW9gcFY

#### The Virtual Meditative Walk — Diane Gromala (2011)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Pain & inner sensations, Light & vision
- Idea: Instead of distracting from pain, the VR teaches a different relationship to it, so pain is attended to calmly rather than escaped.
- What it is: An immersive VR walk through a forest with guided mindfulness for people living with chronic pain; the fog lifts as the person's physiological arousal drops.
- How it works: Head-mounted display VR environment with mindfulness-based stress reduction audio and biofeedback from skin conductance controlling fog density; studied with chronic pain patients.
- Lens: Care & healing, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: Shown at CHI 2011
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702344 (CHI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX9Mukjf3n8

#### SnowWorld — Hunter G. Hoffman (2000)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Pain & inner sensations, Light & vision
- Idea: Pain is shaped by attention: when the mind is absorbed in a cold, playful world, the same wound hurts less. It is the classic case of VR as distraction, and a contrast to designs that teach people to attend to pain.
- What it is: An icy virtual canyon with snowmen, penguins and snowballs to throw, experienced in a head-mounted display by burn patients while their wounds are cleaned and dressed.
- How it works: Head-mounted display VR used during burn wound care and physical therapy, compared with standard care in clinical studies; the first 2000 studies likely used an earlier VR world, with SnowWorld built for burn patients soon after.
- Lens: Care & healing, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/s0304-3959(99)00275-4 (Pain 2000)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh4K_dZ7LvQ
- Project page: https://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/vrpain/

#### Mirror Box — V. S. Ramachandran (1995)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Light & vision, Pain & inner sensations, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The felt body is a living construction of vision, movement and expectation; changing what one sees can change what one feels.
- What it is: A box with a mirror down the middle: an amputee places the intact arm beside the mirror, sees its reflection where the missing limb should be, and moves both, which can relieve cramping phantom pain.
- How it works: A vertical mirror in a cardboard box creates the visual illusion of two intact limbs; patients perform symmetric movements while watching the reflection.
- Lens: Estrangement, Care & healing, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/377489a0 (Nature 1995)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNTCFSuKEMA
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Mirror-box-comic.jpg

### Stress, Anxiety & Mental Health

Biofeedback, breath and body awareness for stress and mental health.

#### Conversations With The Stressed Body — Xinglin Sun (2025)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Starting from bodily sensation makes stress easier to speak about: the body opens a path to self-disclosure that words alone block.
- What it is: A co-design workshop in which nine girls aged 15–18 used Embodied Probes, artefacts and bodily activities, to locate, express and discuss the sensations of stress, then designed prototypes for their own stress relief.
- How it works: Workshop sessions with body mapping, tangible expression materials and embodied prototyping, analysed qualitatively.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Care & healing, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735707 (DIS 2025)

#### HCI and Affective Health — Pedro Sanches, Pavel Karpashevich, Muhammad Umair, Kristina Höök (2019)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Skin conductance & arousal
- Idea: Producing more body data is not care; mental health technology should help people live with and act on what they feel.
- What it is: A review of 139 CHI-family papers on depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder finds most innovation in automated diagnosis and self-tracking, and calls for interventions and ethical involvement of people living with these conditions.
- How it works: Systematic literature review of ten years of SIGCHI proceedings, coded for condition, approach, technology and evaluation.
- Lens: Care & healing, Body data & ambiguity, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300475 (CHI 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlAAXSIb4WA

#### Purrble — Nikki Theofanopoulou, Petr Slovák, Katherine Isbister (2019)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics, Heartbeat
- Idea: Soothing another body in one's lap is a way of soothing one's own; emotion regulation is practised through the hands, in the moment it is needed.
- What it is: A plush creature whose heartbeat races when a child picks it up; stroking it slows the heartbeat until it purrs, so the child calms the toy and, in doing so, calms down.
- How it works: Soft toy with touch sensors and a vibration motor that simulates heartbeat and purring; deployed at home with children in a feasibility study, later commercialised.
- Lens: Care & healing, Technology that touches back, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.2196/14029 (JMIR Mental Health 2019)
- Project page: https://purrble.com/

#### Inner Garden — Joan Sol Roo, Martin Hachet (2017)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Heartbeat, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Tending a small world with one's hands and breath turns inner states into something to care for rather than to control.
- What it is: A sandbox landscape shaped by hand and brought to life with projected water and weather that respond to the person's breathing and heart rhythm, used as a space for mindfulness practice.
- How it works: Spatial augmented reality projects onto a physical sandbox tracked by a depth camera; breathing and heart-rate sensors drive the simulated weather and sea; optional VR view for meditation.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025743 (CHI 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a4URQLt2Yw

#### Life Tree — Rakesh Patibanda, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2017)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath
- Idea: Breath practice sticks when it feels like play; slowing the breath becomes a pleasure rather than a prescription.
- What it is: A virtual reality game in which slow, deep breaths make a tree grow and bloom; a study examined what makes breathing exercise engaging enough to return to.
- How it works: Breath sensed through a chest-worn sensor drives the growth of a tree in a VR scene; field study with players to derive design strategies for breathing games.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3116595.3116621 (CHI PLAY 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7khAiBdbLmg

#### Fidget Widgets — Michael Karlesky, Katherine Isbister (2013)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Fidgeting is the body regulating the mind; small objects for the hands can support emotional self-regulation without a screen.
- What it is: A set of small tangible objects to click, squeeze, spin and roll at the desk, designed from a study of how people fidget to manage stress, focus and boredom during digital work.
- How it works: Survey of fidgeting habits and a range of physical prototypes with distinct tactile qualities; later NordiCHI study of their use.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2971485.2971557 (NordiCHI 2016)

#### Sonic Cradle — Jay Vidyarthi, Bernhard E. Riecke, Diane Gromala (2012)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Hearing one's own breath as music makes attention settle in the body without instruction; calm arrives through feeling, not effort.
- What it is: A person lies suspended in a hammock-like chair in a dark chamber; a respiration belt turns each breath into layers of ambient music, and people without meditation experience drift into calm attention.
- How it works: Chest respiration sensor maps breathing patterns to generative ambient sound in a light-free, suspended setup; studied with first-time users through interviews.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2318017 (DIS 2012)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB8qfJ1M0gg
- Project page: https://ispace.iat.sfu.ca/project/sonic-cradle/

#### Affective Health — Pedro Sanches, Kristina Höök (2010)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Skin conductance & arousal, Heartbeat, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Stress cannot be read off the body as a diagnosis; it is better to mirror bodily reactions and let people interpret them in the context of their lives.
- What it is: Affective Health is a mobile stress-management service that mirrors short-term stress reactions measured by wearable sensors back to users as a moving spiral of colour, so they can reflect on their own patterns.
- How it works: Skin conductance, heart rate and movement sensors stream to a phone that renders arousal and activity as layered and spiral visualisations over time; designed through a multidisciplinary process at SICS.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Care & healing, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1858171.1858182 (MobileHCI 2010)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/352cfe0ae89771b68d9f0cbe9e9ec13d503ae0e1/7-Figure4-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/352cfe0ae89771b68d9f0cbe9e9ec13d503ae0e1/5-Figure1-1.png

### Neurodiversity & Motor Conditions

Parkinson's, stroke, autism, sensory differences.

#### Expressive Bodies — Katta Spiel (2022)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Disabled bodies carry expert knowledge of how technology feels; letting critique happen through movement values that knowledge.
- What it is: A design critique method drawn from disability dance and embodied disability cultures, in which disabled participants use movement to respond to and critique technology designs.
- How it works: Workshops pairing embodied practices from disability arts with collaborative design critique.
- Lens: Body politics, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3517428.3551350 (ASSETS 2022)

#### Magic Room — Franca Garzotto (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Light & vision, Voice, sound & listening, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: A responsive room lets each child explore the senses at their own pace; the environment adapts to the body instead of the other way round.
- What it is: A smart multisensory room where lights, projections, sounds, bubbles and smart objects respond to children's movement and touch, used in therapy for neurodevelopmental conditions.
- How it works: Room-scale installation with projections, smart lights, sensors and connected toys, configurable by therapists; deployed in therapy centres and schools.
- Lens: Care & healing, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/mprv.2018.011591060 (IEEE Pervasive Computing 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDbFbPbD3do

#### Embodied Companion Technologies for Autistic Children — Katta Spiel (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Designing with autistic children's own sensory pleasures respects their embodied experience instead of normalising it.
- What it is: Smart objects co-designed with autistic children, each built around what that child enjoys and how they move and sense, rather than around deficits to be corrected.
- How it works: Participatory design over several months with individual autistic children, producing bespoke sensor-actuator objects; evaluated through the children's own experience.
- Lens: Body politics, Care & healing, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2839462.2839495 (TEI 2016)

#### Emma Watch — Haiyan Zhang (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Vibration & haptics, Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: A rhythm felt on the skin can change how a body moves: designing with one person's lived experience produced care that feels like getting one's hand back.
- What it is: A wrist-worn device with vibrating motors that reduced the hand tremor of Emma Lawton, a graphic designer with early-onset Parkinson's, enough for her to write and draw straight lines again.
- How it works: Wrist wearable with an array of vibration motors running a pattern (likely distracting the brain's feedback loop), designed with Emma Lawton for the BBC's Big Life Fix at Microsoft Research.
- Lens: Care & healing, Technology that touches back, First-person & felt experience
- Shown at: BBC Big Life Fix (2016); Microsoft Build 2017
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6rAlFYDffQ
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiyan_Zhang

#### Lands of Fog — Joan Mora-Guiard, Narcís Parés (2016)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind, Light & vision
- Idea: Social connection can grow from moving in the same space; the body opens the encounter before words do.
- What it is: A floor-projected world covered in fog that two children, an autistic child and a neurotypical peer, clear by moving together, discovering creatures that invite shared play.
- How it works: Full-body interaction on a floor projection tracked by overhead sensors, with a butterfly-net tangible; studied with pairs of children with and without autism.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Pleasure & play, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2930674.2930695 (IDC 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klWT4csu8WI
- Images: https://www.upf.edu/documents/8512687/8513142/Lands+of+Fog+2+Users/3ac024f2-543f-5ab1-9065-128b45070eee?t=1536586692812
- Project page: https://www.upf.edu/web/fubintlab/lands-of-fog

#### CueS — Amey Holden, Madeline Balaam (2015)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: A gentle touch on the wrist can bring a neglected limb back into awareness; rehabilitation happens between sessions, in the body's daily habits.
- What it is: A wrist-worn device that senses how much a stroke survivor uses the affected arm and gives vibration cues to use it more during everyday life.
- How it works: Wrist-worn accelerometers measure arm activity and trigger vibrotactile prompts; studied with stroke survivors at home.
- Lens: Care & healing, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2783446.2783576 (British HCI 2015)

#### SensoryPaint — Kathryn E. Ringland (2014)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Light & vision
- Idea: Sensory integration works best when it feels like play; the whole body becomes the brush.
- What it is: A large projected canvas where children with neurodevelopmental conditions paint by moving textured balls and their own bodies, turning sensory therapy into play.
- How it works: Depth camera tracks balls of different textures and body movement in front of a projection; colour and sound respond; studied in a sensory therapy setting.
- Lens: Care & healing, Pleasure & play
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2632048.2632065 (UbiComp 2014)

#### Motivating Mobility: Lived Motivation in Stroke Rehabilitation — Madeline Balaam (2011)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Rehabilitation is lived in a whole life, not in exercise counts; motivation comes from what movement means to the person.
- What it is: A study of how stroke survivors actually find motivation to rehabilitate at home, and the design of home rehabilitation technologies around their lived, changing motivations.
- How it works: Participatory design and home deployment of rehabilitation prototypes with stroke survivors, analysed for lived motivation.
- Lens: Care & healing, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979397 (CHI 2011)

#### Dance for PD — Mark Morris Dance Group (2001)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: People with Parkinson's are addressed as dancers; music and imagery can unlock movement that effortful control cannot.
- What it is: Dance classes for people with Parkinson's disease taught by professional dancers, using live music, imagery and choreography rather than exercise drills.
- How it works: Seated and standing dance classes with live music taught worldwide; teacher training programme run by the Mark Morris Dance Group with the Brooklyn Parkinson Group.
- Lens: Care & healing, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LwWkFHpve0
- Images: https://danceforparkinsons.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/DancePD-8069-by-Amber-Star-Merkens-scaled.jpg
- Project page: https://danceforparkinsons.org/

#### Snoezelen — Jan Hulsegge, Ad Verheul (1978)
- Type: Somatic practice · Body & senses: Light & vision, Touch & pressure, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: A space that asks nothing lets a body settle and explore at its own pace; well-being comes through sensing, not performance.
- What it is: A multisensory room with soft light, bubble tubes, music, textures and scents where people with intellectual disabilities, autism or dementia can rest and explore without a task.
- How it works: Controlled multisensory environment with an accompanying therapist; the name combines Dutch 'snuffelen' (to sniff, explore) and 'doezelen' (to doze).
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhel1pU5kq8
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Snoezelroom.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoezelen

### Ageing, Care & Caregiving

Bodies in care: older adults, caregivers, touch in care.

#### HUG — Cathy Treadaway (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Heartbeat, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: When words fail, care continues through touch, rhythm and sound; a held heartbeat can calm a body that is anxious.
- What it is: A soft, cuddly companion with long arms, a beating heart and a speaker that plays the person's favourite music, made for people living with advanced dementia.
- How it works: Weighted soft body with an embedded vibration heartbeat and music player activated by hugging; co-designed with people with dementia and carers and studied in care settings.
- Lens: Care & healing, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054410 (IJERPH 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRQ8VaAMzI0
- Images: https://www.laughproject.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/HUG-crowdfunder-1024x577.png
- Project page: https://www.laughproject.info

#### Tovertafel — Hester Anderiesen-Le Riche (2015)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Light & vision, Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Play invites apathetic bodies to reach and touch again; activation comes through the hands and shared laughter, not instructions.
- What it is: A ceiling-mounted projector that throws interactive light games onto a care-home table: residents with dementia sweep leaves, catch fish or bat a ball of light with their hands.
- How it works: Projector with infrared sensors above a table detects hand and arm movements and updates the projected games; developed from a TU Delft PhD with people with dementia.
- Lens: Care & healing, Pleasure & play
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIK53oFgyms
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Tovertafel_%282015%29.jpg
- Project page: https://www.tovertafel.com/

## Social & Collective Soma

Intercorporeality: feeling each other's bodies through mediated touch, shared breath and heartbeat, and collective movement.

### Social & Mediated Touch

Touch at a distance, hugs, holding hands through technology.

#### Embodied Telepresent Connection (ETC) — John Desnoyers-Stewart, Ekaterina R. Stepanova, Kristina Höök (2023)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Light & vision, Heartbeat
- Idea: Social touch in VR need not imitate physical tactility; an ephemeral, suggested touch can still carry play and intimacy.
- What it is: A VR artwork where two people meet as ethereal, glowing bodies and 'touch' each other through visual and sound effects rather than any device on the skin, with subtle biosignals in the scene.
- How it works: Pseudo-haptic visual and audio feedback at virtual contact points between networked avatars; developed in soma design-inspired workshops with 14 HCI experts and shown to 300+ visitors.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3800645.3812937 (DIS 2026)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OW05odYNHI

#### SymbioSinging (ADA) — Kelsey Cotton, Ozgun Kilic Afsar, Yoav Luft (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Shape-change & inflatables, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Somatic knowledge can be partly transposed from one body to another through touch.
- What it is: SymbioSinging is a soft robotic garment, ADA, that re-enacts the felt movements of singing on the body of someone who is not singing.
- How it works: A pneumatically controlled, fibre-based air-driven actuator garment developed through a soma design process with a singer.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3450741.3466718 (Creativity and Cognition 2021)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/5578691d7f746c8e071db6559a505de3a54bbf15/2-Figure1-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/5578691d7f746c8e071db6559a505de3a54bbf15/3-Figure2-1.png

#### Interdisciplinary Insights for Digital Touch Communication — Carey Jewitt (2020)
- Type: Book & essay · Body & senses: Touch & pressure
- Idea: Touch is social and cultural before it is technical: designing digital touch means designing who may touch whom, how and when.
- What it is: An open-access book from the IN-TOUCH project that brings together design, social science and computing to ask how digital touch changes intimacy, care and social norms.
- How it works: Speculative design workshops, interviews and case studies with artists, engineers and the public, analysed through multimodal social semiotics.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24564-1 (Springer HCI Series 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiVFakYPlQo

#### Social Touch Technology: A Survey of Haptic Technology for Social Touch — Gijs Huisman (2017)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Designs for touch at a distance work when they respect what skin evolved to feel: slow, warm, gentle stroking reads as care.
- What it is: A survey of devices that mediate social touch, from hugging shirts to robot pets, read against the psychology and neuroscience of affective touch.
- How it works: Literature review organised by touch type, device and study outcome, drawing on C-tactile afferent research.
- Lens: Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/toh.2017.2650221 (IEEE Transactions on Haptics 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXoQ4r5BhCs

#### Frebble — Holland Haptics, Alexander Toet (2014)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Holding hands is a small, continuous touch; a mediated version can change how shared moments feel even at a distance.
- What it is: A palm-sized device you hold like a hand: squeezing it makes the partner's Frebble press against the back of their hand, so two people can hold hands during a call or a film.
- How it works: Pressure sensors and vibration actuators in a hand-shaped shell, linked over the internet; TNO tested it during a remotely shared sad film.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1297 (PeerJ 2015)
- Images: https://dfzljdn9uc3pi.cloudfront.net/2015/1297/1/fig-1-2x.jpg

#### TaSST: Tactile Sleeve for Social Touch — Gijs Huisman (2013)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Social touch is carried by its pattern in time and space, a stroke versus a tap, more than by force alone.
- What it is: A pair of forearm sleeves: stroking or squeezing the pressure-sensitive layer of one sleeve is played back as a pattern of vibration on the other person's arm.
- How it works: A grid of conductive-foam pressure sensors on one sleeve maps onto a matching grid of vibration motors on the other.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/whc.2013.6548410 (IEEE World Haptics Conference 2013)

#### Hug over a Distance — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2005)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: An embrace is felt as pressure closing around the torso; the vest designs that closure rather than a signal of affection.
- What it is: An air-inflatable vest lets couples in long-distance relationships send a hug: when one partner squeezes a koala-shaped soft toy, the other's vest inflates around the torso.
- How it works: A PDA-linked koala with a pressure sensor triggers a pump that inflates air pockets in the partner's vest; tested with couples in a field study.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1056808.1056994 (CHI 2005 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtG4UzezQWk

#### The Hug Shirt — CuteCircuit (2004)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Heat & temperature, Heartbeat
- Idea: A hug is a whole-body event of pressure, warmth and rhythm, so sending one means designing for where and how it lands on the skin.
- What it is: A shirt with sensors and actuators where a hug would land: a hug sent from a phone is replayed on the wearer's body as pressure, warmth and the sender's heartbeat.
- How it works: Sensors record the strength, duration and location of a hug; Bluetooth and a phone app relay it to actuators and heating elements in the partner's shirt.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Shown at: TIME Best Inventions of the Year 2006
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MbzMiEGn5s
- Images: https://cutecircuit.com/images/cute2/archive/7d18d69954180842.webp https://cutecircuit.com/images/cute2/archive/b940be00f887ec0b.webp
- Project page: https://cutecircuit.com/hugshirt/

#### The Hug — Carl DiSalvo (2003)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics, Heat & temperature
- Idea: A robot for intimacy should first be shaped to be held; its form invites the embrace before any function does.
- What it is: A soft, arm-shaped robotic pillow for elders and their families: hugging it sends a hug to a matching pillow, which then vibrates, warms and plays the caller's voice.
- How it works: Pressure and stroke sensors in the pillow's arms connect over a phone line to vibration motors, heating pads and audio in the paired pillow.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/roman.2003.1251879 (IEEE RO-MAN 2003)

#### ComTouch — Angela Chang, Scott Brave (2002)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: People invent their own tactile vocabulary, emphasis, turn-taking and play, as soon as touch is added to talk.
- What it is: A sleeve on a mobile phone turns the pressure of each finger into vibration under the other caller's fingers, so a conversation carries squeezes as well as words.
- How it works: Force-sensitive resistors under the fingers drive vibrotactile actuators on the remote device, tested with pairs of users in a lab study.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/778712.778755 (DIS 2002)
- Project page: https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/comtouch/

#### inTouch — Scott Brave (1997)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Touch at a distance works best as a shared, two-way physical medium that both bodies can push and feel at once, not as a message sent from one to the other.
- What it is: Two sets of three wooden rollers are linked by motors: when one person turns a roller, the matching roller under the other person's hand turns too, and both can push against each other.
- How it works: Force-feedback rollers with position sensors and motors synchronise two remote objects so that both users feel the same state and each other's resistance.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/289444.289491 (CSCW 1998)
- Project page: https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/intouch/

### Shared Breath, Heartbeat & Synchrony

Sharing biosignals and falling into rhythm with others.

#### Cell Space — Rem RunGu Lin, Botao 'Amber' Hu (2024)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Making biosignals visible between touching bodies extends intercorporeality: partners sense each other's inner state as part of the dance.
- What it is: Dancers and visitors practising contact improvisation each occupy a mixed reality 'cell' whose fluid boundary shows their heartbeat and pressure in real time, so the cells merge and split as bodies meet.
- How it works: Co-located AR headsets rendering Voronoi cells around tracked participants, fed by heart rate and pressure sensors (neurofeedback).
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity, Movement & expression
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH 2024 Art Papers; TEI 2025; IEEE VR 2025 XR Gallery
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3689050.3707678 (TEI 2025 Art and Performance)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/915076535
- Images: https://reality.design/media/project-cell-space-gallery-01.jpg
- Project page: https://reality.design/project/cell-space

#### Shared User Interfaces of Physiological Data — Clara Moge (2022)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Breath, Skin conductance & arousal
- Idea: Shared body signals change relationships at three levels, within oneself, between people and around a shared task, and their meaning depends on timing and social context.
- What it is: A systematic review of 64 studies of social biofeedback, systems in which two or more people see, hear or feel each other's heart rate, breath or arousal.
- How it works: PRISMA-style systematic review of HCI literature, synthesised into the Social Biofeedback Interactions framework.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517495 (CHI 2022)

#### Evoking Physiological Synchrony and Empathy Using Social VR with Biofeedback — Mikko Salminen, Simo Järvelä (2019)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Breath, Brain (EEG), Whole body-mind
- Idea: Seeing another body's rhythm alongside one's own can pull two people into sync and toward empathy.
- What it is: Pairs do a compassion meditation together in social VR while seeing each other's breathing rate and an EEG-based empathy signal; the more their signals synchronised, the more empathy they reported.
- How it works: Lab study (N = 72) in the DYNECOM VR meditation environment with respiration and EEG frontal-asymmetry biofeedback, shown solo or shared; a companion paper (Järvelä et al. 2021) reports respiratory synchrony and social presence.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/taffc.2019.2958657 (IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing)

#### Synchrony and Social Connection in Immersive Virtual Reality — Bronwyn Tarr, Mel Slater (2018)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Moving in time with others is itself a source of felt closeness, even when the others are virtual and no shared intention is involved.
- What it is: Participants in VR move in time with two virtual co-participants whose timing is secretly set to be in or out of sync with them; those in sync feel closer to their virtual partners.
- How it works: Immersive VR with full-body avatars in a joint movement task; timing of virtual co-participants covertly manipulated; social closeness measured by questionnaire.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21765-4 (Scientific Reports 2018)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GQTLwUaA1I

#### bioSync — Jun Nishida (2017)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Empathy can be kinesthetic: feeling another's movement in your own muscles gives an understanding that watching cannot.
- What it is: A pair of wearables that read muscle activity from one person and play it into another person's muscles through electrical stimulation, so that, for example, a therapist can feel a patient's tremor or stiffness in their own arm.
- How it works: Wearable electrodes that switch between EMG sensing and EMS actuation, linking two people bidirectionally in real time.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025829 (CHI 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOyt4pA6wow

#### Bounden — Game Oven (2014)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: A shared object held by two hands can choreograph bodies into closeness, so the game designs the dance rather than the screen.
- What it is: A two-player game on one phone: both players hold an end of the phone and follow a path on a sphere, which turns them into a couple dancing around each other.
- How it works: The phone's gyroscope tracks rotation along choreographies developed with the Dutch National Ballet.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Pleasure & play, Movement & expression
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gete61IxkPo
- Project page: https://playbounden.com

#### Yamove! — Katherine Isbister (2012)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Rewarding synchrony rather than individual skill choreographs social connection: partners must watch and feel each other to win.
- What it is: A dance-battle game for pairs: each dancer holds a phone, and the game scores how energetic, varied and above all synchronised the partners move.
- How it works: Phone accelerometers track both dancers; an emcee and audience frame the play; studies observed how pairs coordinate.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Pleasure & play
- Shown at: IndieCade 2012 Nominee
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201605192621 (Human Technology 2016)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BimobsCaGzo

#### United-pulse — Julia Werner (2008)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Touch & pressure
- Idea: A pulse felt on the skin is a quiet way of being with someone, closer to presence than to messaging.
- What it is: A pair of rings for lovers apart: each ring measures its wearer's pulse and taps it softly onto the partner's finger.
- How it works: A pulse sensor and a small actuator in each ring, likely linked wirelessly through the wearers' phones.
- Lens: Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1409240.1409338 (MobileHCI 2008)

#### exhale: breath between bodies — Thecla Schiphorst (2005)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Breath, Vibration & haptics, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Breath can be a shared, felt medium between bodies; the garment makes the space between people breathable.
- What it is: A group of networked skirts that respond to their wearers' breath: small fans and vibrations let each wearer feel the breath of others in the room.
- How it works: Breath sensors on each wearer drive fans and vibrotactile actuators embedded in the skirts of the other wearers over a wireless network.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH 2005 Emerging Technologies
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1187297.1187304 (SIGGRAPH 2005 Emerging Technologies)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7XKOa8JH1U

### Collective & Participatory Somatics

Groups moving, breathing and sensing together.

#### Body Oracle — Ke Huang, Danlin Huang, Botao 'Amber' Hu (2024)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision
- Idea: A language that has words for postures and for how bodies stand together could make people more aware of their own and each other's bodies.
- What it is: A camera reads the poses of one or several visitors and an AI model turns them into new pictograms styled on Chinese oracle-bone inscriptions, a written vocabulary for bodily and inter-bodily positions.
- How it works: MoveNet keypoint detection feeding an image-to-image model trained on paired examples of volunteers re-enacting oracle-bone characters.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Attunement & appreciation, Movement & expression
- Shown at: Ars Electronica Expanded 2025; SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 XR; IEEE VR 2026 XR Gallery
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3689050.3707688 (TEI 2025 Art and Performance)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/1020163664
- Images: https://reality.design/media/_resources/Body%20Oracle/project-body-oracle-figure-01.jpg
- Project page: https://reality.design/project/body-oracle

#### GravField — Botao 'Amber' Hu (2024)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening, Light & vision
- Idea: Virtual objects with felt 'digital physics' can nudge a group into moving together without choreography, while leaving each person their agency.
- What it is: Participants wearing mixed reality headsets move together while an 'object jockey' live-codes virtual ropes, springs and magnetic fields between their bodies; distance, formation and synchrony between the bodies generate music and visuals.
- How it works: Co-located HoloKit AR headsets tracking head poses, mapped to live-coded parameters (weight, elasticity, force) and sound; studied through video, interviews, soma trajectories and field notes.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression, Pleasure & play
- Shown at: NIME 2025; SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 XR; IEEE VR 2025 XR Gallery
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790651 (CHI 2026)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/955522087
- Images: https://reality.design/media/_resources/GravField/project-gravfield-figure-01.jpg
- Project page: https://reality.design/project/gravfield

#### Body RemiXer — John Desnoyers-Stewart, Ekaterina R. Stepanova (2020)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision
- Idea: Blurring where one body ends and another begins can lower social boundaries, but it also unsettles one's sense of owning a body.
- What it is: A mixed-reality installation where participants' bodies appear as abstract, light-like avatars that stretch toward and mix with each other, inviting touch and synchronised movement between strangers.
- How it works: Asymmetric XR with body tracking, projection and a headset; body-mixing avatars; studied with phenomenological interviews.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Body-mind unity
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH 2020 Art Gallery
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791023 (CHI 2026)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHddyzvMYCY

#### JeL — John Desnoyers-Stewart, Ekaterina R. Stepanova (2019)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Breath, Light & vision
- Idea: Synchronised breath can link people to each other and to a living world at once.
- What it is: Two people in VR breathe to grow a coral reef of jellyfish-like forms; the reef grows most when their breathing falls into sync.
- How it works: Two VR headsets with breathing sensors; a shared virtual reef responds to each breath and to their synchrony; evaluated through interviews.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, More-than-human, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395532 (DIS 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp91I0BuGhY
- Images: http://ispace.iat.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/JeL_Diagram_Horizontal-1024x228.png
- Project page: https://ispace.iat.sfu.ca/project/jel/

#### Fairground: Thrill Laboratory — Brendan Walker, Steve Benford (2006)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Heartbeat, Skin conductance & arousal, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Thrill is social: making a rider's bodily state visible turns spectators into participants in someone else's fear and joy.
- What it is: Riders on real fairground rides wear sensors and cameras; their heart rate, face and screams are shown live to the crowd, who watch the ride from the inside of another body.
- How it works: Telemetry of heart rate, acceleration, audio and video from riders streamed to a spectator display; studied as a performance frame.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Pleasure & play, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357238 (CHI 2008)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUDJg-bZEmE

#### whisper[s] — Thecla Schiphorst, Susan Kozel (2003)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Breath, Heartbeat, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Somatic practice can be the design method: the garments grew from exercises in listening to one's own and others' inner rhythms.
- What it is: A participatory performance in which visitors wear networked garments that sense their breath and heartbeat and pass them to each other as touch, sound and light.
- How it works: Wireless wearables with breath and heart sensors plus vibration and sound outputs, developed through workshops of body-based listening; shown at DEAF03.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, First-person & felt experience
- Shown at: DEAF03, V2_ Rotterdam (2003)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEofDFj8WFY

## Soma with Machines, AI & XR

Soma design meets drones, robots, machine learning, virtual bodies and more-than-human others.

### Somaesthetic Robots & Drones

Drone Chi, soft and inflatable robots, robots felt through the body.

#### Somatic Safety — Steve Benford, Paul Tennent (2025)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Safety with robots can be felt and learned through contact, a mind-body skill, not only calculated as distance and force limits.
- What it is: Dancers use contact improvisation to dance with collaborative robot arms, pushing, leaning on and being moved by them, and learn through the body how to do so safely.
- How it works: Artistic exploration with dancers and cobots in iterative sessions of contact improvisation exercises and reflection, analysed by a multidisciplinary team.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, First-person & felt experience, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/hri61500.2025.10973822 (HRI 2025)

#### Drone Arena — Mousa Sondoqah, Kristina Popova, Joseph La Delfa, Rachael Garrett (2024)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Shaping a machine's behaviour needs perception-action loops you can feel; programming becomes a bodily negotiation rather than pure instruction.
- What it is: In a three-day drone challenge at KTH, teams moved from aiming for seamless control to treating small drones as fragile, wilful and crash-prone, and used intimate bodily interactions to probe what their drone could do.
- How it works: Observation, interviews, field notes, video and inspection of each team's code from the Drone Arena challenge (Crazyflie nano-drones with an external positioning system), analysed through bricolage.
- Lens: More-than-human, Intercorporeality, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3661636 (DIS 2024)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDzwTJadit8
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/469f723c597d62dd98e6fef227ffd4545a59e410/4-Figure1-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/469f723c597d62dd98e6fef227ffd4545a59e410/6-Figure4-1.png

#### How to Train Your Drone — Joseph La Delfa, Rachael Garrett, Kristina Höök (2024)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Thinking of a drone's umwelt, its own sensory world, opens a design space where human and machine come to understand each other somatically.
- What it is: Three people sharing a home spent a month shaping what their drones could sense and how they responded, forming intimate, individual human-drone couplings.
- How it works: Drones whose sensing and behaviour can be trained through bodily interaction, deployed for a month in a shared household; umwelt used as a design metaphor within soma design.
- Lens: More-than-human, Intercorporeality, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3660737 (DIS 2024)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EagWgeGESI

#### Mechanical Sympathy — Joseph La Delfa, Rachael Garrett, Kristina Höök (2024)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Like a driver who feels an engine, people can cultivate appreciative, idiosyncratic relationships with machines that complement technical understanding.
- What it is: Drawing on How to Train Your Drone, the paper proposes mechanical sympathy, the feel a person develops for a machine's agency, oscillations and aesthetic possibilities, as a design concept for somaesthetic relations with machines.
- How it works: Descriptive and reflective accounts of design strategies and of co-creators living with the drones, distilled into three qualities: machine agency, oscillations and aesthetic pursuits.
- Lens: More-than-human, Attunement & appreciation, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3661514 (DIS 2024)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYzybU66dGE
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/bd75a121dc19350017f538dacc1b47e1d9ff7d5a/5-Figure2-1.png

#### A Calming Hug — Alice Haynes (2022)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Touch & pressure, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: The body entrains to a rhythm it can feel against it; calm can be passed on through touch without any screen or voice.
- What it is: A soft cushion held against the chest that slowly expands and contracts like breathing; people hugging it before a stressful test tended to slow their own breath to match.
- How it works: A shape-changing soft robotic cushion with an internal mechanism simulating breathing, validated in a lab study with an anxiety-inducing maths test.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Care & healing, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259838 (PLOS ONE 2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66h4R4BL0W4

#### HuggieBot — Alexis E. Block (2021)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Heat & temperature, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: A good robot hug is defined by how it feels: soft, warm, the right size, responsive, and above all willing to release.
- What it is: A human-sized robot with a soft, warm, inflated chest and padded arms that sees a person approach, fits its embrace to their body and lets go when they want.
- How it works: HuggieBot 2.0 uses an inflated, heated torso with pressure sensing, a camera to see the user and arm control adapted to user size; evaluated in a user study that proposed six 'hug commandments'.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Care & healing, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3434073.3444656 (HRI 2021)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtEh0ZC32gA

#### Designing Drone Chi — Joseph La Delfa, Mehmet Aydın Baytaş, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2020)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Designing a robot for the soma is slow work that moves between the designer's own practice, product design and engineering.
- What it is: A pictorial that retraces how the sensory experience of tai chi was carried, step by step, into the form, flight and feel of the Drone Chi drone.
- How it works: Quasi-chronological design account with sketches, prototypes and first-person tai chi practice, reflecting on somaesthetic, product design and engineering perspectives.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395589 (DIS 2020)

#### Drone Chi — Joseph La Delfa, Mehmet Aydın Baytaş, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2020)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: A drone can be a partner in a meditative movement practice rather than a remote-controlled tool: slowness, closeness and airflow let it be felt, not piloted.
- What it is: A person moves slowly in a tai chi-like practice with a small drone hovering close to their hands; the drone follows and leads their movement, and its downdraft is felt on the skin.
- How it works: A micro-quadcopter in a custom protective shell, likely tracked by motion capture, responds to the practitioner's hand movements; designed with soma design and Somaesthetic Appreciation principles and studied with practitioners.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation, More-than-human
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376786 (CHI 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6CFGl-Plug

#### Ethics in Movement — Sara Eriksson, Kristina Höök (2020)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Ethics is not only rules 'out there': how a technology informs or dictates movement shapes what we can feel and freely choose, and somatic awareness widens that freedom.
- What it is: A video analysis of a choreographer, an opera singer and a choir of five drones performing together shows how the human-drone assemblage limits or frees movement against the norms of operatic performance.
- How it works: Detailed video analysis of rehearsals and performances of a drone opera, read through Shusterman's somaesthetic perspective on ethics (with Shusterman as co-author).
- Lens: Body politics, Intercorporeality, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376678 (CHI 2020)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/c3ecbe7da0bc4d9175884fd5a540c973cd809a75/2-Figure1-1.png

#### Next Steps for Human-Computer Integration — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Pedro Lopes (2020)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Muscle tension (EMG)
- Idea: When computers act inside the body, design must ask how agency, ownership and the felt self are shared between person and machine.
- What it is: An agenda written by 29 researchers after a five-day workshop on systems that merge with the body, from muscle stimulation to implants, and the ethical questions they raise.
- How it works: Structured workshop of experts in body-integrated systems, synthesised into a set of research challenges.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, More-than-human
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376242 (CHI 2020)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpwl2QiGhAI

#### Dancing With Drones — Sara Eriksson, Kristina Höök (2019)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Expressive machine movement is shaped through the designer's own moving body: an intercorporeal understanding between human and drone.
- What it is: For a commissioned opera with custom drones on stage, the choreographer used their own moving body to feel the drones' 'otherness', showed the engineer how the drones' behaviour should change, and re-choreographed as the drones improved.
- How it works: Analysis of months of artistic development of drone behaviours for an opera, based on observation, video and interviews with choreographer Åsa Unander-Scharin and the team.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Movement & expression, More-than-human
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300847 (CHI 2019)
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/f01cfce1209f9699f692049d9556e3f8c0ee4b8d/3-Figure1-1.png https://figures.semanticscholar.org/f01cfce1209f9699f692049d9556e3f8c0ee4b8d/7-Figure3-1.png

#### Tai Chi in the Clouds — Joseph La Delfa, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision
- Idea: Tai chi teaches through metaphor; technology can help a practitioner live the metaphor instead of measuring posture.
- What it is: Micro drones act as the 'clouds' of the tai chi image 'wave hands like clouds': they lead or follow the practitioner's hands and glow to show how smooth the movement is.
- How it works: Micro UAVs with LEDs, likely tracked in a motion-capture space, lead or follow hand movements and give live light feedback on smoothness.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3270316.3271511 (CHI PLAY 2018 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUeW4OAXGVQ

#### CuddleBits — Paul Bucci (2017)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Touch & pressure, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: A robot's felt emotion comes from the coupling of body and behaviour, so both have to be prototyped at the same time and by feel.
- What it is: Small, simple robots held in the hands that 'breathe' by expanding and contracting; designers sketch their bodies and their breathing behaviours together to express emotions.
- How it works: Paper, foam and fur bodies driven by a single servo or voice-coil actuator; behaviours sketched with a custom tool and rated by participants.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Affective loops, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025774 (CHI 2017)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EywcxQTkfDo

#### MetaLimbs — Tomoya Sasaki, Kouta Minamizawa (2017)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: The body schema is plastic: with direct, continuous control, new limbs start to feel like part of one's own body rather than a tool.
- What it is: Two robotic arms mounted on the wearer's back are controlled by the wearer's own legs and feet, so that after practice the person uses four arms to hold, reach and solder at once.
- How it works: Backpack-mounted robot arms mapped to foot and knee positions tracked by motion sensors, with toe-controlled grippers and haptic feedback at the feet (Keio KMD with Masahiko Inami's lab).
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3084822.3084837 (SIGGRAPH 2017 Emerging Technologies)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIuIiI5mVhI

#### Affordance++ — Pedro Lopes (2015)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: An object's use can be communicated through the user's own movement, which raises the question of who is acting when the body moves.
- What it is: When a user reaches for an object, muscle stimulation moves their hand to show how to use it: to shake a spray can, or to let go of a hot teapot.
- How it works: Optical tracking detects which object is being reached for and EMS electrodes on the arm trigger the matching hand and wrist movement.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Estrangement
- Shown at: CHI 2015 Best Paper Award
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702128 (CHI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz4dphzBb6I

#### Proprioceptive Interaction — Pedro Lopes (2015)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Proprioception can be an output channel: a computer can speak to you by gently moving your own body.
- What it is: Electrical muscle stimulation tilts the user's wrist in response to a device's state, so information is felt through one's own posture and muscles rather than seen on a screen.
- How it works: EMS electrodes on the forearm actuate wrist muscles against the user's own movement; users read values by feeling the resulting force and position.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702461 (CHI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMxIfj7zhlw

#### Being the Machine — Laura Devendorf (2014)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Performing a machine's motions with one's own hands makes both the machine and one's bodily skill strange, and puts control back in negotiation.
- What it is: A portable system projects a 3D printer's toolpath as a laser point, and the person follows it by hand with found materials, becoming the printer.
- How it works: A laser guide driven by G-code shows the next point to 'print'; participants chose when to follow or deviate, studied in field sessions.
- Lens: Estrangement, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702547 (CHI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLfwvSHMD9s

#### Broncomatic — Joe Marshall, Brendan Walker, Steve Benford (2011)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Breath is both voluntary and involuntary, so using it as a control under physical stress makes the rider feel the struggle between will and body.
- What it is: A mechanical bucking bronco that riders steer with their breath, while the ride itself throws the body and makes controlled breathing hard.
- How it works: A breathing sensor on the rider's chest likely drives the rotation of a rodeo machine; studied with riders at public events.
- Lens: Pleasure & play, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1978955 (CHI 2011)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql4ResSvoD4

#### The Haptic Creature — Steve Yohanan (2011)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Breath, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Emotion between human and robot can live entirely in touch: how a person strokes, and how the creature breathes back.
- What it is: A furry, lap-sized robot animal without face or eyes that breathes, purrs and stiffens its ears under a person's hand, communicating only through touch.
- How it works: Touch sensors under fur detect gestures; actuators control breathing, purring vibration and ear stiffness; a study mapped touch gestures to intended emotions.
- Lens: Technology that touches back, Affective loops
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-011-0126-7 (International Journal of Social Robotics 2012)

#### ExoBuilding — Holger Schnädelbach (2010)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Heartbeat, Shape-change & inflatables
- Idea: When architecture takes on the rhythm of the body, a person can feel their own physiology from the outside, as the space around them.
- What it is: A tent-like room that breathes with the person inside: its fabric rises and falls with their abdominal breathing, their heartbeat plays as sound and light, and skin conductance is projected on the walls.
- How it works: A breathing belt, ECG and EDA sensors drive actuators that change the tent's shape, plus sound, lights and projection; iterated from scale model to full size.
- Lens: Body data & ambiguity, Attunement & appreciation, Technology that touches back
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/1868914.1868965 (NordiCHI 2010)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAZPQDqr8aQ

#### PARO Therapeutic Robot — Takanori Shibata (2004)
- Type: Product & app · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Voice, sound & listening, Heat & temperature
- Idea: A robot designed to be touched and held can calm the body the way animal contact does, without asking for any cognitive effort.
- What it is: A furry baby harp seal robot that responds to being stroked, held and spoken to by moving its head and flippers, blinking and crying, used in hospitals and nursing homes, especially with people living with dementia.
- How it works: Tactile, light, sound, temperature and posture sensors under soft fur drive actuators and recorded harp seal cries; developed at AIST from 1993 and sold since 2004.
- Lens: Care & healing, Technology that touches back, More-than-human
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhyCbtqnEYI
- Images: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Paro_robot.jpg
- Project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_(robot)

### Soma Design with AI & Machine Learning

Machine learning as a somatic material; AI that listens to the body.

#### Intelligence Is Corporeal — Kristina Höök (2025)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind
- Idea: Why we turn toward what is good and away from harm is felt in the body; AI that ignores the soma leaves out the ground of value itself.
- What it is: In a 2025 lecture and a 2026 interactions article, Höök argues that current AI lives mostly in language, while intelligence, aesthetics and ethics are rooted in bodily existence, and asks how soma design can shape embodied AI.
- How it works: Position lecture and essay drawing on a decade of soma design with shape-changing garments, drones and robots.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, More-than-human, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3801726 (ACM interactions 2026)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1_ySUJvTMA

#### Words that Feel Right: Haiku, Felt Sense and LLMs — Claudia Núñez-Pacheco, Pedro Sanches (2025)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: A language model can support finding words for a felt sense only if designers respect the time it takes and each person's own idiom.
- What it is: Over three months, the authors wrote haiku with ChatGPT as a tool for somatic introspection, searching for words that 'feel right' to the body and its emotions.
- How it works: First-person collaborative process combining Gendlin's Focusing, haiku writing and ChatGPT dialogues, yielding two design qualities: ongoing temporalities and idiolectic resonance.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Attunement & appreciation, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735751 (DIS 2025)

#### Understanding the Role of Interactive Machine Learning in Movement Interaction Design — Marco Gillies (2019)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Movement knowledge is tacit and felt, so the best specification of a movement interaction is a body performing it.
- What it is: An essay arguing that movement interaction should be designed by moving: the designer performs examples and machine learning captures the embodied knowledge that cannot be written as rules.
- How it works: Synthesis of theories of embodied and tacit knowledge with case studies of interactive machine learning tools for movement.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Movement & expression
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3287307 (ACM TOCHI 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2C6aAWzpyw

#### Understanding Gesture Expressivity through Muscle Sensing — Baptiste Caramiaux (2015)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Muscle tension (EMG), Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Expressivity is felt from inside as effort and tension; sensing the muscles gets closer to what the mover feels than tracking the limb.
- What it is: Performers repeat gestures with different expressive intentions while EMG and motion are recorded; the muscle signal captures variation in effort that motion data misses.
- How it works: Combined EMG and accelerometer recordings of repeated gestures, analysed with machine learning for expressive variation; collaboration with Marco Donnarumma and Atau Tanaka.
- Lens: Movement & expression, Body data & ambiguity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2687922 (ACM TOCHI 2015)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9uEeNGQdM4

#### Wekinator — Rebecca Fiebrink (2009)
- Type: Method & toolkit · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Teaching a model by moving lets designers keep the knowledge in their body, tuning a mapping by feel rather than by code.
- What it is: Free software for interactive machine learning: a person demonstrates gestures with a sensor or camera, pairs them with sounds or visuals, and trains a model on the spot.
- How it works: Real-time supervised learning (classification, regression) from OSC inputs to outputs; the user records examples, trains, plays and re-trains in a loop.
- Lens: Movement & expression, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2951-6_10 (Musical Instruments in the 21st Century (Springer 2016))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc5CL5EoPqg
- Project page: http://www.wekinator.org/

### Virtual Bodies & XR

Body ownership, embodiment swaps, breath- and biosignal-driven VR/AR.

#### Soma Design and Sensory Misalignment — Paul Tennent, Joe Marshall (2020)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia, Light & vision
- Idea: Deliberately misaligning the senses is a technological form of estrangement: it disrupts the habitual body so that it can be felt anew.
- What it is: A workshop report that brings together soma designers and researchers of sensory misalignment in VR and rides, arguing that each practice can extend the other.
- How it works: Joint workshop of the Nottingham Mixed Reality Lab and KTH soma design researchers, with hands-on sessions on misalignment prototypes, synthesised into design themes.
- Lens: Estrangement, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376812 (CHI 2020)

#### Egocentric Smaller-Person Experience — Jun Nishida (2019)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Light & vision, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Changing only the height of the eyes changes the felt size of the body, and with it how people act toward objects and others.
- What it is: A wearable visual translator lowers the wearer's eye level to waist height, so adults see and move through a nursing school or museum from a child's viewpoint.
- How it works: Head-mounted display fed by a waist-mounted stereo camera that follows head movements, tested in field studies with nursing students and museum visitors.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300926 (CHI 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkZjfqo6h3I

#### Attending to Breath — Mirjana Prpa, Thecla Schiphorst (2018)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Breath, Voice, sound & listening, Light & vision
- Idea: Mapping breath directly into sound and image can hold attention on the body from within, and micro-phenomenology can show how that awareness unfolds.
- What it is: An immersive virtual environment for focused-attention meditation in which sound and visuals follow the user's breathing, helping them keep attention on the breath.
- How it works: A breathing sensor drives a generative soundtrack and visuals in VR; experience studied with micro-phenomenological interviews.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, First-person & felt experience
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196765 (DIS 2018)

#### My Tai-Chi Coaches — Ping-Hsuan Han (2017)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Light & vision
- Idea: Learning a form is learning from many viewpoints; placing the teacher's body around the learner keeps attention on one's own movement instead of on turning to look.
- What it is: A head-mounted augmented reality tool in which several virtual tai chi coaches surround the learner, so that whichever way the learner turns during the form, a coach is in view to follow.
- How it works: Virtual coach avatars rendered in a head-mounted display around the learner's tracked position, likely evaluated with novice tai chi learners at National Taiwan University (Yi-Ping Hung's group).
- Lens: Movement & expression, Attunement & appreciation
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3041164.3041194 (Augmented Human 2017)

#### VR Playground — Brendan Walker, Paul Tennent, Steve Benford (2017)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Light & vision
- Idea: Deliberately mismatching what the eyes see and what the inner ear feels can be a source of delight, and a way to make one's own motion strange.
- What it is: Riders on a real playground swing wear VR headsets and travel through four virtual worlds, each of which amplifies, reverses or distorts the felt motion of swinging.
- How it works: A sensor on the swing measures its motion and drives four 'abstract machines' that map physical swing to virtual movement; toured to over 5,000 riders.
- Lens: Estrangement, Pleasure & play
- Shown at: Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2017
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300811 (CHI 2019)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmP79khSrQc
- Images: https://paultennent.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/swing.png https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/mixedrealitylab/images/works/vr-playground-cropped-950x300.png
- Project page: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/mixedrealitylab/works/vr-playground.aspx

#### DEEP — Owen Harris (2016)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Breath, Light & vision
- Idea: When breath is the only control, the practice of slowing down becomes the game itself, and calm is felt rather than instructed.
- What it is: A meditative VR world under the sea that you move through only by breathing: slow, deep belly breaths carry you along and change the glowing landscape.
- How it works: A custom stretch-sensor belt around the diaphragm drives movement and visuals in a VR headset; later tested as biofeedback for anxious children.
- Lens: Attunement & appreciation, Care & healing
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2892452 (CHI 2016 Extended Abstracts)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIhZhdmPQ_8
- Images: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56a1092da128e65fa42a11fa/1585418439909-AH0BEHDJN736S99KKYEG/Screenshot_102.3696.jpg
- Project page: https://www.exploredeep.com

#### Human Tails — William Steptoe, Mel Slater (2013)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The body schema is plastic: with the right sensorimotor loop, a mover can come to feel a limb that humans have never had.
- What it is: In VR, participants have an avatar with a tail they swing by moving their hips; after using it to block falling objects, many react as if the tail were part of their body.
- How it works: Full-body tracked avatar in immersive VR with a tail driven by hip movement (synchronous or random) and a task of blocking objects with body and tail; questionnaires and behaviour measured.
- Lens: More-than-human, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/tvcg.2013.32 (IEEE TVCG (IEEE VR 2013))
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2zbZLBUqwU

#### Illusory Ownership of a Virtual Child Body — Domna Banakou, Mel Slater (2013)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Light & vision, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: The felt body shapes perception and self-concept at once: change the body, and both the world and the self look different.
- What it is: Adults embodied in the virtual body of a four-year-old child overestimated the size of objects and associated themselves more with child-like traits.
- How it works: Immersive VR with full-body motion capture and synchronous visuomotor feedback in a child or scaled adult body; size estimation and implicit association tests.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1306779110 (PNAS 2013)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Oy83OVgbSM

#### Putting Yourself in the Skin of a Black Avatar — Tabitha C. Peck, Mel Slater (2013)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Light & vision, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Owning a different body for a while can loosen the boundary between self and other that bias depends on, though such effects raise their own ethical questions.
- What it is: Light-skinned participants embodied in a dark-skinned virtual body, seen in a virtual mirror, showed reduced implicit racial bias afterwards.
- How it works: Immersive VR with full-body tracking and a virtual mirror, comparing light-skinned, dark-skinned, alien and no-body conditions with pre/post implicit association tests.
- Lens: Body politics, Intercorporeality
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2013.04.016 (Consciousness and Cognition 2013)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HliN3iOX090

#### The Machine to Be Another — BeAnotherLab (2012)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Touch & pressure, Movement & kinesthesia
- Idea: Embodiment is choreographed between people: the illusion of being another depends on two bodies attending to each other and moving together.
- What it is: Two people wear headsets showing each other's first-person view; they move in agreed synchrony and touch the same objects, so each feels, for a while, in the other's body.
- How it works: Head-mounted cameras stream each participant's view to the other's HMD; performers mirror movements and apply matching touch; shown as an installation and used in workshops.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, First-person & felt experience
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0dfA1DsLRk
- Images: https://beanotherlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/bal_tmtba01.jpg
- Project page: https://beanotherlab.org/home/work/tmtba/

#### The Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality — Konstantina Kilteni, Mel Slater (2012)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Movement & kinesthesia, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Feeling embodied is several felt senses working together; designers can tune each one rather than treating 'presence' as a single switch.
- What it is: A theory paper that splits the sense of embodiment in a virtual body into three parts, self-location, agency and body ownership, and reviews how each can be induced.
- How it works: Conceptual review of body-ownership, agency and self-location research in neuroscience and VR.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body-mind unity
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00124 (Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 2012)

#### First Person Experience of Body Transfer in Virtual Reality — Mel Slater (2010)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Light & vision, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: A first-person perspective alone can transfer ownership to a very different body, which opens VR as a tool for living in another's body.
- What it is: Adult men in VR saw, from a first-person view, the body of a young girl in place of their own, and felt it as theirs, with bodily reactions when the girl was threatened.
- How it works: Immersive VR with a virtual female body seen from first-person or third-person perspective, with visuotactile stroking; heart-rate deceleration to a threat measured.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010564 (PLoS ONE 2010)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzCxjN8hyvg

#### If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping — Valeria I. Petkova, H. Henrik Ehrsson (2008)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Light & vision, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The boundary between my body and yours is held by synchrony of sight and touch; change it, and bodies can be swapped.
- What it is: Seeing through cameras on another person's head while shaking hands with them, participants felt the other person's body as their own and their own as someone else's.
- How it works: Head-mounted cameras on a mannequin or experimenter stream to the participant's HMD; synchronous squeezing and handshakes, with threat-evoked skin conductance.
- Lens: Intercorporeality, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003832 (PLoS ONE 2008)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuzCSejk0Bw

#### The Experimental Induction of Out-of-Body Experiences — H. Henrik Ehrsson (2007)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Light & vision, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Where 'I' am is felt, not known: with the right sensory match the self can step out of its own body.
- What it is: Participants see themselves from behind through goggles fed by cameras while their chest is touched, and report feeling located outside their own body, where the cameras are.
- How it works: Stereo cameras behind the participant feed an HMD; a rod touches the real chest while moving toward the illusory body; skin conductance to a threat measured.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1142175 (Science 2007)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee4-grU_6vs

#### Video Ergo Sum — Bigna Lenggenhager (2007)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Light & vision, Whole body-mind
- Idea: The felt 'I am here, in this body' can be shifted with a camera and a brush: self-location is part of the living, adjustable soma.
- What it is: Wearing a head-mounted display, participants see a video of their own back being stroked two metres in front of them while their real back is stroked, and begin to feel that body as theirs.
- How it works: Full-body illusion with a camera filming the participant from behind into an HMD, synchronous or asynchronous back-stroking, then drift in self-location measured.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1143439 (Science 2007)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jg0sSwOtLI

#### Rubber Hands 'Feel' Touch That Eyes See — Matthew Botvinick (1998)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Light & vision, Posture, balance & proprioception
- Idea: Ownership of the body is not given but continuously made from matching sight and touch, which is why a felt body can be extended or displaced.
- What it is: A participant's hidden hand and a visible rubber hand are stroked in synchrony; after a few minutes the rubber hand feels like one's own and the real hand seems to drift toward it.
- How it works: Synchronous versus asynchronous brush strokes on hidden real hand and visible rubber hand; questionnaires and proprioceptive drift measured.
- Lens: Body-mind unity, Estrangement
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/35784 (Nature 1998)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwn1w7MJvk

### More-than-Human Soma

Feeling with plants, animals, weather and ecosystems.

#### FeltSight — Danlin Huang, Botao 'Amber' Hu, Rem RunGu Lin (2025)
- Type: Research prototype · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Vibration & haptics, Light & vision
- Idea: Reducing sight and extending touch slows people down and makes them probe the world with the hand as an organ of knowing.
- What it is: Inspired by the star-nosed mole, soft haptic gloves worn with a mixed reality headset let wearers feel nearby surfaces through their fingertips before touching them, while vision fades to darkness and small clouds of light surround the hands.
- How it works: Apple Vision Pro scene meshes and hand tracking drive vibrotactile actuators in splayed soft gloves according to distance to surfaces.
- Lens: More-than-human, Estrangement, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 Art Papers; CHI 2026 Interactivity; IEEE VR 2026 XR Gallery
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3800645.3812822 (DIS 2026 Pictorial)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq6s3VnD0A
- Images: https://reality.design/media/feltsight-cover-forest-closeup.webp
- Project page: https://reality.design/project/feltsight

#### EchoVision — Botao 'Amber' Hu, Jiabao Li, Danlin Huang (2024)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Voice, sound & listening, Light & vision
- Idea: Using one's own voice to 'see' turns a familiar place strange and makes perception feel like an active, bodily act.
- What it is: Visitors lift a bat-shaped mixed reality mask, make a sound with their voice and see waves of light travel over the people and objects around them, a simulation of bat echolocation.
- How it works: Smartphone-based HoloKit headset in a custom mask; LiDAR scene reconstruction and microphone input trigger expanding echo shaders.
- Lens: More-than-human, Estrangement, Pleasure & play
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Art Papers; Augmented Humans 2025 Best Demo Award; Plásmata 3, Athens, 2025
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3721192 (CHI 2025 Interactivity)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/955577972
- Images: https://reality.design/media/_resources/echovision-jiabao-01.webp
- Project page: https://reality.design/project/echovision

#### Making Energy Matter — Thórhildur Ásgeirsdóttir, Rob Comber (2023)
- Type: Paper · Body & senses: Heat & temperature, Touch & pressure, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Sustainability framed rationally breeds fatalism; somatic relations with energy open a more ethical, felt way of being with it.
- What it is: A first-person soma design engagement with household energy moved from restrictive 'sustainability' designs to enacting material relations with energy, such as feeling residual heat and running water with the hands.
- How it works: Autobiographical design over months, with body maps, sketches and co-performed kitchen experiments.
- Lens: First-person & felt experience, More-than-human, Body politics
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581160 (CHI 2023)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIpaQ5-uQVs
- Images: https://figures.semanticscholar.org/93d1703784186205708c39ae166a2a894032fbbc/9-Figure4-1.png

#### We Live in an Ocean of Air — Marshmallow Laser Feast (2018)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Breath, Heartbeat, Light & vision
- Idea: Breath is an exchange between bodies and species; making it visible turns breathing into a felt relation with plants.
- What it is: A multi-person VR installation around a giant sequoia in which visitors see their own breath leave the body as particles and pass into the tree, and the tree's exhalation return to them.
- How it works: Untethered VR with breath and heart-rate sensors; each visitor's breath and pulse are rendered as particles in a shared scene.
- Lens: More-than-human, Intercorporeality, Attunement & appreciation
- Shown at: Saatchi Gallery, London (2018–2019)
- Video: https://vimeo.com/303589503
- Images: https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com/app/uploads/2023/11/Copy-of-OceanOfAir_Saatchi_-12-of-34_sml.jpg
- Project page: https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com

#### Tree — Milica Zec, Winslow Porter (2017)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Whole body-mind, Heat & temperature, Vibration & haptics
- Idea: Taking on a tree's body and slow life through touch, heat and rumble makes deforestation felt as something happening to a body.
- What it is: In VR you grow from a seed into a rainforest tree, your arms become branches, and you feel wind, heat and vibration until the forest burns.
- How it works: Room-scale VR with haptic vibration, wind and heat (and likely scent), synchronised to the tree's life stages.
- Lens: More-than-human, Estrangement
- Shown at: Sundance Film Festival New Frontier 2017
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERffRXjTAqM
- Images: https://docubase.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Tree-02-Still.jpg
- Project page: https://www.treeofficial.com

#### GoatMan — Thomas Thwaites (2016)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia, Whole body-mind
- Idea: Trying to live in another species' body shows how deeply thought, mood and worry are tied to one's own posture and gait.
- What it is: A designer builds prosthetic legs and an artificial rumen and lives for days with a herd of goats in the Alps, walking on four limbs.
- How it works: Prosthetic limbs designed with prosthetists and animal experts, a helmet and an external digestion device; tested in a first-person expedition.
- Lens: More-than-human, First-person & felt experience, Estrangement
- Shown at: Ig Nobel Prize 2016 (Biology)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IPub-Fipz8
- Images: https://www.thomasthwaites.com/folio5/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Goat8-Thomas_Thwaites-photo-Tim_Bowditch.jpg
- Project page: https://www.thomasthwaites.com/a-holiday-from-being-human-goatman/

#### Treehugger: Wawona — Marshmallow Laser Feast (2016)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Touch & pressure, Light & vision, Breath
- Idea: Hugging a tree, physically and in VR, invites a slower, bodily sense of a life on another timescale.
- What it is: Visitors put their heads into a sculpted tree trunk and see and hear the inside of a giant sequoia, following water as it rises through the tree.
- How it works: A physical tree-trunk sculpture with embedded VR headset and haptics, using scan data of a giant sequoia turned into a particle visualisation.
- Lens: More-than-human, Attunement & appreciation
- Video: https://vimeo.com/195539105
- Images: https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com/app/uploads/2024/08/5.jpg
- Project page: https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com

#### In the Eyes of the Animal — Marshmallow Laser Feast (2015)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Light & vision, Vibration & haptics, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Borrowing another species' senses unsettles the human body as the default measure of perception.
- What it is: Visitors in a forest wear headsets and a vibrating backpack and see the same forest through the senses of a mosquito, a dragonfly, a frog and an owl.
- How it works: LiDAR and CT scans of the forest rendered as particle worlds in VR, with a binaural soundtrack and a subwoofer backpack delivering vibration to the body.
- Lens: More-than-human, Estrangement
- Video: https://vimeo.com/140057053
- Images: https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com/app/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-24-at-10.52.46.jpg
- Project page: https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com

#### Birdly — Somniacs, Max Rheiner (2014)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Posture, balance & proprioception, Movement & kinesthesia, Touch & pressure
- Idea: Becoming another creature starts with posture: lying prone with arms as wings is what makes the flight felt.
- What it is: You lie face down on a machine, spread your arms as wings and fly as a bird over a city; flapping, tilting and a fan-driven headwind make the flight felt through the whole body.
- How it works: A motorised platform responds to arm flapping and body tilt, with a VR headset, a fan for headwind and spatial sound.
- Lens: More-than-human, Pleasure & play
- Shown at: SIGGRAPH 2014 Emerging Technologies
- Paper: https://doi.org/10.1145/2614066.2614101 (SIGGRAPH 2014 Emerging Technologies)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWLHIusLWOc
- Images: https://birdlyvr.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/03/homepage-birdly-BHP-2868-2.jpg
- Project page: https://www.birdlyvr.com

#### May the Horse Live in Me — Art Orienté Objet (2011)
- Type: Performance, dance & music · Body & senses: Intimate & hormonal body, Posture, balance & proprioception, Pain & inner sensations
- Idea: Letting another species' blood act inside one's body is an extreme first-person test of where one's own body ends.
- What it is: After months of immunising herself, artist Marion Laval-Jeantet is injected with horse blood plasma and then walks with a horse on stilts shaped like hooves.
- How it works: Progressive immunisation to horse immunoglobulins, followed by a live injection and a walk with a horse on hoof-stilts; documented as performance.
- Lens: More-than-human, First-person & felt experience, Body politics
- Shown at: Prix Ars Electronica 2011, Golden Nica, Hybrid Art
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx_E4DUWXbE
- Images: https://archive.aec.at/asset/730673/preview/
- Project page: https://archive.aec.at/prix/169875/

#### Animal Superpowers — Chris Woebken, Kenichi Okada (2008)
- Type: Artwork & installation · Body & senses: Light & vision, Touch & pressure, Voice, sound & listening
- Idea: Changing the scale and senses of a child's body is a playful way to feel that other creatures live in different worlds.
- What it is: Wearable devices give children animal senses: an 'ant' device magnifies what their hands touch 50 times, a 'bird' device lets them feel magnetic fields, a 'giraffe' device raises their eyes.
- How it works: Hand-worn cameras with helmet displays, a vibrating GPS/compass device and periscope-like goggles, made as playful critical-design objects.
- Lens: More-than-human, Pleasure & play, Estrangement
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9oTcez2CXU
- Images: https://freight.cargo.site/w/1200/i/ad1784c02faa9d2afb6614fa878b4982436d2d58292e1349ebee13b3d8c6a682/2232862656_cba3f094c1_o.jpg
- Project page: https://www.chriswoebken.com/animal-superpowers

## Resources & links: people, institutions and websites

### Soma design & HCI researchers

- **Ana Tajadura-Jiménez** (Madrid, Spain) — Head of the i_mBODY Lab at UC3M who uses sound and multisensory feedback to change how people feel their own body, as in 'As Light as your Footsteps', where altered walking sounds change perceived body weight. Known for: Embodied auditory perception: the emotional impact of approaching and receding sound sources (Emotion, 2010); Action sounds recalibrate perceived tactile distance (2012); As Light as your Footsteps: altering walking sounds to change perceived body weight (CHI 2015); BODYinTRANSIT project on multisensory body transformation. https://imbodylab.com/about/
- **Anders Lundström** (Umeå, Sweden) — Umeå University associate professor and Höök's PhD student (KTH 2016) on energy-sensitive interaction, now on human-powered interaction; co-author of Metaphone and co-supervisor of Windlin's Soma Bits PhD. Known for: Metaphone (CHI 2014); Designing Energy-Sensitive Interactions (PhD thesis, KTH, 2016). https://www.umu.se/en/staff/anders-lundstrom/
- **Anna Ståhl** (Gothenburg, Sweden) — Interaction designer at RISE and Höök's longest-standing collaborator, from the affective interaction of eMoto and Affective Diary to somaesthetic appreciation design, the Soma Mat and Breathing Light. Her PhD (KTH 2014) framed design for interactional empowerment. Known for: eMoto (2004–2005); Affective Diary (CHI EA 2006; PUC 2009); Somaesthetic Appreciation Design (CHI 2016); The Soma Mat and Breathing Light (CHI EA 2016). https://www.digitalfutures.kth.se/profile/anna-stahl/
- **Atau Tanaka** (London, UK) — Goldsmiths professor and performer who plays the body as an instrument through muscle-tension (EMG) sensing and machine learning, from Sensorband to Myogram. Known for: Sensorband (with Zbigniew Karkowski and Edwin van der Heide); Myogram (EMG performance, 2015); Gestural Musical Performance with Physiological Sensors, Focusing on the Electromyogram (Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction, 2017). https://www.gold.ac.uk/computing/people/tanaka-atau/
- **Baptiste Caramiaux** (Paris, France) — CNRS researcher at ISIR, Sorbonne, who works on machine learning for expressive gesture and muscle sensing in musical interaction, and on human-centred AI in the arts; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Adaptive Gesture Recognition with Variation Estimation for Interactive Systems (ACM TiiS, 2014); Understanding Gesture Expressivity through Muscle Sensing (TOCHI 2015); Mogees gesture-based musical product (Mogees Ltd., 2015); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://baptistecaramiaux.com/
- **Bin Zhu** (Hangzhou, China) — KTH PhD (2021, 'Designing for Mindfulness', co-supervised by Höök) on how digital technology can support mindfulness, distinguishing presence-in, presence-with and presence-through; now at Hangzhou City University. Known for: Designing Digital Mindfulness: Presence-In and Presence-With versus Presence-Through (CHI 2017); Designing for Mindfulness (PhD thesis, KTH, 2021). https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9960-1639
- **Carl Unander-Scharin** (Karlstad, Sweden, 1964–) — Opera tenor and composer whose KTH PhD with Höök ('Extending Opera', 2015) built interactive instruments such as the Vocal Chorder and led to the drone opera experiments with her group. Known for: The Vocal Chorder (CHI 2014); Extending Opera – Artist-led Explorations in Operatic Practice through Interactivity and Electronics (PhD thesis, KTH, 2015); Dancing With Drones (CHI 2019). https://www.kau.se/en/carl-unander-scharin-professor-musical-performance-specialising-classical-vocal-studies
- **Caroline Hummels** (Eindhoven, Netherlands) — TU Eindhoven professor whose 'Move to get moved' and seven principles for embodied sensemaking (with Jelle van Dijk) shaped the Dutch school of movement-based, embodied interaction design; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Move to get moved: methods, tools and knowledge to design for expressive and rich movement-based interaction (PUC, 2006); Seven Principles to Design for Embodied Sensemaking (TEI 2015, with Jelle van Dijk). https://www.tue.nl/en/research/researchers/caroline-hummels
- **Charles Windlin** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Höök's PhD student (KTH 2023) who built the Soma Bits, a kit of shapes with heat, vibration and shape-change actuators placed on the body so designers can sketch soma experiences hands-on. Known for: Soma Bits (2019); SKETCHING SOMA BITS (DIS 2022); Shape and Being Shaped: Sketching with Haptics in Soma Design (PhD thesis, KTH, 2023). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4481-4298
- **Christine Li** (Nottingham, UK) — Mixed Reality Lab PhD researcher designing VR for bodily training in performance arts and sport; she co-authored the collision design and 'Tangles' soma trajectories work and the non-dualistic design paper. Known for: Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021); Collision Design (CHI EA 2023); Tangles: Unpacking Extended Collision Experiences with Soma Trajectories (TOCHI 2025). https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/beacons-of-excellence/smart-products/training/christine-li/index.aspx
- **Claudia Daudén Roquet** (London, UK) — King's College London researcher on mindfulness and emotion-regulation technologies; co-author of 'HCI and Affective Health' and of the soma design workshop study in 'Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design'. Known for: HCI and Affective Health (CHI 2019); Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021); Designing for Emotion Regulation Interventions: An Agenda for HCI Theory and Research (TOCHI 2022). https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/claudia-dauden-roquet
- **Claudia Núñez-Pacheco** (Malmö, Sweden) — Malmö University design researcher trained in Focusing and micro-phenomenology who uses body maps and felt-sense articulation as design tools. She co-authored the soma design ethics papers on vulnerability and felt ethics with Höök's group. Known for: Body Maps: A Generative Tool for Soma-based Design (TEI 2022); Vulnerability as an ethical stance in soma design processes (CHI 2022); Felt Ethics: Cultivating Ethical Sensibility in Design Practice (CHI 2023). https://claudianunezpacheco.com/
- **Corina Sas** (Lancaster, UK) — Lancaster University professor of HCI and digital health who led the AffecTech network on personal technologies for affective health, the setting for 'From Biodata to Somadata' and much of the biodata work with Höök. Known for: AffectCam (CHI EA 2013); HCI and Affective Health: Taking stock of a decade of studies (CHI 2019); From Biodata to Somadata (CHI 2020); AffecTech: Personal Technologies for Affective Health (Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN, 2017–2021). https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/scc/about-us/people/corina-sas
- **Cumhur Erkut** (Copenhagen, Denmark) — Aalborg University Copenhagen associate professor in sonic and embodied interaction who teaches somaesthetics-informed embodied interaction courses (with Sofia Dahl); co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018); Embodied Interaction through Movement in a Course Work (MOCO 2017, with S. Dahl); Incorporating Virtual Reality in an Embodied Interaction Course (MOCO 2018, with S. Dahl); Workshop 'Training, Sharing, and Enacting: Somaesthetics of Rhythmic Interaction' (2017, with S. Dahl). https://vbn.aau.dk/en/persons/cer/
- **Dag Svanæs** (Trondheim, Norway, 1959–) — NTNU professor whose writing on kinaesthetic thinking and 'interaction design for and with the lived body' (TOCHI 2013) brought Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology into HCI, a core theoretical source for soma design. Known for: Kinaesthetic thinking: the tacit dimension of interaction design (Computers in Human Behavior, 1997); Understanding Interactivity: Steps to a Phenomenology of Human-Computer Interaction (PhD, NTNU, 2000); Interaction design for and with the lived body: some implications of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology (TOCHI 2013). https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/dag.svanes
- **Danielle Lottridge** (Auckland, New Zealand) — University of Auckland associate professor and registered dance/movement therapist who works on affective interaction and remote intimacy (Sharing Empty Moments); co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Sharing Empty Moments: design for remote couples (CHI 2009); Affective Interaction: understanding, evaluating, and designing for human emotion (Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 2011); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/d-lottridge
- **Danielle Wilde** (Umeå, Sweden) — Professor at Umeå Institute of Design and SDU who made performative body devices such as hipDisk and wrote on embodying embodied design research techniques; she now applies embodied research-through-design to food systems. Known for: hipDisk (CHI EA 2012); Embodying Embodied Design Research Techniques (2015). https://www.daniellewilde.com/wilde/
- **Deepika Yadav** (Espoo, Finland) — Aalto University assistant professor who, as a Digital Futures postdoc in the KTH intimate-health group, studied the mixed feelings of digital contraception and fertility tracking. Known for: Ambivalences in Digital Contraception: Designing for Mixed Feelings and Oscillating Relations (DIS 2023); Relational Aspects of Care in Intimate Digital Health Technologies (Digital Futures postdoc project). https://www.aalto.fi/en/people/deepika-yadav
- **Edward Melcer** (Ottawa, Canada) — Carleton University associate professor who, with Katherine Isbister, developed a design framework for embodied learning games; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Bridging the Physical Learning Divides: A Design Framework for Embodied Learning Games and Simulations (DiGRA 2016, with K. Isbister); Bots & (Main)Frames: tangible blocks and collaborative play in an educational programming game (CHI 2018, with K. Isbister); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://carleton.ca/scs/people/edward-melcer/
- **Ekaterina R. Stepanova** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Cognitive scientist and KTH postdoc who uses embodied cognition and somaesthetics to design immersive VR and bio-responsive installations for felt connection, such as JeL, where two people breathe together to grow a virtual ecosystem. Known for: Creating AWE (2018); JeL: Breathing Together to Connect with Others and Nature (DIS 2020); Strategies for Fostering a Genuine Feeling of Connection in Technologically Mediated Systems (CHI 2022); Corsetto (CHI 2023). https://www.kth.se/profile/katstep
- **Elena Márquez Segura** (Madrid, Spain) — UC3M researcher (PhD Uppsala 2016, co-supervised by Höök) who created embodied design methods such as embodied sketching and bodystorming for movement-based play; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: The Design Space of Body Games (CHI 2013); Embodied Sketching (CHI 2016); Bodystorming for movement-based interaction design (Human Technology, 2016); Yamove! (Human Technology, 2016, with Isbister et al.). https://imbodylab.com/about/
- **Elsa Kosmack Vaara** (Gothenburg, Sweden) — Designer and former musician at RISE whose KTH PhD (2017) explored the aesthetics of felt time, for instance through sourdough baking. She co-authored early somaesthetic and affective-health work with Höök at SICS and Mobile Life. Known for: Mirroring bodily experiences over time (CHI EA 2009); Experiential artifacts as a design method for somaesthetic service development (2011); Exploring the Aesthetics of Felt Time (PhD thesis, KTH, 2017). https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/?person=556703
- **Eva Hornecker** (Weimar, Germany) — Bauhaus-Universität Weimar professor whose frameworks for tangible interaction, physical space and the role of physicality are core references for embodied and whole-body interaction. Known for: Getting a Grip on Tangible Interaction: a framework on physical space and social interaction (CHI 2006, with Jacob Buur); Tangible User Interfaces: Past, Present, and Future Directions (2010, with Orit Shaer); The Role of Physicality in Tangible and Embodied Interactions (Interactions, 2011); Human-Computer Interactions in Museums (2019, with Luigina Ciolfi). http://www.ehornecker.de/
- **Feng Zhou** (Nottingham, UK) — Research fellow at the University of Nottingham who leads Somabotics' Soma Skins, a plug-and-play kit of wearable sensor and actuator tiles for embodied interaction; co-author of 'Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design'. Known for: Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021); Soma Skins toolkit (Somabotics, 2025). https://www.somabotics.ac.uk/soma-skins-toolkit/
- **Florian 'Floyd' Mueller** (Melbourne, Australia) — Monash University professor and director of the Exertion Games Lab, which designs bodily play, from exertion interfaces and Jogging over a Distance to human-computer integration where technology works inside and with the body. Known for: Exertion Interfaces: sports over a distance for social bonding and fun (CHI 2003); Jogging over a Distance between Europe and Australia (UIST 2010); Designing Sports: a framework for exertion games (CHI 2011); Next Steps for Human-Computer Integration (CHI 2020). https://www.florianfloydmueller.com/
- **Frédéric Bevilacqua** (Paris, France) — Head of IRCAM's Sound Music Movement Interaction team, whose gesture following and movement sonification (e.g. Interlude) underpin much movement-sound interaction, including sound-guided rehabilitation. Known for: Interlude project (2008–2010; 2011 Guthman Prize for new musical instruments); Continuous Realtime Gesture Following and Recognition (LNCS, 2010); Sensori-Motor Learning with Movement Sonification (Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2016). https://www.stms-lab.fr/person/frederic-bevilacqua/
- **George Poonkhin Khut** (Sydney, Australia, 1969–) — Chinese-Australian artist at UNSW who since 2004 has made participatory biofeedback artworks driven by heartbeat and breath (Cardiomorphologies) and brought them into hospitals with the BrightHearts app for children's procedural pain. Known for: Cardiomorphologies (biofeedback artwork, from 2004; IEEE MultiMedia 2007); Development and Evaluation of Participant-Centred Biofeedback Artworks (Doctor of Creative Arts exegesis, Western Sydney University, 2006); Designing Biofeedback Artworks for Relaxation (CHI EA 2016); BrightHearts biofeedback app for children's procedural pain (Pain Practice, 2018). https://georgekhut.com/
- **Helena Tobiasson** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Ergonomist and KTH PhD (2015, 'Traces of Movement') who studied physical activity in eldercare, schools and offices and proposed Physical Movement Sketching; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Traces of Movement: Exploring physical activity in societal settings (PhD thesis, KTH, 2015); Physical Movement Sketching and Movement Probes (design methods, 2015 thesis); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mjctlakAAAAJ
- **Hiroshi Ishii / 石井裕** (Cambridge, US, 1956–) — MIT Media Lab professor who founded the Tangible Media Group; his Tangible Bits and Radical Atoms visions established tangible and shape-changing interfaces, a strand of the material and embodied turn in HCI. Known for: Tangible Bits (CHI 1997, with B. Ullmer); Radical Atoms (ACM Interactions, 2012); inFORM shape display (UIST 2013). https://www.media.mit.edu/people/ishii/overview/
- **Jakob Tholander** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Stockholm University professor of HCI who studied whole-body interaction in golf, skateboarding and sports watches ('Snot, Sweat, Pain, Mud, and Snow') and co-authored the 2018 first-person soma design paper. Known for: Mirroring bodily experiences over time (CHI EA 2009); Design qualities for whole body interaction: learning from golf, skateboarding and BodyBugging (NordiCHI 2010); Snot, Sweat, Pain, Mud, and Snow: Performance and Experience in the Use of Sports Watches (CHI 2015). https://people.dsv.su.se/~jakobth/
- **Jarmo Laaksolahti** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Höök's PhD student (2008) and long-time collaborator at SICS and KTH. He co-developed the Sensual Evaluation Instrument for non-verbal, bodily evaluation and, with Windlin and Höök, the Soma Bits prototyping kit. Known for: The sensual evaluation instrument (CHI 2006); Plot, Spectacle, and Experience (PhD thesis, Stockholm University, 2008); SKETCHING SOMA BITS (DIS 2022). https://www.kth.se/profile/jarmola
- **Jiabao Li** (Oakland, US) — Artist-researcher at Northeastern University working across wearables, robots, performance and biotechnology on interspecies and climate themes and on the female body, from Glacier's Lament to Menstrual Garden. Known for: Glacier's Lament (Fast Company World Changing Ideas finalist, 2021); Body-focused works Menstrual Garden, Womb Wetware and Sentient Clit (years not verified). https://www.jiabaoli.org/about
- **Jodi Forlizzi** (Pittsburgh, US) — Carnegie Mellon professor who helped define experience-centred design and research through design in HCI, and studies social robots; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Understanding Experience in Interactive Systems (DIS 2004, with Katja Battarbee); Research through Design as a Method for Interaction Design Research in HCI (CHI 2007, with Zimmerman and Evenson); How robotic products become social products (2007). https://www.jodiforlizzi.com/
- **Joe Marshall** (Nottingham, UK) — Mixed Reality Lab researcher who builds full-body experiences such as computerised fairground rides and physical games; co-author of 'Soma Design and Sensory Misalignment' and the non-dualistic design paper. Known for: Soma Design and Sensory Misalignment (CHI 2020); Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021). https://people.cs.nott.ac.uk/pszjm2/
- **Jonas Fritsch** (Copenhagen, Denmark) — IT University of Copenhagen associate professor who brought affect theory into interaction design through experiments with interactive sound and physical interfaces, and now applies affective interaction design to care. Known for: Understanding Affective Engagement as a Resource in Interaction Design (Nordes 2009); Affective Interaction Design at the End of the World (DRS 2018); Problematizing Affective Interaction Design (in Affects, Interfaces, Events, 2021). http://www.fritsch.dk/
- **Jonas Löwgren** (Norrköping, Sweden) — Linköping University professor of interaction design whose work on interaction aesthetics and, with Höök, 'strong concepts' as intermediate-level design knowledge frames how soma design generalises. Known for: Thoughtful Interaction Design (MIT Press, 2004, with E. Stolterman); Inspirational patterns for embodied interaction (Nordes 2005); Strong concepts: Intermediate-level knowledge in interaction design research (ACM TOCHI, 2012, with K. Höök). https://jonas.lowgren.info/
- **Jordi Solsona Belenguer** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Höök's PhD student (KTH 2015) on designerly conversations with digital materials; co-author of the somaesthetic service design and Metaphone biodata work, and later co-supervisor of Karpashevich's soma design PhD. Known for: Experiential artifacts as a design method for somaesthetic service development (2011); Metaphone (CHI 2014); Engineering through Designerly Conversations with the Digital Material (PhD thesis, KTH, 2015). https://www.su.se/english/profiles/jsols
- **Joseph La Delfa** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Designer and Höök's PhD student (KTH 2023, 'Cultivating Mechanical Sympathy') who made Drone Chi, where a drone follows the hand in tai chi-like movement, and developed 'mechanical sympathy' for somaesthetic relations with machines. Known for: Drone Chi: Somaesthetic Human-Drone Interaction (CHI 2020); How to Train Your Drone (DIS 2024); Articulating Mechanical Sympathy for Somaesthetic Human-Machine Relations (DIS 2024); Cultivating Mechanical Sympathy (PhD thesis, KTH, 2023). https://www.bitcraze.io/author/joseph/
- **Josh Andres** (Canberra, Australia) — UNSW Canberra senior lecturer whose award-winning PhD at the Exertion Games Lab built eBikes that respond to the rider's brain and body states, articulating human-computer integration during exertion. Known for: Integrated Exertion: Understanding the Design of Human–Computer Integration in an Exertion Context (PhD thesis, RMIT, 2020; ACM SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award); Ena, Ari and Ava eBikes (EEG- and sensor-driven integrated eBikes); Introducing Peripheral Awareness as a Neurological State for Human-computer Integration (CHI 2020). https://www.joshandres.com/
- **Juan Pablo Martinez Avila** (Nottingham, UK) — Nottingham HCI researcher in embodied and music interaction who brought soma design to musical instruments ('Soma Design for NIME', 2020) and took part in the workshop analysed in 'Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design'. Known for: Soma Design for NIME (NIME 2020); Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021); Encumbered Interaction: a Study of Musicians Preparing to Perform (CHI 2019). https://sites.google.com/view/pszjm3/about
- **Jules Françoise** (Paris-Saclay, France) — CNRS researcher at LISN working on movement sonification and interactive machine learning; his work with Schiphorst and Fdili Alaoui on kinesthetic awareness brought second-person, micro-phenomenological inquiry into somatic interaction design. Known for: Motion-Sound Mapping by Demonstration (PhD thesis, UPMC/IRCAM, 2015); Sensori-Motor Learning with Movement Sonification (Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2016); Designing for Kinesthetic Awareness: revealing user experiences through second-person inquiry (CHI 2017); Seeing, Sensing and Recognizing Laban Movement Qualities (CHI 2017). https://julesfrancoise.com/
- **Karey Helms** (Umeå, Sweden) — Designer and associate professor at Umeå Institute of Design whose KTH PhD ('Designing with care', 2023) worked self-centred and first-person with intimate, somatic data: urine, leaky objects and breastfeeding bodies. Known for: Leaky Objects (DIS 2017); Do You Have to Pee?: A Design Space for Intimate and Somatic Data (DIS 2019); Entangled Reflections on Designing with Leaky Breastfeeding Bodies (DIS 2021); Designing with care (PhD thesis, KTH, 2023). https://www.kareyhelms.com/
- **Katherine Isbister** (Santa Cruz, US) — UC Santa Cruz professor of computational media who co-developed the Sensual Evaluation Instrument with Höök and designs movement games and playful wearables for emotion and social connection, from Yamove! to the self-soothing toy Purrble. Known for: The Sensual Evaluation Instrument (2006, with Höök et al.); Yamove! A Movement Synchrony Game That Choreographs Social Interaction (Human Technology, 2016); How Games Move Us (MIT Press, 2016); Playful Wearables (MIT Press, 2024). https://www.katherineinterface.com/
- **Katta Spiel** (Vienna, Austria) — TU Wien researcher on critical access in embodied computing who centres disabled, neurodivergent and non-binary bodies; 'The Bodies of TEI' audits the normative body assumptions of embodied interaction research. Known for: Agency of Autistic Children in Technology Research—A Critical Literature Review (TOCHI 2019); Patching Gender: Non-binary Utopias in HCI (CHI EA 2019); The Bodies of TEI – Investigating Norms and Assumptions in the Design of Embodied Interaction (TEI 2021). https://katta.mere.st/
- **Kelsey Cotton** (Gothenburg, Sweden) — Vocalist and researcher at Chalmers whose soma design work centres on the singing body and breath, including the Body Electric NIME and Corsetto, made with Höök's group. Known for: The Body Electric: A NIME designed through and with the somatic experience of singing (NIME 2021); 'Feeling the Sensor Feeling you': A Soma Design Exploration on Sensing Non-habitual Breathing (CHI 2021); Corsetto (CHI 2023). https://kelseycotton.com
- **Kristina Andersen** (Eindhoven, Netherlands) — TU Eindhoven associate professor and Höök's PhD student (KTH 2017, 'Making Magic Machines') whose Magic Machine workshops use embodied making with found materials to surface people's desires about technology. Known for: Making Magic Machines (PhD thesis, KTH, 2017); The Magic Machine Workshops: Making Personal Design Knowledge (CHI 2019); Ten Permissions for Facilitating (Live) Design Activities (DIS 2024). https://www.tue.nl/en/research/researchers/kristina-andersen
- **Kristina Höök** (Stockholm, Sweden, 1964–) — Professor of Interaction Design at KTH who formulated soma design: designing from the designer's own trained, felt body-mind, drawing on Shusterman's somaesthetics and Feldenkrais practice. Her lab's work, from the affective loops of eMoto to the Soma Mat and Drone Chi, is the core lineage of this gallery. Known for: Designing with the Body: Somaesthetic Interaction Design (MIT Press, 2018); Somaesthetic Appreciation Design (CHI 2016); The Soma Mat and Breathing Light (CHI EA 2016); Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021). https://www.digitalfutures.kth.se/profile/kristina-hook/
- **Kristina Popova** (Stockholm, Sweden) — KTH researcher (PhD 2026, co-supervised by Höök) who studies the affective and felt dimensions of ethics in technology work, drawing on STS, feminist epistemology and soma design; co-author of the felt ethics papers. Known for: Vulnerability as an ethical stance in soma design processes (CHI 2022); Felt Ethics: Cultivating Ethical Sensibility in Design Practice (CHI 2023); Ethical Reasoning in Tech Work: From Individual Responsibility to Collective Action (PhD thesis, KTH, 2026). https://www.kth.se/profile/kpopova
- **Laia Turmo Vidal** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Assistant professor at KTH whose PhD (Uppsala 2021, 'Designing for Intercorporeality') studied technology for learning movement together, e.g. BodyLights; she now designs soft-robotic and haptic wearables for lived health with feminist and disability perspectives. Known for: Embodied Sketching (CHI 2016); BodyLights (CHI 2020); Designing for Intercorporeality (PhD thesis, Uppsala University, 2021); Aesthetics of Felt Asymmetry (CHI 2026). https://laiatv.github.io/
- **Lian Loke** (Sydney, Australia) — University of Sydney associate professor, dancer and performance artist whose 'Moving and Making Strange' (with Toni Robertson) gave interaction design a method for estranging habitual movement; co-author of 'The Somatic Turn in HCI'. Known for: Understanding movement for interaction design: frameworks and approaches (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 2006); Moving and Making Strange: a design methodology for movement-based interactive technologies (PhD thesis, UTS, 2009; TOCHI 2013 with Toni Robertson); Intimate Aesthetics and Facilitated Interaction (2014, with George Khut); The somatic turn in human-computer interaction (Interactions, 2018, with Thecla Schiphorst). https://www.lianloke.com/
- **Madeline Balaam** (Stockholm, Sweden) — KTH professor of interaction design who designs for intimate bodies and health: pelvic fitness (Labella), breastfeeding (FeedFinder) and menstruation (Menarche Bits). She co-authored soma design papers with Höök and supervises several soma-oriented PhD students. Known for: FeedFinder (CHI 2015); On Looking at the Vagina through Labella (CHI 2016); Touching and Being in Touch with the Menstruating Body (CHI 2020); Exploring the Somatic Possibilities of Shape Changing Car Seats (DIS 2024). https://www.digitalfutures.kth.se/profile/madeline-balaam/
- **Marco Gillies** (London, UK) — Goldsmiths professor whose 'embodied design' lets designers create full-body interactions by moving and demonstrating with interactive machine learning rather than by coding. Known for: Embodied design of full bodied interaction with virtual humans (MOCO 2015); Understanding the Role of Interactive Machine Learning in Movement Interaction Design (ACM TOCHI, 2019); VR and ML for All MOOCs (Coursera). https://www.gold.ac.uk/computing/people/m-gillies/
- **Marianna Obrist** (London, UK) — UCL professor of multisensory interfaces who works to make touch, taste and smell interaction modalities, from mid-air haptics that convey emotion to scent-delivery devices. Known for: Opportunities for odor: experiences with smell and implications for technology (CHI 2014); Emotions Mediated Through Mid-Air Haptics (CHI 2015); Scent-delivery technology shown at WEF Davos 2019 and 2020, commercialised via OWidgets Ltd (co-founded 2019). http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/people/M.Obrist.html
- **Marianne Graves Petersen** (Aarhus, Denmark) — Aarhus University professor whose 'Aesthetic Interaction' (DIS 2004) framed interaction through Dewey's pragmatist aesthetics, a precursor of somaesthetic interaction design; co-author of the CHI 2012 review of shape-changing interfaces. Known for: Aesthetic Interaction: A Pragmatist's Aesthetics of Interactive Systems (DIS 2004); Shape-changing interfaces: a review of the design space and open research questions (CHI 2012); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/mgraves@cs.au.dk
- **Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard** (Oslo, Norway) — Danish designer who uses speculative and feminist design for intimate technologies around menstruation and desire (PeriodShare, Intimate Futures); as a KTH postdoc she co-made the Menarche Bits and 'Soma Design and Politics of the Body'. Known for: PeriodShare: A Bloody Design Fiction (NordiCHI 2016); Intimate Futures (DIS 2018); Designing with Intimate Materials and Movements: Making 'Menarche Bits' (DIS 2020); Soma Design and Politics of the Body (HttF 2019). https://www.fabulationforfuture.net/dr-marie-louise-juul-sondergaard/
- **Martin Jonsson** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Södertörn University researcher in tangible and ubiquitous interaction who co-designed the Soma Mat, Breathing Light and the heat-based somaesthetic prototypes with Höök and Ståhl. Known for: Somaesthetic Appreciation Design (CHI 2016); The Aesthetics of Heat (TEI 2016); The Soma Mat and Breathing Light (CHI EA 2016). https://www.sh.se/english/sodertorn-university/contact/researchers/martin-jonsson
- **Masahiko Inami / 稲見昌彦** (Tokyo, Japan) — University of Tokyo professor of human augmentation who led the ERATO JIZAI Body project on bodies whose natural and artificial parts can be freely controlled or shared, drawing on the Japanese notion of jizai (freedom of the body). Known for: JIZAI Body project (JST ERATO, Oct 2017 – Mar 2023); MetaLimbs: foot-controlled extra robotic arms (SIGGRAPH 2017 Emerging Technologies); Theory of JIZAI Body: Towards Mastery Over the Extended Self (Springer, 2023). https://www.ais.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/research/labs/inami.html
- **Mehmet Aydın Baytaş** — Designer-engineer, formerly at Chalmers, who co-created Drone Chi with Joseph La Delfa, a somaesthetic human-drone interaction inspired by tai chi, and Azalea for somaesthetic remote co-experience. Known for: The Design of Social Drones (CHI 2019); Drone Chi: Somaesthetic Human-Drone Interaction (CHI 2020); Designing Drone Chi (DIS 2020); Azalea: Co-experience in Remote Dialog through Diminished Reality and Somaesthetic Interaction Design (CHI 2021). https://www.designdisciplin.com/about
- **Michael Haller** (Bolzano, Italy) — Professor at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and founder of the Media Interaction Lab, known for touch- and deformation-sensitive smart textiles (SmartSleeve, RESi); co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: SmartSleeve: sensing gestures on interactive textiles (UIST 2017); RESi: pressure-sensitive textile interface based on resistive yarns (UIST 2018); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://www.mediainteractionlab.eu/?page_id=561
- **Miquel Alfaras** (Spain) — Physicist and biosignals researcher who, as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at PLUX, worked with Höök's group on making biosensing accessible to designers; first author of 'From Biodata to Somadata' (CHI 2020). Known for: From Biodata to Somadata (CHI 2020); Biosensing and Actuation—Platforms Coupling Body Input-Output Modalities for Affective Technologies (Sensors, 2020); Exploring Awareness of Breathing through Deep Touch Pressure (CHI 2021). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8942-5843
- **Mirjana Prpa** (Guangzhou, China) — Designer-researcher (PhD SFU, now HKUST Guangzhou) who creates breath-based VR and biofeedback and applies micro-phenomenology to design research ('Articulating Experience', CHI 2020). Known for: Attending to Breath: breath-based VR experiences (DIS 2018); Inhaling and Exhaling: How Technologies Can Perceptually Extend our Breath Awareness (CHI 2020); Articulating Experience: reflections from experts applying micro-phenomenology to design research in HCI (CHI 2020). https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0368-6581
- **Muhammad Umair** (Lancaster, UK) — Lancaster University researcher whose PhD built wearable biofeedback that turns arousal into visual, vibrotactile and thermal patterns for emotion regulation; co-author of 'From Biodata to Somadata' and the non-dualistic design paper. Known for: From Biodata to Somadata (CHI 2020); Exploring Personalized Vibrotactile and Thermal Patterns for Affect Regulation (DIS 2021); Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0017-9827
- **Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze** (London, UK) — UCL Interaction Centre professor of affective computing and the body who studies emotion in movement and touch and designs movement and breathing sonification to build confidence for people with chronic pain. Known for: Does Body Movement Engage You More in Digital Game Play? and Why? (ACII 2007); Affective Body Expression Perception and Recognition: A Survey (IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 2013); As Light as your Footsteps (CHI 2015, with Tajadura-Jiménez). https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8921-0044
- **Nadia Campo Woytuk** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Designer and artist at KTH (PhD 2026, 'Feminist Sensing') who designs with the menstruating body through textiles, biomaterials and touch, from Menarche Bits to tactful sensing of vaginal fluids. Known for: Touching and Being in Touch with the Menstruating Body (CHI 2020); Designing with Intimate Materials and Movements: Making 'Menarche Bits' (DIS 2020); Tactful Feminist Sensing: Designing for Touching Vaginal Fluids (DIS 2023); Feminist Sensing (PhD thesis, KTH, 2026). https://nadiacw.com/About
- **Nassrin Hajinejad** (Berlin, Germany) — Professor of media informatics at HTW Berlin whose GangKlang project sonified walking to renew walkers' sense of the embodied qualities of their gait; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: GangKlang: sonic interaction for walking experiences (Audio Mostly 2016); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/en/dps/news/hajinejad_professur_2024_10.html
- **Noura Howell** (Vejle, Denmark) — Designer-researcher (now at SDU, formerly Georgia Tech's Future Feelings Lab) who critically designs emotional biosensing, showing how ambiguous skin conductance and heart sounds can open reflection instead of fixing emotions as data. Known for: Biosignals as Social Cues: ambiguity and emotional interpretation in social displays of skin conductance (DIS 2016); Tensions of Data-Driven Reflection: a case study of real-time emotional biosensing (CHI 2018); Emotional Biosensing: exploring critical alternatives (CSCW 2018). https://nourahowell.com/
- **Ozgun Kilic Afsar** (Cambridge, US) — Designer-engineer of soft artificial muscles and fluidic fibre actuators (OmniFiber) who worked with Höök's group; Corsetto, a kinesthetic corset that lets a singer's voice be felt on the listener's body, came out of this collaboration. Known for: OmniFiber: Integrated Fluidic Fiber Actuators for Weaving Movement based Interactions into the 'Fabric of Everyday Life' (UIST 2021); Wearable Choreographer: Designing Soft-Robotics for Dance Practice (DIS 2022); Corsetto: A Kinesthetic Garment for Designing, Composing for, and Experiencing an Intersubjective Haptic Voice (CHI 2023). https://ozgun.io/
- **Patrizia Marti** (Siena, Italy) — University of Siena associate professor in experience design, formerly at TU Eindhoven, who designs for health and inclusion, including socially assistive robots in dementia care; co-author of the 2018 first-person soma paper. Known for: Socially Assistive Robotics in the Treatment of Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BioRob 2006); Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design (Informatics, 2018). https://docenti.unisi.it/it/marti
- **Paul Dourish** (Irvine, US, 1966–) — UC Irvine professor whose 'Where the Action Is' (2001) introduced embodied interaction, grounding HCI in the phenomenology of Heidegger, Schutz and Merleau-Ponty; the theoretical ground soma design builds on. Known for: Embodied Interaction: Exploring the Foundations of a New Approach to HCI (1999 paper); Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction (MIT Press, 2001); Divining a Digital Future (MIT Press, 2011, with Genevieve Bell); The Stuff of Bits (MIT Press, 2017). https://ics.uci.edu/people/paul-dourish/
- **Paul Tennent** (Nottingham, UK) — Nottingham associate professor who builds breath-controlled games, VR swings and rides, and led the Nottingham–KTH work on soma trajectories and sensory misalignment. Known for: Breathalising Games (2011); Soma Design and Sensory Misalignment (CHI 2020); Articulating Soma Experiences using Trajectories (CHI 2021); Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021). https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/computerscience/people/paul.tennent
- **Pavel Karpashevich** (Oldenburg, Germany) — Höök's PhD student (KTH 2023, 'Designing Monstrous Experiences Through Soma Design') who built shape-changing, on-body interfaces around breathing and deep touch pressure, reading their unsettling effects through monster theory. Known for: Exploring Awareness of Breathing through Deep Touch Pressure (CHI 2021); Touching Our Breathing through Shape-Change: Monster, Organic Other, or Twisted Mirror (TOCHI 2022); Designing Monstrous Experiences Through Soma Design (PhD thesis, KTH, 2023). https://uol.de/en/media-informatics/team/pavel-karpashevich
- **Pedro Ferreira** (Copenhagen, Denmark) — Höök's PhD student (KTH 2015) who studied play and leisure in ICT for development and co-authored studies of the bodily and playful use of mobile phones; now at IT University of Copenhagen. Known for: Bodily orientations around mobiles (CHI 2011); Appreciating plei-plei around mobiles (CHI 2012); Play as Freedom: Implications for ICT4D (PhD thesis, KTH, 2015). https://bacilo.github.io/
- **Pedro Lopes** (Chicago, US) — University of Chicago associate professor who designs electrical muscle stimulation interfaces that move the user's own muscles, and studies with neuroscientists how such integration affects the sense of agency. Known for: Affordance++: allowing objects to communicate dynamic use via electrical muscle stimulation (CHI 2015); Providing Haptics to Walls & Heavy Objects in Virtual Reality by Means of Electrical Muscle Stimulation (CHI 2017); Context-aware AI + EMS movement guidance (CHI 2026 Best Paper, students Yun Ho and Romain Nith). https://plopes.org/
- **Pedro Sanches** (Umeå, Sweden) — Umeå University researcher who worked for over a decade in Höök's group on biodata and affective health. He co-authored 'From Biodata to Somadata' and 'Teaching Soma Design', and brings feminist epistemologies to designing biodata and AI for bodies. Known for: From Biodata to Somadata (CHI 2020); Teaching Soma Design (DIS 2019); Touching Our Breathing through Shape-Change: Monster, Organic Other, or Twisted Mirror (TOCHI 2022); Making New Worlds – Transformative Becomings with Soma Design (CHI 2022). https://www.umu.se/en/staff/pedro-sanches/
- **Philippe Pasquier** (Vancouver, Canada) — SFU professor and director of the Metacreation Lab for Creative AI who founded the MOCO conference on movement and computing and co-supervised breath and micro-phenomenology work with Schiphorst. Known for: Founder of the ACM International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO); Mova: interactive movement analytics platform (MOCO 2014); Inhaling and Exhaling (CHI 2020, with Prpa, Schiphorst et al.); Articulating Experience (CHI 2020, with Prpa, Fdili Alaoui, Schiphorst). https://www.sfu.ca/siat/people/research-faculty/philippe-pasquier.html
- **Phoebe Sengers** (Ithaca, US) — Cornell professor whose 'Reflective Design' and work on openness and ambiguity in evaluating experience (with Höök and colleagues) shaped the non-reductive approach to emotion that led to affective loops. Known for: Sense and sensibility: evaluation and interactive art (CHI 2003, with K. Höök and G. Andersson); Reflective Design (Critical Computing 2005, with Boehner, David, Kaye). https://infosci.cornell.edu/people/phoebe-sengers
- **Rachael Garrett** (Nottingham, UK) — Höök's PhD student (KTH 2026, 'Somatic Freedoms') who treats ethics as something felt in the body during design, through 'felt ethics' and vulnerability in soma design. At Nottingham's Somabotics she works on dancing with robots and the Drone Gymnasium. Known for: Vulnerability as an ethical stance in soma design processes (CHI 2022); Felt Ethics: Cultivating Ethical Sensibility in Design Practice (CHI 2023); Somatic Freedoms: Reconfiguring Human-Machine Ethical Relations (PhD thesis, KTH, 2026); The Digital Futures Drone Gymnasium (2024–). https://rachaelgarrett.com/
- **Rebecca Fiebrink** (London, UK) — UAL professor of creative computing whose Wekinator lets musicians and artists train machine learning by demonstration to map body movement to sound and media. Known for: Wekinator interactive machine learning software (2008–); Real-time interaction with supervised learning (CHI EA 2010); Machine Learning for Musicians and Artists (first online course on ML for music and art). https://www.arts.ac.uk/creative-computing-institute/people/rebecca-fiebrink
- **Rohit Ashok Khot** (Melbourne, Australia) — RMIT senior lecturer from the Exertion Games Lab who materialises bodily data as edible or printed artefacts, such as SweatAtoms and EdiPulse's heart-rate chocolate, and designs playful eating experiences. Known for: SweatAtoms: materializing physical activity as 3D-printed artefacts (OzCHI 2013); EdiPulse: self-monitoring through 3D-printed chocolate treats (CHI 2017); Playful human-food interaction projects (e.g., GustaCine, SWAN). https://rohitashokkhot.com/
- **Rosalind Picard** (Cambridge, US, 1962–) — MIT professor who founded affective computing (1997) and wearable electrodermal sensing; soma design and affective loops developed partly in response to her recognition-based model of emotion. Known for: Affective Computing (MIT Press, 1997); Toward machine emotional intelligence: analysis of affective physiological state (IEEE TPAMI, 2001); Co-founder of Affectiva and Empatica (wearable biosignal sensing). https://web.media.mit.edu/~picard/
- **Sarah Fdili Alaoui** (London, UK) — Dancer and professor at UAL's Creative Computing Institute who integrates computation into choreography and somatic practice through Laban movement qualities, questioning how technology enters dance-making. Known for: From dance to touch: movement qualities for interaction design (CHI EA 2011); Seeing, Sensing and Recognizing Laban Movement Qualities (CHI 2017); Making an Interactive Dance Piece: tensions in integrating technology in art (DIS 2019). https://saralaoui.com/
- **Sarah Homewood** (Copenhagen, Denmark) — Former contemporary dancer and University of Copenhagen researcher who studies how self-tracking shapes views of bodies (fertility, menstrual cycles, long COVID), proposing removal as a design method and tracing conceptions of the body in HCI. Known for: Ovum: Designing for Fertility Tracking as a Shared and Domestic Experience (DIS 2019); Removal as a Method (DIS 2020); Tracing Conceptions of the Body in HCI: From User to More-Than-Human (CHI 2021). https://sarahhomewood.com/bio
- **Scott Klemmer** (San Diego, US) — UC San Diego professor and co-founder of its Design Lab whose 'How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design' (DIS 2006) is a widely cited statement of embodied cognition for interaction design. Known for: Papier-Mâché: toolkit support for tangible input (CHI 2004); How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design (DIS 2006). https://d.ucsd.edu/srk/
- **Sha Xin Wei** (Tempe, US) — ASU professor and founder of the Topological Media Lab and Synthesis Center whose responsive environments and 'Poiesis and Enchantment in Topological Matter' treat gesture and movement as processual, felt experience. Known for: Poiesis and Enchantment in Topological Matter (MIT Press, 2013); Topological Media Lab (Concordia University, founder-director); Synthesis Center for responsive environments (ASU). https://search.asu.edu/profile/2202759
- **Shaowen Bardzell** (Atlanta, US) — Taiwanese-American HCI scholar at Georgia Tech who set out the feminist HCI agenda (CHI 2010) and wrote on pleasure, sexuality and care, groundwork for intimate and feminist soma design. Known for: Feminist HCI: taking stock and outlining an agenda for design (CHI 2010); Pleasure is your birthright: digitally enabled designer sex toys as a case of third-wave HCI (CHI 2011, with J. Bardzell); Humanistic HCI (Morgan & Claypool, 2015, with J. Bardzell). https://shaowenbardzell.com/
- **Steve Benford** (Nottingham, UK) — Co-founder of Nottingham's Mixed Reality Lab whose trajectories framework for performance and cultural experiences was extended to soma design with Höök and Tennent; co-author of 'Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design' and lead of Somabotics. Known for: Performing Mixed Reality (MIT Press, 2011, with Gabriella Giannachi); Uncomfortable Interactions (CHI 2012); Articulating Soma Experiences using Trajectories (CHI 2021); Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case (TOCHI 2021). https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/computerscience/people/steve.benford
- **Susan Kozel** (Malmö, Sweden) — Dancer-philosopher at Malmö University whose 'Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology' (2007) reworks Merleau-Ponty from inside dance with interactive systems; she now develops somatic archiving with mixed reality. Known for: Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology (MIT Press, 2007); Somatic Archiving with AR/MR (ongoing research); Ten Permissions for Facilitating (Live) Design Activities (DIS 2024, with Höök and Andersen). https://mau.se/en/persons/susan.kozel/
- **Teresa Almeida** (Lisbon, Portugal) — Instituto Superior Técnico assistant professor whose feminist design research on intimate care created Labella for pelvic fitness and treats the body as an ecosystem. Known for: Labella: looking at the vagina through an interactive pelvic-fitness system (CHI 2016 Interactivity); Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion (ACM TOCHI, 2020); Gut-Tracking as Cultivation (2020). https://iti.larsys.pt/member/teresa-almeida/
- **Thecla Schiphorst** (Vancouver, Canada, 1955–) — Dancer, computer scientist and SFU professor who brought somatic practice and Laban analysis into HCI; a member of the original LifeForms team with Merce Cunningham, she made soft(n), whisper[s] and exhale and wrote on somatic connoisseurship. Known for: Life Forms choreography software (collaboration with Merce Cunningham, 1990–2005); soft(n): toward a somaesthetics of touch (CHI EA 2009); Self-evidence: applying somatic connoisseurship to experience design (CHI EA 2011); The somatic turn in human-computer interaction (Interactions, 2018, with Lian Loke). https://www.sfu.ca/siat/people/research-faculty/thecla-schiphorst.html
- **Toni Robertson** (Sydney, Australia) — Retired UTS professor whose taxonomy of embodied actions (1997) was an early phenomenological account of the body in cooperative work; she led the UTS movement-based interaction line with Loke and Larssen. Known for: Cooperative Work and Lived Cognition: A Taxonomy of Embodied Actions (ECSCW 1997); Understanding movement for interaction design: frameworks and approaches (PUC, 2006); The feel dimension of technology interaction (TEI 2007); Moving and Making Strange (TOCHI 2013, with Lian Loke). https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mOh-30QAAAAJ
- **Vasiliki Tsaknaki** (Copenhagen, Denmark) — Associate professor at IT University of Copenhagen who came through KTH with craft-based interaction design. She co-developed soma design pedagogy and the politics of the body with Höök's group and proposed 'breathing-with' as a more-than-human design tactic. Known for: Making Preciousness: Interaction Design Through Studio Crafts (PhD thesis, KTH, 2017); Soma Design and Politics of the Body (HttF 2019); Teaching Soma Design (DIS 2019); 'Breathing-with': a design tactic for the more-than-human (HCI journal, 2023). http://vasilikitsaknaki.com/about
- **Vygandas Šimbelis** (Stockholm, Sweden) — Lithuanian-Swedish artist ('Das Vegas') and Höök's PhD student (KTH 2018) whose post-digital art repurposes devices; Metaphone turned biodata into sound and image. Known for: Metaphone (CHI 2014); Repurposing Bits and Pieces of the Digital (CHI 2016); Humanizing Technology Through Post-Digital Art (PhD thesis, KTH, 2018). http://simbelis.com/biography/
- **Ylva Fernaeus** (Umeå, Sweden) — Professor at Umeå Institute of Design and KTH (PhD co-supervised by Höök) working on tangible and embodied interaction and design philosophy, from robotic pets to wabi-sabi and joyful movement; she supervised Tsaknaki and Helms. Known for: How do you play with a robotic toy animal? A long-term study of Pleo (IDC 2010); The material move: how materials matter in interaction design research (DIS 2012); Expanding on Wabi-Sabi as a Design Resource in HCI (CHI 2016); Designing for Joyful Movement (2018). https://www.umu.se/en/staff/ylva-fernaeus/
- **Yoav Luft** (Stockholm, Sweden) — KTH PhD candidate studying how designers can programme touch on the body with shape-changing garments; co-author of 'Boards Hit Back', which reflects on martial arts practice through soma design. Known for: Touching Our Breathing through Shape-Change (TOCHI 2022); Boards Hit Back: Reflecting on Martial Arts Practices Through Soma Design (CHI 2023); Corsetto (CHI 2023). https://www.kth.se/profile/luft
- **Zhuying Li** (Nanjing, China) — Southeast University associate professor whose Exertion Games Lab PhD invented 'ingestible play', games such as The Guts Game and HeatCraft built around swallowable sensors that engage people with their inner body. Known for: The Guts Game: Towards Designing Ingestible Games (CHI PLAY 2018); HeatCraft: experiencing body temperature from an ingestible sensor as localised heat; A Design Framework for Ingestible Play (ACM TOCHI, 2023). https://zhuyingli.info/
- **Åsa Unander-Scharin** (Piteå, Sweden) — Choreographer and professor at Luleå University of Technology who choreographs robots and drones, from the industrial robot of The Lamentations of Orpheus to Robocygne. She co-authored the drone opera studies 'Dancing With Drones' and 'Ethics in Movement' with Höök. Known for: The Lamentations of Orpheus (1998, choreography for an industrial robot); Robocygne (2010); Dancing With Drones (CHI 2019); Ethics in Movement (CHI 2020). https://www.ltu.se/en/staff/a/asa-unander-scharin

### Philosophers & theorists

- **Alva Noë / 阿尔瓦·诺伊** (Berkeley, US, 1964–) — Berkeley philosopher who argues that perception is something we do with our moving bodies (the enactive, sensorimotor view) and that art and dance are 'strange tools' that reorganise our embodied habits. Known for: Action in Perception (2004); Out of Our Heads (2009); Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_No%C3%AB
- **Antonio Damasio / 安东尼奥·达马西奥** (Los Angeles, US, 1944–) — Neuroscientist at USC whose somatic marker hypothesis argues that feelings rooted in body states guide reason, challenging Cartesian mind-body dualism; a key source for designing with emotion as a bodily process. Known for: Descartes' Error (1994); The Feeling of What Happens (1999); Looking for Spinoza (2003). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Damasio
- **Claire Petitmengin** (Paris, France) — French researcher who developed micro-phenomenology from Vermersch's explicitation interview and Varela's neurophenomenology: a guided interview that helps people describe fine-grained lived experience. Soma designers use it to articulate felt experience. Known for: Describing one's subjective experience in the second person (2006); The Validity of First-Person Descriptions as Authenticity and Coherence (2013); Discovering the structures of lived experience (2019). https://www.clairepetitmengin.fr
- **Dan Zahavi / 丹·扎哈维** (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1967–) — Danish philosopher at the University of Copenhagen who directs the Center for Subjectivity Research and argues for the minimal, embodied self given in first-person experience. Known for: Subjectivity and Selfhood (2005); The Phenomenological Mind (2008, with Gallagher); Self and Other (2014). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Zahavi
- **Don Hanlon Johnson** (San Francisco, US, 1934–) — Founder of the first graduate programme in somatics, at the California Institute of Integral Studies, whose anthologies documented the pioneers of body-based practice and argued for the body as a source of knowledge. Known for: Body: Recovering Our Sensual Wisdom (1983); Bone, Breath and Gesture (1995); Diverse Bodies, Diverse Practices (2018). https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/don-hanlon-johnson
- **Donna Haraway / 唐娜·哈拉维** (Santa Cruz, US, 1944–) — Feminist scholar of science whose cyborg and situated knowledges unsettle boundaries between human, animal and machine; her work underpins feminist and more-than-human strands of soma design. Known for: A Cyborg Manifesto (1985); Situated Knowledges (1988); Staying with the Trouble (2016). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway
- **Drew Leder** (Baltimore, US, 1954–) — Philosopher and physician at Loyola University Maryland whose 'The Absent Body' explains why the body recedes from awareness in smooth action and 'dys-appears' in pain or illness, a frame soma design uses to bring the body back into attention. Known for: The Absent Body (1990); The Distressed Body (2016). https://www.loyola.edu/academics/philosophy/faculty/leder-drew.html
- **Dōgen / 道元** (Echizen, Japan, 1200–1253) — Japanese Zen master who founded the Sōtō school and taught 'just sitting' (shikantaza) and the dropping off of body and mind (shinjin datsuraku), where practice with the whole body-mind is itself realisation. Known for: Shōbōgenzō (正法眼蔵); Fukanzazengi (普勧坐禅儀); Shinjin datsuraku (身心脱落). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dgen
- **Edmund Husserl / 埃德蒙德·胡塞尔** (Freiburg, Germany, 1859–1938) — Founder of phenomenology whose distinction between the body as object (Körper) and as lived, sensing body (Leib) and whose method of describing experience from the first person underlie phenomenology of the body and first-person design research. Known for: Logical Investigations (1900–01); Ideas II (posthumous, 1952); The Crisis of European Sciences (1936). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl
- **Eleanor Rosch / 埃莉诺·罗什** (Berkeley, US, 1938–) — Berkeley psychologist known for prototype theory of categories and co-author of 'The Embodied Mind', which brought Buddhist mindfulness practice into cognitive science as a disciplined first-person method. Known for: Prototype theory of categorisation (1970s); The Embodied Mind (1991, with Varela and Thompson). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Rosch
- **Elizabeth Grosz / 伊丽莎白·格罗兹** (Durham, US, 1952–) — Australian feminist philosopher whose 'Volatile Bodies' argues for a corporeal feminism that refuses the split between mind and body and between biology and culture. Known for: Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (1994); Becoming Undone (2011). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Grosz
- **Erin Manning / 艾琳·曼宁** (Montréal, Canada, 1969–) — Artist and philosopher at Concordia University who founded the SenseLab and writes on movement, relation and neurodiversity, thinking movement as relational before it is a body's property. Known for: Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy (2009); Always More Than One (2013); SenseLab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Manning
- **Eugene Gendlin / 尤金·简德林** (Chicago, US, 1926–2017) — Philosopher and psychotherapist who described the 'felt sense', the bodily, not-yet-verbal sense of a situation, and developed Focusing to attend to it. Soma designers and micro-phenomenologists use his felt sense to articulate experience from within. Known for: Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning (1962); Focusing (1978); A Process Model (2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Gendlin
- **Evan Thompson / 伊凡·汤普森** (Vancouver, Canada, 1962–) — University of British Columbia philosopher and co-author of 'The Embodied Mind' who develops enactive cognition in dialogue with phenomenology and contemplative traditions, arguing for the deep continuity of life and mind. Known for: The Embodied Mind (1991, with Varela and Rosch); Mind in Life (2007); Waking, Dreaming, Being (2015); Why I Am Not a Buddhist (2020). https://evanthompson.me/
- **Francisco Varela / 弗朗西斯科·瓦雷拉** (Paris, France, 1946–2001) — Chilean biologist and neuroscientist who co-founded enactivism, arguing that cognition is embodied action, and joined Buddhist meditation with cognitive science. His neurophenomenology and first-person methods shaped micro-phenomenology and first-person design research. Known for: Autopoiesis and Cognition (1980, with Maturana); The Embodied Mind (1991, with Thompson and Rosch); Neurophenomenology (1996). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Varela
- **George Lakoff / 乔治·莱考夫** (Berkeley, US, 1941–) — Berkeley cognitive linguist whose theory of conceptual metaphor, developed with Mark Johnson, argues that thought is structured by bodily experience; widely used in embodied interaction to design with image schemas. Known for: Metaphors We Live By (1980, with Johnson); Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (1987); Philosophy in the Flesh (1999, with Johnson). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff
- **Hanne De Jaegher** — Enactive philosopher who, with Ezequiel Di Paolo, proposed participatory sense-making: meaning is made together in the coordination of moving bodies, a key idea for designing shared and social soma experiences. Known for: Participatory sense-making (2007, with Di Paolo); Linguistic Bodies (2018, with Di Paolo and Cuffari). https://hannedejaegher.net/
- **Hubert Dreyfus / 休伯特·德雷福斯** (Berkeley, US, 1929–2017) — Berkeley philosopher who used Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty to argue that skilled coping is embodied and cannot be captured by rule-based AI; his critique influenced embodied interaction and the skill-acquisition model. Known for: What Computers Can't Do (1972); Being-in-the-World (1991); Mind over Machine (1986, with Stuart Dreyfus). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus
- **Ichikawa Hiroshi / 市川浩** (Tokyo, Japan, 1931–2002) — Japanese philosopher of the body at Meiji University who developed a theory of 'mi', the living body-self that is at once body, mind and social being, in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty and Japanese language. Known for: 精神としての身体 (The Body as Spirit, 1975); 〈身〉の構造 (The Structure of Mi, 1984). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/市川浩
- **Iris Marion Young / 艾丽斯·马瑞恩·杨** (Chicago, US, 1949–2006) — Political philosopher whose essay 'Throwing Like a Girl' showed how women's bodily comportment and motility are shaped by social constraint; a founding text of feminist phenomenology of the body. Known for: Throwing Like a Girl (1980); On Female Body Experience (2005). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Marion_Young
- **John Dewey / 约翰·杜威** (New York, US, 1859–1952) — American pragmatist whose 'Art as Experience' grounds aesthetics in the lived, embodied flow of everyday experience; a student of F.M. Alexander, he is a root of Shusterman's somaesthetics and of experience-centred HCI. Known for: Experience and Nature (1925); Art as Experience (1934). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
- **Lisa Feldman Barrett / 丽莎·费德曼·巴瑞特** (Boston, US, 1963–) — Northeastern University neuroscientist whose theory of constructed emotion holds that emotions are made from interoceptive body budgeting and concepts, not triggered by fixed circuits, undercutting recognition-based affective computing. Known for: How Emotions Are Made (2017); Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (2020). https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/
- **Marcel Mauss / 马塞尔·莫斯** (Paris, France, 1872–1950) — French anthropologist whose lecture 'Techniques of the Body' showed that walking, swimming, sleeping and breathing are learned, culturally specific techniques, opening the study of how cultures train bodies. Known for: Techniques of the Body (1935); The Gift (1925). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Mauss
- **Mark Johnson / 马克·约翰逊** (Eugene, US, 1949–) — University of Oregon philosopher who showed that abstract meaning grows out of bodily image schemas and felt, aesthetic experience; his embodied aesthetics of meaning is a basis for designing with felt qualities. Known for: Metaphors We Live By (1980, with Lakoff); The Body in the Mind (1987); Philosophy in the Flesh (1999, with Lakoff); The Meaning of the Body (2007). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Johnson_(philosopher)
- **Maurice Merleau-Ponty / 莫里斯·梅洛-庞蒂** (Paris, France, 1908–1961) — French phenomenologist who argued that perception and meaning are rooted in the lived body (corps propre) and its motor intentionality, not in a detached mind. His notions of body schema, flesh and intercorporeality run through embodied interaction and soma design. Known for: Phenomenology of Perception (1945); The Visible and the Invisible (1964); Eye and Mind (1961). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty
- **Maxine Sheets-Johnstone** (Eugene, US, 1930–) — Dancer, choreographer and philosopher at the University of Oregon who argues for the primacy of movement: we first come to know ourselves and the world as animate, moving bodies, and thinking in movement comes before thinking in words. A key reference for kinesthetic and movement-based design. Known for: The Phenomenology of Dance (1966); The Primacy of Movement (1999; 2nd ed. 2011); The Corporeal Turn (2009). https://benjamins.com/catalog/aicr.82
- **Nishida Kitarō / 西田几多郎** (Kyoto, Japan, 1870–1945) — Founder of the Kyoto School whose 'pure experience', prior to the split of subject and object, and 'acting intuition', where seeing and making are one bodily act, bring Zen-informed body-mind thought into philosophy. Known for: An Inquiry into the Good (1911); Place (1926); Acting intuition (kōiteki chokkan). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitar%C5%8D_Nishida
- **Pierre Vermersch** (Paris, France) — French psychologist who created the explicitation interview (entretien d'explicitation) for eliciting detailed descriptions of lived action, the basis of micro-phenomenology and of many first-person methods in design research. Known for: L'entretien d'explicitation (1994); Groupe de Recherche sur l'Explicitation (GREX). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Vermersch
- **Richard Shusterman / 理查德·舒斯特曼** (Boca Raton, US, 1949–) — Pragmatist philosopher at Florida Atlantic University who founded somaesthetics, the study of the body as the site of sensory appreciation and creative self-fashioning. Höök's soma design takes its name and its call for cultivated bodily awareness from his work, which also draws on Confucian and Zen self-cultivation. Known for: Pragmatist Aesthetics (1992); Performing Live (2000); Body Consciousness (2008); Thinking through the Body (2012). https://www.shusterman.net
- **Shaun Gallagher / 肖恩·加拉格尔** (Memphis, US, 1948–) — Philosopher at the University of Memphis who clarified the difference between body schema and body image and developed enactivist and phenomenological accounts of embodied cognition used in HCI and design. Known for: How the Body Shapes the Mind (2005); The Phenomenological Mind (2008, with Zahavi); Enactivist Interventions (2017). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Gallagher
- **Shigehisa Kuriyama / 栗山茂久** (Cambridge, US, 1954–) — Harvard historian of medicine whose comparison of Greek and Chinese medicine shows how touching the pulse and seeing the muscles produced different felt bodies, a reminder that body experience is culturally trained. Known for: The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine (1999). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigehisa_Kuriyama
- **Thomas Fuchs** (Heidelberg, Germany) — Psychiatrist and philosopher at Heidelberg University who develops phenomenological psychiatry and an ecological view of the brain as an organ of a living, embodied being, including work on body memory and intercorporeality. Known for: Ecology of the Brain (2018); In Defence of the Human Being (2021). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fuchs_(Mediziner)
- **Thomas Hanna / 托马斯·汉纳** (Novato, US, 1928–1990) — Philosopher and Feldenkrais practitioner who coined 'somatics' and defined the soma as the body perceived from within by first-person perception, the sense of 'soma' that soma design adopts; founder of Hanna Somatic Education. Known for: Bodies in Revolt (1970); The Body of Life (1980); Somatics (1988). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Louis_Hanna
- **Tu Weiming / 杜维明** (Beijing, China, 1940–) — New Confucian philosopher at Harvard and Peking University who describes Confucian learning as embodied knowing (tizhi) and self-cultivation (xiushen), a Chinese frame for the knowing body in soma design. Known for: Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation (1985); Centrality and Commonality (1989); Humanity and Self-Cultivation (1979). http://tuweiming.net
- **Vittorio Gallese / 维托里奥·加莱塞** (Parma, Italy, 1959–) — Neuroscientist at the University of Parma, co-discoverer of mirror neurons, whose embodied simulation theory explains how we understand others' actions and feelings by re-enacting them in our own bodies. Known for: Discovery of mirror neurons (1990s, Parma group); Embodied simulation theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Gallese
- **Watsuji Tetsurō / 和辻哲郎** (Tokyo, Japan, 1889–1960) — Japanese philosopher who described human being as 'betweenness' (aidagara), always embodied in relations and in climate (fūdo), a counterpoint to individualist views of the body. Known for: Fūdo: Climate and Culture (1935); Ethics (Rinrigaku, 1937–49). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsur%C5%8D_Watsuji
- **William James / 威廉·詹姆斯** (Cambridge, US, 1842–1910) — American pragmatist and psychologist who argued that emotion is the feeling of bodily changes ('we feel sorry because we cry'), an early body-first theory of emotion that affective loops return to. Known for: What Is an Emotion? (1884); The Principles of Psychology (1890). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James
- **Yang Rur-bin / 杨儒宾** (Hsinchu, Taiwan, 1956–) — Philosopher at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan whose studies of the Confucian view of the body trace how qi, form and mind were understood as one cultivated whole in classical Chinese thought. Known for: 儒家身体观 (The Confucian View of the Body, 1996); 中国古代思想中的气论及身体观 (ed., 1993). https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/楊儒賓
- **Yuasa Yasuo / 汤浅泰雄** (Tokyo, Japan, 1925–2005) — Japanese philosopher who argued that in Eastern thought body-mind unity is not a given but an achievement of self-cultivation (shugyō) through practices such as meditation and the martial arts, a source for soma design's attention to training the body. Known for: The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory (1977; English 1987); The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy (1993). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuo_Yuasa

### Somatic practitioners & teachers

- **B. K. S. Iyengar / B·K·S·艾扬格** (Pune, India, 1918–2014) — Indian yoga teacher whose precise, prop-supported Iyengar Yoga and 'Light on Yoga' made asana and pranayama widely teachable as practices of alignment and breath awareness. Known for: Light on Yoga (1966); Light on Pranayama (1981); Iyengar Yoga. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._K._S._Iyengar
- **Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen** (El Sobrante, US, 1941–) — Movement artist and therapist who founded Body-Mind Centering, an embodied study of the body's systems, from organs and fluids to developmental movement patterns, experienced from the inside. Known for: Body-Mind Centering (founded 1973); Sensing, Feeling, and Action (1993). https://www.bodymindcentering.com
- **Charlotte Selver / 夏洛特·塞尔弗** (New York, US, 1901–2003) — Gindler's student who brought Sensory Awareness to the United States, teaching at Esalen and with Zen teachers; her simple experiments in noticing sensation are close cousins of soma design's attunement exercises. Known for: Sensory Awareness (taught in the US from 1938); Reclaiming Vitality and Presence (2007). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Selver
- **Cheng Man-ch'ing / 郑曼青** (Taipei, Taiwan; New York, US, 1902–1975) — Chinese tai chi master, painter and physician who created the Yang-style short form and brought tai chi to Taiwan and New York, where it spread as a practice of relaxed, rooted body-mind unity. Known for: Yang-style short form (37 postures); Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheng_Man-ch%27ing
- **Chungliang Al Huang / 黄忠良** (1937–) — Chinese-American dancer and tai chi teacher who taught at Esalen with Alan Watts and blended tai chi, dance and calligraphy into a practice of Tao as moving, felt experience. Known for: Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain (1973); Tao: The Watercourse Way (1975, with Alan Watts); Living Tao Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungliang_Al_Huang
- **Elsa Gindler / 埃尔莎·金德勒** (Berlin, Germany, 1885–1961) — Berlin teacher whose practice of attentive, experimental sensing of breathing, standing and moving, rather than exercises, seeded Sensory Awareness and influenced many later somatic methods. Known for: Gymnastik für Berufsmenschen (1926); Sensory awareness work (Berlin, 1910s–1961). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_Gindler
- **Emilie Conrad** (Los Angeles, US, 1934–2014) — Dancer who founded Continuum, a practice of breath, sound and wave-like micro-movement that explores the body as fluid process, informing somatic dance and fluid, undulating forms of interaction. Known for: Continuum Movement (founded 1967); Life on Land (2007). https://www.continuummovement.com
- **F. M. Alexander / F·M·亚历山大** (London, UK, 1869–1955) — Australian actor who developed the Alexander Technique to unlearn habitual tension through 'inhibition' and conscious direction of head, neck and back; John Dewey was his student, and the technique is a root of somatics. Known for: The Alexander Technique; The Use of the Self (1932); Man's Supreme Inheritance (1910). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Matthias_Alexander
- **Gerda Alexander / 格尔达·亚历山大** (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1908–1994) — Danish teacher who created Eutony, a practice of sensing and adjusting muscle tone through contact with the floor, objects and one's own skin. Known for: Eutony (Eutonie, from 1940); Eutony: The Holistic Discovery of the Total Person (1985). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerda_Alexander
- **Ida Rolf / 艾达·罗尔夫** (New York, US, 1896–1979) — Biochemist who created Structural Integration (Rolfing), hands-on work on fascia to reorganise the body in gravity; one of the founding figures of somatic bodywork. Known for: Structural Integration (Rolfing); Rolfing: The Integration of Human Structures (1977). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Rolf
- **Irmgard Bartenieff / 伊姆加德·巴特尼耶夫** (New York, US, 1900–1981) — Laban's student, dancer and physical therapist who developed the Bartenieff Fundamentals of connected, whole-body movement and brought Laban analysis to dance therapy in the United States. Known for: Bartenieff Fundamentals; Body Movement: Coping with the Environment (1980). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irmgard_Bartenieff
- **Jon Kabat-Zinn / 乔·卡巴金** (Massachusetts, US, 1944–) — Founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at the University of Massachusetts, whose body scan and mindful movement brought Buddhist-derived practice into medicine; the body scan is a standard soma design exercise. Known for: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (1979); Full Catastrophe Living (1990); Wherever You Go, There You Are (1994). https://jonkabat-zinn.com/
- **Mabel Elsworth Todd / 梅布尔·托德** (New York, US, 1880–1956) — Teacher whose 'The Thinking Body' used anatomical imagery to change posture and movement, the origin of ideokinesis in dance and somatic education. Known for: The Thinking Body (1937); Ideokinesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Elsworth_Todd
- **Mary Starks Whitehouse** (Los Angeles, US, 1911–1979) — Dancer and Jungian-trained therapist whose 'movement in depth' became Authentic Movement: a mover follows inner impulses with eyes closed while a witness attends, a model of first- and second-person bodily attention. Known for: Authentic Movement ('movement in depth', 1950s–60s); Physical Movement and Personality (1963). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_Movement
- **Moshé Feldenkrais / 摩谢·费登奎斯** (Tel Aviv, Israel, 1904–1984) — Physicist and judoka who created the Feldenkrais Method, gentle, attentive movement lessons that refine self-awareness. Höök and her lab trained in Feldenkrais, and its lessons became a core soma design practice for sensitising the designer. Known for: Awareness Through Movement (1972); The Feldenkrais Method (Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration); Body and Mature Behavior (1949). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosh%C3%A9_Feldenkrais
- **Nancy Stark Smith / 南希·史塔克·史密斯** (Northampton, US, 1952–2020) — Dancer who co-developed Contact Improvisation with Steve Paxton and co-edited Contact Quarterly for decades, spreading the practice and its underscore worldwide. Known for: Contact Quarterly (co-founded 1975); Caught Falling (2008, with David Koteen). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Stark_Smith
- **Noguchi Michizō / 野口三千三** (Tokyo, Japan, 1914–1998) — Japanese physical educator who created Noguchi Taisō, a practice of feeling the body as a water-filled sack moved by gravity and ease rather than muscular effort, influential in Japanese theatre and somatics. Known for: Noguchi Taisō (野口体操); 原初生命体としての人間 (The Human as Primordial Life Form, 1972). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/野口三千三
- **Peter A. Levine / 彼得·列文** (Boulder, US) — Psychologist who developed Somatic Experiencing, a body-based approach to trauma that tracks sensation and lets arrested survival responses complete, widely used in somatic therapy. Known for: Waking the Tiger (1997); In an Unspoken Voice (2010); Somatic Experiencing. https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/about-peter
- **Ron Kurtz** (Ashland, US, 1934–2011) — Psychotherapist who created the Hakomi Method, a body-centred, mindfulness-based therapy that uses gentle experiments in present-moment bodily experience. Known for: Hakomi Method (1970s); Body-Centered Psychotherapy: The Hakomi Method (1990). https://ronkurtz.com
- **Rudolf Laban / 鲁道夫·拉班** (Weybridge, UK, 1879–1958) — Dance theorist who created Labanotation and the effort and space theory that became Laban Movement Analysis, the vocabulary movement computing and MOCO researchers use to model movement qualities. Known for: Labanotation (1928); Effort (1947, with Lawrence); The Mastery of Movement (1950). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_von_Laban
- **Shunryū Suzuki / 铃木俊隆** (San Francisco, US, 1904–1971) — Sōtō Zen priest who founded the San Francisco Zen Center; 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' taught zazen posture and breath as the practice itself, shaping Western contemplative practice. Known for: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970); San Francisco Zen Center (founded 1962). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunry%C5%AB_Suzuki
- **Steve Paxton / 史蒂夫·帕克斯顿** (Vermont, US, 1939–2024) — Dancer and Judson Dance Theater member who initiated Contact Improvisation, where partners move through shared weight, touch and momentum; a model for designing with touch and intercorporeality. Known for: Contact Improvisation (1972); Material for the Spine (2008); Magnesium (1972). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Paxton
- **Thích Nhất Hạnh / 释一行** (Hue, Vietnam, 1926–2022) — Vietnamese Zen monk who founded Plum Village and taught mindful breathing and walking meditation worldwide; his practices of coming home to the body through breath inform breath-based design. Known for: The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975); Plum Village (founded 1982); Walking meditation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh
- **Ueshiba Morihei / 植芝盛平** (Iwama, Japan, 1883–1969) — Founder of aikido, a martial art of blending with an attacker's movement and ki, framed as a spiritual practice of harmony; a reference for designing with partnered movement and yielding. Known for: Aikido; Budō (1938); The Art of Peace (teachings). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morihei_Ueshiba
- **Wang Xiangzhai / 王芗斋** (Beijing, China, 1885–1963) — Chinese martial artist who founded Yiquan and championed zhan zhuang (standing post), a practice of cultivating whole-body awareness and intent through stillness. Known for: Yiquan (意拳); Zhan zhuang standing practice (站桩). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Xiangzhai
- **Wilhelm Reich / 威廉·赖希** (Rangeley, US, 1897–1957) — Austrian psychoanalyst who argued that emotional history is held in the body as 'muscular armour', founding body psychotherapy; later lineages include bioenergetics and Hakomi. Known for: Character Analysis (1933); Body armour (muscular armouring) concept. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

### Artists, dancers & choreographers

- **Anna Halprin / 安娜·哈尔普林** (Kentfield, US, 1920–2021) — Dancer who pioneered postmodern and community dance on her outdoor deck, using dance for healing and collective ritual (Planetary Dance); a reference for participatory, somatic movement. Known for: Parades and Changes (1965); Planetary Dance (from 1981); Tamalpa Institute (1978, with Daria Halprin). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Halprin
- **Char Davies / 夏尔·戴维斯** (Montréal, Canada, 1954–) — Canadian artist whose VR works Osmose and Ephémère are navigated by breath and balance, letting the 'immersant' float through translucent landscapes; a founding example of breath-based, embodied VR. Known for: Osmose (1995); Ephémère (1998). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_Davies
- **Deborah Hay / 黛博拉·海** (Austin, US, 1941–) — Choreographer whose practice asks performers questions such as 'what if every cell in my body at once has the potential to perceive?', making perception itself the dance. Known for: Solo Performance Commissioning Project (1998–); My Body, The Buddhist (2000); Using the Sky (2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Hay
- **Eiko Otake** (New York, US) — Japanese-born movement artist who, with Koma, made slow, earth-bound dances shaped by butoh study with Ohno and Hijikata; her solo 'A Body in Places' brings the fragile body into sites of disaster and memory. Known for: Eiko & Koma (1972–2014); A Body in Places (2014–); Duet Project. https://www.eikootake.org/
- **Ernesto Neto / 埃内斯托·内托** (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1964–) — Brazilian artist whose soft, spice-scented, walk-in crocheted installations invite visitors to touch, smell and lie down, extending the Neo-Concrete tradition of sensorial participation. Known for: Leviathan Thot (2006); anthropodino (2009); GaiaMotherTree (2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernesto_Neto
- **Hijikata Tatsumi / 土方巽** (Tokyo, Japan, 1928–1986) — Japanese dancer who founded butoh, a dance of the 'body that has died', using imagery-driven transformation that rejects Western dance form; a radical source for somatic performance. Known for: Kinjiki (1959); Revolt of the Body (1968); Butoh-fu (butoh notation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsumi_Hijikata
- **Hélio Oiticica / 埃利奥·奥蒂西卡** (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1937–1980) — Brazilian artist whose Parangolés, capes worn and danced in by participants, and immersive environments such as Tropicália made art something completed by the moving body. Known for: Parangolés (1964); Tropicália (1967); Éden (1969). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9lio_Oiticica
- **Lin Hwai-min / 林怀民** (Taipei, Taiwan, 1947–) — Taiwanese choreographer who founded Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and trained dancers in tai chi daoyin, meditation, martial arts and calligraphy, building a contemporary dance from East Asian body-mind practice. Known for: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (founded 1973); Songs of the Wanderers (1994); Cursive trilogy (2001–05). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Hwai-min
- **Lisa Park** (New York, US) — Korean-American artist whose Eunoia uses an EEG headset to turn her brainwaves and emotional states into vibrations rippling pools of water, making inner states visible through the body. Known for: Eunoia (2013); Eunoia II (2014); Blooming (2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Park_(artist)
- **Lygia Clark / 莉吉亚·克拉克** (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1920–1988) — Brazilian artist who moved from Neo-Concrete sculpture to relational objects handled on the body, and finally to therapeutic sessions; her sensorial works are touchstones for art felt through the skin. Known for: Bichos (1960); Sensorial masks and Relational Objects (1960s–70s); Structuring of the Self (1976–88). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lygia_Clark
- **Marco Donnarumma / 马可·多纳鲁马** (Berlin, Germany, 1984–) — Italian performer and researcher who plays the sounds of his own muscles with the Xth Sense biosensor and performs with AI-driven prostheses, staging the body as unstable and hybrid. Known for: Xth Sense (2011); Corpus Nil (2016); Amygdala (2018). http://marcodonnarumma.com
- **Marina Abramović / 玛丽娜·阿布拉莫维奇** (New York, US, 1946–) — Serbian performance artist whose durational works test the limits of body and presence, and whose Abramović Method trains audiences in slow walking, stillness and attention. Known for: Rhythm 0 (1974); The Artist Is Present (2010); Abramović Method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87
- **Merce Cunningham / 默斯·坎宁汉** (New York, US, 1919–2009) — Choreographer who used chance procedures and, from 1989, the LifeForms software co-developed with Thecla Schiphorst to compose dance, an early meeting of choreography and computing. Known for: Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1953); Trackers (1991, made with LifeForms); BIPED (1999). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merce_Cunningham
- **Min Tanaka / 田中泯** (Yamanashi, Japan, 1945–) — Japanese dancer who developed Body Weather, a training that treats the body as weather, changing with its environment, practised on his farm; it shaped Lian Loke and many dance-tech practitioners. Known for: Body Weather (from 1978); Hyperdance; Body Weather Farm (1985). http://www.min-tanaka.com
- **Myron Krueger / 迈伦·克鲁格** (US, 1942–) — Computer artist whose VIDEOPLACE let people's silhouettes play with graphics and with each other through whole-body movement, decades before motion sensing; an origin of responsive environments. Known for: VIDEOPLACE (1975); Artificial Reality (1983). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_W._Krueger
- **Ohno Kazuo / 大野一雄** (Yokohama, Japan, 1906–2010) — Co-founder of butoh with Hijikata, whose improvised, deeply interior dancing into his hundreds made the felt inner life of the body visible. Known for: Admiring La Argentina (1977); My Mother (1981). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Ohno
- **Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / 拉斐尔·洛萨诺-亨默** (Montréal, Canada, 1967–) — Mexican-Canadian artist whose biometric installations, such as Pulse Room, where each visitor's heartbeat makes a bulb flicker among hundreds, turn shared bodily rhythms into public space. Known for: Pulse Room (2006); Pulse Park (2008); Body Movies (2001). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Lozano-Hemmer
- **Rebecca Horn / 丽贝卡·霍恩** (Berlin, Germany, 1944–2024) — German artist whose early body extensions, prosthetic gloves, fans and masks, altered how wearers touch and sense space, early examples of wearable estrangement. Known for: Unicorn (1970–72); Finger Gloves (1972); Arm Extensions (1968). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Horn
- **Shen Wei / 沈伟** (New York, US, 1968–) — Chinese choreographer and painter who created Natural Body Development, a movement system drawing on Chinese opera, tai chi and anatomy, and choreographed the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening scroll. Known for: Natural Body Development; Folding (2000); Connect Transfer (2004). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Wei
- **Stelarc / 斯特拉克** (Perth, Australia, 1946–) — Cypriot-Australian performance artist who extends and exposes the body with robotic arms, internet-actuated muscles and a cell-grown ear, provoking questions about the obsolete and augmented body. Known for: Third Hand (1980); Ping Body (1996); Ear on Arm (2006–). http://stelarc.org/
- **Tehching Hsieh / 谢德庆** (New York, US, 1950–) — Taiwanese-American artist whose year-long performances, punching a time clock every hour or being tied to another person, make lived time and bodily endurance the material of art. Known for: Time Clock Piece (1980–81); Rope Piece (1983–84, with Linda Montano); Thirteen Year Plan (1986–99). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehching_Hsieh
- **Trisha Brown / 崔莎·布朗** (New York, US, 1936–2017) — Postmodern choreographer whose release-based, fluid movement and gravity-defying equipment pieces changed how dancers use weight, momentum and ease. Known for: Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970); Accumulation (1971); Set and Reset (1983). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisha_Brown
- **Wayne McGregor / 韦恩·麦格雷戈** (London, UK, 1970–) — British choreographer who works with cognitive scientists and AI, from studies of choreographic thinking to Living Archive, a tool trained on his archive that proposes movement to dancers. Known for: Company Wayne McGregor (founded 1992); Living Archive: An AI Performance Experiment (2019, with Google Arts & Culture). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_McGregor
- **Wen Hui / 文慧** (Beijing, China, 1960–) — Beijing choreographer who co-founded Living Dance Studio, China's first independent dance company, and makes documentary dance from women's and everyday bodies and their memories. Known for: Living Dance Studio (co-founded 1994 with Wu Wenguang); Report on the Body (2002); Memory (2008). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Hui_(dancer)
- **William Forsythe / 威廉·福赛斯** (Frankfurt, Germany, 1949–) — Choreographer whose Improvisation Technologies and Synchronous Objects made the principles of movement visible and analysable, bridging choreography and computing. Known for: Improvisation Technologies (CD-ROM, 1999); Choreographic Objects; Synchronous Objects (2009). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Forsythe_(choreographer)
- **Yvonne Rainer / 伊冯娜·雷纳** (New York, US, 1934–) — Judson Dance Theater choreographer whose Trio A stripped dance to task-like, everyday movement, turning attention to the ordinary moving body. Known for: Trio A (1966); No Manifesto (1965). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Rainer
- **Zhang Huan / 张洹** (Shanghai, China, 1965–) — Chinese artist from Beijing's East Village whose endurance performances, such as sitting covered in honey in a public latrine, use the body to register physical and social conditions. Known for: 12 Square Meters (1994); To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain (1995); Family Tree (2000). http://www.zhanghuan.com

### Labs & research groups

- **ACCAD (Ohio State University)** (Columbus, US) — The Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design at Ohio State, a hub for motion capture, dance and technology, where Synchronous Objects with William Forsythe and later dance-tech work were produced. https://accad.osu.edu
- **BeAnotherLab** (Barcelona, ES) — An interdisciplinary collective based in Barcelona that created The Machine to Be Another, an embodiment system in which two people swap first-person perspectives and move in synchrony to 'be in another's body', used in art, research and dialogue work. https://beanotherlab.org
- **Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University** (Coventry, UK) — Coventry University's dance research centre, directed by Sarah Whatley, working on somatic practices, dance documentation, digital performance and disability; it hosts the Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices and the International Dance and Somatic Practices Conference. https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/areas-of-research/centre-for-dance-research/
- **Embodied Media (Keio University KMD) / 庆应义塾大学 Embodied Media 实验室** (Yokohama, JP) — Kouta Minamizawa's lab at the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design in Yokohama, creating media that record, share and enhance bodily experience, from haptic design and the TECHTILE toolkit to telexistence. It is a centre of Japan's 'haptic design' community. https://www.embodiedmedia.org/
- **ex)situ (LISN, Université Paris-Saclay / Inria)** (Paris-Saclay, FR) — The Extreme Situated Interaction team at LISN, Université Paris-Saclay and Inria, led by Wendy Mackay; Sarah Fdili Alaoui developed her research on dance, somatics and first-person methods in HCI here. https://ex-situ.lisn.upsaclay.fr/
- **Exertion Games Lab** (Melbourne, AU) — Florian 'Floyd' Mueller's lab at Monash University in Melbourne, designing 'bodily play': exertion games, integrated human-computer bodies and playful interactions with the body. It co-organised the CHI 2017 soma-based design theory workshop and the Dagstuhl seminar on body-centric computing. https://exertiongameslab.org
- **Human Computer Integration Lab (University of Chicago)** (Chicago, US) — Pedro Lopes's lab at the University of Chicago, which builds interfaces that borrow parts of the user's body, such as electrical muscle stimulation that moves the hand, chemical haptics and temperature illusions. It raises questions of agency and ownership central to soma design with machines. https://lab.plopes.org
- **i_mBODY Lab (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)** (Madrid, ES) — The Interactive Multisensory Body-centred Experiences lab at UC3M Madrid, led by Ana Tajadura-Jiménez, which uses sound, touch and vision to change how people perceive their own bodies (e.g. Magic Feet, body-transformation experiences in BODYinTRANSIT). Elena Márquez Segura works here on embodied ideation and sketching. https://imbodylab.com/
- **IRCAM Sound Music Movement Interaction (ISMM)** (Paris, FR) — The team at IRCAM / STMS Lab in Paris that studies movement–sound interaction: gesture following, interactive sonification and movement learning, with tools such as MuBu and CoMo used by dancers, musicians and soma designers. Frédéric Bevilacqua leads it; Jules Françoise worked here on movement sonification and somatic learning. https://www.stms-lab.fr/team/interaction-son-musique-mouvement/
- **JEDI Lab (National University of Singapore)** (Singapore, SG) — The Joyful Experiences in Design and Interaction lab in NUS's Department of Design, which studies technology for reflection, care and rest. Its CHI 2026 paper 'Toward Pluralizing Reflection in HCI through Daoism' draws on Daoist priests and practitioners to describe embodied, relational reflection (stillness, resonance, emergence). https://joyfuldesignlab.com
- **JST ERATO Inami JIZAI Body Project / 稻见自在化身体项目** (Tokyo, JP) — Masahiko Inami's research project (University of Tokyo, with Keio, Waseda and other partners) on 'body editing': how perception, action and social behaviour change when bodies are augmented, e.g. JIZAI ARMS, a wearable set of detachable robot arms. It frames augmentation through the Japanese idea of jizai, moving freely and at ease. https://www.jst.go.jp/erato/inami/en/index.html
- **KTH Interaction Design group (Soma Design)** (Stockholm, SE) — Kristina Höök's research group at KTH's Division of Media Technology and Interaction Design in Stockholm, where soma design was formulated and where Soma Mat, Breathing Light, the Soma Bits and much feminist intimate-health design were made. The group works in 'the IxD Jungle' at the top of KTH's main building and trains designers through Feldenkrais-based somaesthetic practice. https://www.kth.se/mid/research/interaction-design
- **MIT Media Lab Fluid Interfaces** (Cambridge, US) — Pattie Maes's group at the MIT Media Lab building wearable and physiological interfaces for attention, memory, sleep and wellbeing, such as Dormio for dream incubation and biofeedback wearables for calm. https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/fluid-interfaces/overview/
- **MIT Media Lab Tangible Media Group / MIT 可触媒体组** (Cambridge, US) — Hiroshi Ishii's group at the MIT Media Lab, which founded tangible user interfaces and made early remote-touch works such as inTouch (1997), later shape displays (inFORM) and 'radical atoms'. Its work is a starting point for touch and shape-change in soma design. https://tangible.media.mit.edu
- **Mixed Reality Laboratory (Nottingham)** (Nottingham, UK) — The University of Nottingham's interdisciplinary HCI lab led by Steve Benford, known for performance-led research with artists (Blast Theory) and for body-centred works such as the breath-controlled Exobuilding and the Broncomatic breathing ride. It is a key partner of Höök's group in soma design and somatic play. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/mixedrealitylab/
- **Mobile Life Centre** (Stockholm, SE) — A VINN Excellence Centre (2007–2017) in Kista, Stockholm, hosted by Stockholm University with SICS (now RISE) and the Interactive Institute, co-founded and directed by Kristina Höök. Its studios produced affective-loop and early somaesthetic prototypes (eMoto, Affective Diary, Brightr, Soma Mat) that seeded soma design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Life_Centre
- **NTNU Department of Computer Science (IDI)** (Trondheim, NO) — The Norwegian University of Science and Technology's computer science department in Trondheim, home of Dag Svanæs, whose work on Merleau-Ponty and interaction design and on 'kinaesthetic thinking' made phenomenology of the body usable for HCI. Svanæs co-organised the Dagstuhl seminar on body-centric computing. https://www.ntnu.edu/idi
- **Open Lab (Newcastle University)** (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) — Newcastle University's digital civics and HCI lab, where Madeline Balaam led feminist research on women's intimate health and pelvic-floor technologies before moving to KTH. It is a reference point for feminist and care-oriented soma design. https://openlab.ncl.ac.uk
- **Reality Design Lab / 现实设计实验室** — Botao 'Amber' Hu's lab designing speculative and immersive realities (HoloKit, EchoVision) and teaching 'Somaesthetic Realities'; it makes this gallery, Somatic Reality Inspire. https://reality.design
- **SFU School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT)** (Surrey, CA) — Simon Fraser University's school in Surrey, BC, where Thecla Schiphorst brought somatics and dance into interaction design (whisper, soft(n), somatic connoisseurship), Philippe Pasquier's Metacreation Lab works on movement and generative art, and Diane Gromala built pain-focused VR. https://www.sfu.ca/siat.html
- **Social Emotional Technology Lab (UC Santa Cruz)** (Santa Cruz, US) — Katherine Isbister's lab at UC Santa Cruz designing games and wearables for social and emotional connection, including physical co-located play and the Sensual Evaluation Instrument lineage. Isbister is a long-time collaborator of Höök on affective and somaesthetic design. https://setlab.soe.ucsc.edu
- **Synthesis Center (Arizona State University)** (Tempe, US) — Sha Xin Wei's research centre at ASU building responsive environments in which movement, sound and light co-evolve, grounded in phenomenology and process philosophy; it continues the Topological Media Lab's work from Concordia University. https://synthesiscenter.net
- **Tsinghua University Future Laboratory / 清华大学未来实验室** (Beijing, CN) — An interdisciplinary laboratory at Tsinghua University in Beijing whose Center for Perception and Consciousness Research designs multisensory, touch-based experiences such as tactile music appreciation and dream visualisation, and which publishes widely at CHI on haptics and human-computer interaction. https://thfl.tsinghua.edu.cn/index.htm
- **TU/e Department of Industrial Design** (Eindhoven, NL) — Eindhoven University of Technology's design department, where Caroline Hummels and colleagues developed embodied, phenomenology-informed design education and research (skills-based design, embodied sensemaking, transformative practices). Hummels co-organised the CHI 2017 soma-based design theory workshop. https://www.tue.nl/en/our-university/departments/industrial-design
- **UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC)** (London, UK) — University College London's HCI centre, home of Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze's research on affective body movement and touch, including movement sonification for people with chronic pain (Go-with-the-Flow) and body-perception work with Ana Tajadura-Jiménez. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/
- **University of Sydney Design Lab** (Sydney, AU) — The research arm of design at the University of Sydney's School of Architecture, Design and Planning (formerly the Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition). Lian Loke, a former head, translates dance and somatic knowledge into interaction design, e.g. Labanotation for movement-based interaction and the 'moving and making strange' approach with Toni Robertson. https://design.sydney.edu.au/about/

### Somatic schools & trainings

- **Aikikai Foundation / 合气会** (Tokyo, JP) — The Tokyo headquarters (Hombu Dōjō) of aikido founded by Morihei Ueshiba, whose practice of blending with a partner's movement is used in somatic education and embodied design. https://aikikai.or.jp/
- **American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT) / 美国亚历山大技巧协会** (US) — The largest US association of certified Alexander Technique teachers, setting teacher-training standards for the practice of noticing and inhibiting habitual patterns of use, which soma designers cite as a model of estrangement and re-education. https://alexandertechniqueusa.org/
- **Chinese Health Qigong Association / 中国健身气功协会** (Beijing, CN) — China's national body for health qigong, which standardises and teaches forms such as Baduanjin, Wuqinxi, Yijinjing and Liuzijue that regulate body, breath and mind together. https://www.chqa.org.cn
- **Continuum Movement / Continuum 连续体动作** — The practice founded by Emilie Conrad that uses breath, sound and slow, wave-like movement to explore the body as fluid; teachers continue it through workshops and trainings. https://continuummovement.com
- **Dr. Ida Rolf Institute / 罗尔夫研究所** (Boulder, US) — The school of Rolfing Structural Integration, the manual and movement education method developed by Ida Rolf, one of the founding somatic disciplines taught at Esalen in the 1960s. https://rolf.org
- **Feldenkrais Guild of North America / 北美费登奎斯协会** — The professional association of Feldenkrais practitioners in the US and Canada, which lists accredited trainings, teachers and Awareness Through Movement classes. https://feldenkrais.com
- **Hakomi Institute / Hakomi 研究所** — The training organisation for Hakomi, Ron Kurtz's mindfulness-centred somatic psychotherapy that studies how beliefs are held in posture, gesture and felt sensation. https://hakomiinstitute.com
- **International Feldenkrais Federation (IFF) / 国际费登奎斯联合会** — The international umbrella body of Feldenkrais Method guilds and training accreditation boards, which maintains the Method's standards, archives and research resources. Feldenkrais lessons (Awareness Through Movement) are the somatic training most used in Höök's soma design. https://feldenkrais-method.org
- **International Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Association / 国际杨氏太极拳协会** — The association led by Yang Jun, a fifth-generation lineage holder of Yang-style tai chi, which teaches the traditional Yang forms through affiliated centres worldwide. https://yangfamilytaichi.com
- **Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio / 大野一雄舞踏研究所** (Yokohama, JP) — The butoh studio of Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno in Yokohama, which still holds regular workshops and keeps the Kazuo Ohno Archives of films, photographs and notes. http://www.kazuoohnodancestudio.com/english/
- **Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS) / 拉班/巴特尼夫动作研究所** (New York, US) — The New York institute founded by Irmgard Bartenieff that certifies Laban Movement Analysts and teaches Bartenieff Fundamentals, the vocabulary of Effort, Shape and Space that movement-based interaction designers use to describe felt movement qualities. https://labaninstitute.org
- **Noguchi Taisō Association / 野口体操之会** (Tokyo, JP) — The group that continues Noguchi Michizō's (1914–1998) Noguchi Taisō, a Japanese movement practice of releasing unnecessary effort and letting weight and fluid move the body, taught for decades at Tokyo University of the Arts. https://www.noguchi-taisou.jp/
- **Plum Village / 梅村** (Dordogne, FR) — The monastery and practice centre founded by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh in south-west France, teaching mindful breathing, walking meditation and 'interbeing' to a worldwide lay community. https://plumvillage.org
- **San Francisco Zen Center / 旧金山禅修中心** (San Francisco, US) — The Sōtō Zen community founded by Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which runs City Center, Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara; a main route by which zazen reached Western designers and scholars. https://www.sfzc.org
- **Seitai Kyokai / 整体协会** (Tokyo, JP) — The Japanese association founded by Haruchika Noguchi to teach seitai, including katsugen undō, spontaneous 'regenerating movement' that lets the body move by itself, and yukiho, attentive laying-on of hands. https://www.seitai.org
- **Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT) / 亚历山大技巧教师协会** (London, UK) — The oldest professional body for the Alexander Technique, founded in London in 1958 by teachers trained by F. M. Alexander; it accredits teacher-training courses and runs an extensive public guide to the Technique. https://alexandertechnique.co.uk
- **Somatic Experiencing International / 国际身体经验疗法协会** — The organisation that trains practitioners in Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing, a body-based approach to trauma that works with felt sensation, titration and the nervous system's capacity to settle. https://traumahealing.org
- **Tamalpa Institute / 塔玛尔帕学院** (California, US) — Founded in 1978 by Anna and Daria Halprin in Marin County, California, the institute trains people in the Life/Art Process, a movement-based expressive arts therapy that links body, feeling and imagery. https://tamalpa.org/
- **The Discipline of Authentic Movement / 真实动作修习** — Janet Adler's development of Mary Starks Whitehouse's Authentic Movement: a mover moves with eyes closed while a witness attends, training embodied presence and first-person articulation. https://disciplineofauthenticmovement.com
- **The International Focusing Institute / 国际聚焦研究所** (New York, US) — The institute founded by Eugene Gendlin to teach Focusing, attending to the bodily 'felt sense' of a situation before words, and his Thinking at the Edge. Soma designers use Focusing to articulate felt experience. https://focusing.org
- **The School for Body-Mind Centering / 身心平衡技法学校** — The school founded by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen to teach Body-Mind Centering, an experiential study of body systems, developmental movement and embodied anatomy that shapes somatic dance and several soma design methods. https://www.bodymindcentering.com
- **Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance / 圣三一拉班音乐舞蹈学院** (London, UK) — The London conservatoire whose dance faculty descends from Rudolf Laban's Art of Movement Studio and the Laban Centre; it houses the Laban Archive and teaches somatic approaches alongside contemporary dance. https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk
- **UMass Memorial Center for Mindfulness / 麻省大学正念中心** (Worcester, US) — The centre that grew from Jon Kabat-Zinn's Stress Reduction Clinic (1979) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and its body scan were developed and taught. https://www.ummhealth.org/services-treatments/center-mindfulness
- **Vipassana Meditation (dhamma.org) / 内观禅修（葛印卡传承）** — The worldwide network of centres offering S. N. Goenka's free ten-day Vipassana courses, in which practitioners systematically scan bodily sensations with equanimity, one of the most widespread body-scan practices. https://www.dhamma.org/en/index

### Conferences & workshops

- **ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems** — The largest HCI conference, where most soma design papers, workshops and first-person research have appeared (e.g. Somaesthetic Appreciation Design, 2016; the soma-based design theory workshop, 2017). https://chi2027.acm.org
- **ACM CHI PLAY** — The ACM conference on play and games research, where exertion games, bodily play and somatic play design are presented. https://chiplay.acm.org
- **ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS)** — The ACM conference on design practice and research in interaction, a frequent venue for soma design methods such as Teaching Soma Design (2019) and Sketching Soma Bits (2022). https://dis.acm.org
- **ACM Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI)** — The ACM conference on tangible, embedded and embodied interaction, with studios and an arts track where soma designers demonstrate and share material and bodily explorations. https://tei.acm.org
- **Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII)** — The main international conference of the affective computing community (AAAC), covering emotion sensing, physiological signals and affective interaction, the field that Höök's 'affective loops' responded to. https://acii-conf.net
- **Augmented Humans Conference** — An international conference on technologies that extend human perception, action and body, from supernumerary limbs to sensory substitution; useful for seeing where augmentation meets felt embodiment. https://augmented-humans.org
- **Dagstuhl Seminar 17392: Body-Centric Computing** (Wadern, DE) — A week-long seminar at Schloss Dagstuhl in September 2017 where 23 researchers mapped the future of body-centric computing; organised by Steve Benford, Kristina Höök, Joe Marshall, Florian Mueller and Dag Svanæs and reported in ACM Interactions (2018). https://www.dagstuhl.de/17392
- **Design Culture & Somaesthetics Conference** (Budapest, HU) — A 2019 conference at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, organised with the Hungarian Forum of Somaesthetics, with Richard Shusterman as keynote, on how somaesthetics can inform design culture. https://www.designresearchsociety.org/events/design-culture-somaesthetics-conference
- **ICHEC (formerly Chinese CHI)** — The International Conference on Human-Engaged Computing of the International Association of Chinese HCI (ICACHI), formerly Chinese CHI; it gathers Chinese-speaking and Asian HCI researchers around technology, culture and lived experience. ICHEC 2025 was held at Singapore Management University. https://ichec.icachi.org/
- **International Dance and Somatic Practices Conference** (Coventry, UK) — The conference series hosted by C-DaRE at Coventry University that brings together dance artists, somatic educators and researchers; its sixth edition took place in 2023. https://www.coventry.ac.uk/events/2023/dance-and-somatic-practices-conference-2023/
- **MOCO: International Conference on Movement and Computing** — A conference that brings together dancers, somatic practitioners, artists and researchers working on movement and computation, with papers, performances and workshops. MOCO'26 was held in Montpellier. https://www.movementcomputing.org/
- **NIME: New Interfaces for Musical Expression** — The international conference on new musical instruments and interfaces, where bodily, gestural and biosignal instruments (e.g. muscle-sensing and breath instruments) are presented and performed. https://nime.org/
- **NordiCHI** — The Nordic conference on human-computer interaction, a home of the Scandinavian design tradition from which Höök's group and many soma design papers come. http://www.nordichi.org/
- **Soma-Based Design Theory (CHI 2017 workshop)** — A CHI 2017 workshop that followed the CHI 2016 meeting on aesthetics in soma-based design and moved from philosophy to design theory, asking how practical, pragmatic and analytical work can build soma design knowledge. https://exertiongameslab.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/soma_chi2017.pdf

### Art & dance venues, festivals

- **Ars Electronica / 林茨电子艺术节** (Linz, AT) — The festival, centre and Prix for art, technology and society in Linz, where many body-based works, from Stelarc's performances to JIZAI ARMS, have been shown. https://ars.electronica.art
- **Cloud Gate Dance Theatre / 云门舞集** (New Taipei, TW) — Taiwan's leading contemporary dance company, founded by Lin Hwai-min, whose dancers train in tai chi daoyin, qigong, martial arts and meditation; works such as Songs of the Wanderers and the Cursive trilogy grow from this body training. https://www.cloudgate.org.tw
- **Dance Umbrella** (London, UK) — London's international festival of contemporary dance, presenting dance in theatres and public space each October. https://danceumbrella.co.uk
- **Esalen Institute / 伊莎兰学院** (Big Sur, US) — The retreat centre at Big Sur, California, where Moshe Feldenkrais, Ida Rolf, Charlotte Selver and others taught in the 1960s–70s; the word and field of 'somatics' grew in its human potential movement milieu. https://www.esalen.org
- **ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival** (Vienna, AT) — Europe's largest contemporary dance festival, held every summer in Vienna, with hundreds of workshops in somatic practices, contact improvisation and dance technique alongside performances. https://www.impulstanz.com
- **Jacob's Pillow** (Becket, US) — The dance centre and summer festival founded by Ted Shawn on a farm in Becket, Massachusetts, a National Historic Landmark with an extensive dance archive. https://www.jacobspillow.org
- **Judson Memorial Church (Judson Dance Theater)** (New York, US) — The Greenwich Village church whose gymnasium hosted Judson Dance Theater (1962–1964), where Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown and others turned pedestrian and task-based movement into dance, the ground from which contact improvisation grew. https://www.judson.org
- **Movement Research** (New York, US) — A New York laboratory for dance and movement-based practice founded in 1978, offering classes, residencies, the Movement Research at Judson Church series and the Performance Journal; many somatic and release techniques circulated through it. https://movementresearch.org/
- **NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC)** (Tokyo, JP) — A media art centre in Tokyo Opera City run by NTT East, showing interactive and sensory works on perception, communication and the body. https://www.ntticc.or.jp/en/
- **Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB) / 台湾当代文化实验场** (Taipei, TW) — A cultural laboratory on a former air-force base in Taipei with a Future Vision Lab and technology-art residencies, showing immersive, sound and body-based work. https://clab.org.tw
- **Tanzfabrik Berlin** (Berlin, DE) — A Berlin production house and dance school with a long-standing programme of contact improvisation, release and somatic classes, residencies and performances. https://www.tanzfabrik-berlin.de
- **Tanzquartier Wien** (Vienna, AT) — Vienna's centre for contemporary dance and performance in the MuseumsQuartier, combining performances with theory, research and a public dance library. https://www.tqw.at/
- **V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media** (Rotterdam, NL) — The Rotterdam centre for art and technology that has long supported body-centred media art, from sensor-based performance to wearable and interactive installations. https://v2.nl
- **Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) / 山口情报艺术中心** (Yamaguchi, JP) — An art centre in Yamaguchi, Japan, whose in-house YCAM InterLab develops media technology with artists, including Reactor for Awareness in Motion (RAM), a dance-creation toolkit made with Forsythe dancer Yoko Ando. https://www.ycam.jp/en/

### Journals, books & podcasts

- **ACM Interactions** — The ACM's magazine for the HCI community, where accessible pieces on soma design and body-centric computing have appeared (e.g. the Dagstuhl 'Body-centric computing' report, 2018). https://interactions.acm.org
- **ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)** — The ACM's flagship HCI journal, which published key soma design papers such as 'Moving and Making Strange' (2013), 'Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case' (2021). https://dl.acm.org/journal/tochi
- **Body & Society** — A SAGE journal of the social and cultural analysis of the body, spanning phenomenology, feminist theory, affect and technology. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/bod
- **Body, Space & Technology** — An open-access journal on performance, the body and digital technology, publishing research on dance-tech, telematic performance and embodied media. https://www.bstjournal.com
- **Choreographic Practices** — An Intellect journal on choreography as an expanded practice, including choreographic thinking in research, technology and everyday life. https://www.intellectbooks.com/choreographic-practices
- **Constructivist Foundations** — An open-access journal on constructivist and enactive approaches that publishes micro-phenomenology and second-person methods research, with open peer commentary. https://constructivist.info
- **Contact Quarterly** — The dance and improvisation journal that began in 1975 as the newsletter of the contact improvisation community, edited for decades by Nancy Stark Smith and Lisa Nelson; also a publisher of books and videos on somatic practice. https://contactquarterly.com
- **Journal of Consciousness Studies** — The interdisciplinary journal whose 1999 special issue 'The View from Within' (eds. Francisco Varela and Jonathan Shear) set out first-person methods for the study of experience. https://www.imprint.co.uk/product/jcs/
- **Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices** — A peer-reviewed journal published by Intellect and edited from Coventry University's C-DaRE, covering somatic practices in dance, performance, education and research. https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-dance-somatic-practices
- **Journal of Embodied Research** — An open-access, peer-reviewed journal whose articles are videos, publishing embodied and practice-led research in which the body carries the argument. https://jer.openlibhums.org
- **Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences** — A Springer journal linking phenomenology with cognitive science, home of much work on embodiment, enaction and first-person methods (founded by Shaun Gallagher and Natalie Depraz). https://link.springer.com/journal/11097
- **Somatechnics** — An Edinburgh University Press journal on how bodies and technologies co-constitute each other, with a strong feminist and queer focus. https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/soma
- **The Journal of Somaesthetics / 身体美学期刊** (Aalborg, DK) — The open-access journal of somaesthetics published by Aalborg University Press with Florida Atlantic University's Center for Body, Mind, and Culture; its 2019 issue 'Somaesthetics and Technology' gathered soma design work. https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/JOS

### Networks & associations

- **ACM SIGCHI** — The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction, which sponsors CHI, DIS, TEI, CHI PLAY and other venues where soma design is published. https://sigchi.org
- **Association for Hanna Somatic Education / Hanna 身心教育协会** — The association of practitioners of Thomas Hanna's Hanna Somatic Education, the method of the thinker who coined 'soma' as the body experienced from within and founded the Novato Institute and Somatics magazine-journal. https://www.associationforhannasomaticeducation.com/
- **Body-Mind Centering Association (BMCA) / 身心平衡技法协会** — The international membership association of Body-Mind Centering practitioners and teachers, with a professional locator, conferences and recordings. https://www.bmcassociation.org
- **Center for Body, Mind, and Culture (Florida Atlantic University) / 身体、心智与文化中心** (Boca Raton, US) — Richard Shusterman's centre at Florida Atlantic University, the international hub of somaesthetics: it co-publishes the Journal of Somaesthetics, runs conferences such as 'Bodies of Culture: Somaesthetic Explorations' (2026) and hosts visiting scholars. https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/bodymindculture/
- **ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association) / 国际身体动作教育与治疗协会** — The professional association, active since 1988, that sets standards for and registers somatic movement educators and therapists across many methods (BMC, Laban/Bartenieff, Hanna Somatics, Continuum and others). https://ismeta.org
- **Mind & Life Institute / 心智与生命研究所** — The institute co-founded by Francisco Varela, Adam Engle and the Dalai Lama to bring contemplative practice and science into dialogue; its dialogues and summer research institutes shaped contemplative and first-person science. https://www.mindandlife.org

### Archives & resources

- **Dance Notation Bureau** (New York, US) — The New York organisation holding the world's largest collection of Labanotation dance scores and training notators, a key resource behind Laban-based descriptions of movement in HCI. https://www.dancenotation.org
- **Gendlin Online Library / Gendlin 在线文库** — The International Focusing Institute's free library of Eugene Gendlin's writings, including A Process Model and his papers on the felt sense and Thinking at the Edge. https://focusing.org/gendlin
- **Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive** — An online collection of dance videos filmed at Jacob's Pillow from the 1930s to today, with illustrated essays. https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org
- **KTH DiVA publication archive** (Stockholm, SE) — KTH's open repository, where the doctoral theses and many papers of Höök's soma design students (e.g. Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Pedro Sanches, Pavel Karpashevich) can be read in full. https://kth.diva-portal.org
- **Micro-phenomenology / 微观现象学** — The hub of the micro-phenomenology community (the 'psychological microscope' developed from Claire Petitmengin's and Pierre Vermersch's interview methods), listing research axes, trainings and events. https://www.microphenomenology.com
- **Motion Bank** — A research platform begun by The Forsythe Company (2010–2013) to create online digital scores of choreographers' thinking, continued at Hochschule Mainz as tools for annotating and sharing dance. https://motionbank.org
- **Numeridanse** (Lyon, FR) — A free international dance video library run from the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, with performances, documentaries, dance films and masterclasses. https://numeridanse.com/
- **Soma Bits (KTH)** (Stockholm, SE) — KTH's page for the Soma Bits, a prototyping toolkit of soft shapes with heat, vibration and shape-changing actuators that designers place on and around the body to feel and share what a design might feel like. https://www.kth.se/mid/research/interaction-design/projects/soma-bits-1.921861
- **Synchronous Objects** — An online project by William Forsythe and Ohio State University (2009) that translates the choreographic structure of One Flat Thing, reproduced into data visualisations and animated objects. https://synchronousobjects.osu.edu

## Creators

- **Kristina Höök** (44) — Professor of Interaction Design, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Kristina Höök moved from affective computing at SICS (eMoto, Affective Diary, Affective Health) to founding soma design at KTH. The book Designing with the Body (MIT Press, 2018) sets out the programme. https://www.kth.se/profile/khook
- **Madeline Balaam** (19) — Professor of Interaction Design, KTH Royal Institute of Technology (previously Open Lab, Newcastle University). HCI researcher working on women's health, intimate care, rehabilitation and feminist approaches to designing for the body.
- **Anna Ståhl** (17) — Senior researcher, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. Anna Ståhl is an interaction designer who has worked with Höök since eMoto and the Affective Diary, and co-designed the Soma Mat, Breathing Light and Pelvic Chair.
- **Florian 'Floyd' Mueller** (16) — Professor, Monash University; directs the Exertion Games Lab. HCI researcher on exertion games, bodily play and human-computer integration. https://exertiongameslab.org
- **Thecla Schiphorst** (16) — Professor, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University. Media artist, dancer and Certified Laban Movement Analyst who brought somatics into HCI. https://www.sfu.ca/siat/people/research-faculty/thecla-schiphorst.html
- **Lian Loke** (12) — Associate Professor, Design Lab, The University of Sydney. Interaction designer and performance-maker who works with the moving, feeling body in design. https://www.lianloke.com/
- **Vasiliki Tsaknaki** (12) — Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhagen. Vasiliki Tsaknaki did a PhD at KTH on craft and materials in interaction design and then worked on shape-change, breathing and biodata in the soma design group.
- **Claudia Núñez-Pacheco** (9) — Design researcher, Malmö University (formerly KTH). Claudia Núñez-Pacheco develops Focusing-based methods for articulating felt sense in design, and worked as a postdoc in the KTH soma design group.
- **Pedro Sanches** (9) — Interaction design researcher, Umeå University (formerly KTH). Pedro Sanches designed Affective Health at SICS and later worked on soma design, biodata and lived data at KTH.
- **Katherine Isbister** (8) — Professor of Computational Media, University of California, Santa Cruz. Game and HCI researcher on emotion, movement and social play; author of How Games Move Us (2016). https://www.isbister.org
- **Marianela Ciolfi Felice** (8) — Researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Marianela Ciolfi Felice works on participatory, body-centred design for women's health, including menopause, menstruation and contraception.
- **Pavel Karpashevich** (8) — Researcher, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (PhD, KTH). Pavel Karpashevich designed interactive costumes at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and shape-changing garments such as the Soma Corset during doctoral work at KTH.
- **Sarah Fdili Alaoui** (8) — Professor of Art, Science and Technology, Université Paris-Saclay; choreographer. Dancer, Laban Movement Analyst and HCI researcher working on movement qualities and dance with technology. https://saralaoui.com/
- **Elena Márquez Segura** (7) — Associate Professor, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Interaction designer working on embodied and social play, movement and physical training.
- **Noura Howell** (7) — Assistant Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Georgia Tech. HCI researcher and designer who builds emotional biosensing garments and installations; PhD from UC Berkeley's School of Information, now directs the Future Feelings Lab at Georgia Tech. https://nourahowell.com
- **Rachael Garrett** (7) — Interaction design researcher (PhD, KTH), felt ethics and soma design. Rachael Garrett studied how ethical sensibility is felt in the body during design work, and co-designed shape-changing garments and drone interactions at KTH.
- **Joseph La Delfa** (6) — Interaction design researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology (formerly RMIT Exertion Games Lab). Joseph La Delfa designs somaesthetic human-drone interactions, from Drone Chi at RMIT to How to Train Your Drone at KTH.
- **Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard** (6) — Associate Professor, Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO). Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard designs feminist intimate technologies; as a postdoc at KTH, Søndergaard made Menarche Bits and worked on menstrual and menopause design.
- **Mel Slater** (6) — Distinguished Investigator, University of Barcelona (Event Lab); formerly UCL. Mel Slater pioneered research on presence and virtual body ownership, from body transfer to extended avatars.
- **Nadia Campo Woytuk** (6) — Interaction design researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Nadia Campo Woytuk works on feminist HCI for intimate health: menstrual blood, cervical mucus and the vaginal microbiome.
- **Shaowen Bardzell** (6) — Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology. HCI scholar known for feminist HCI and humanistic approaches to interaction design.
- **Steve Benford** (6) — Professor of Collaborative Computing, Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham. Co-founder of the Mixed Reality Lab, known for performance-led research with artists and the trajectories framework. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/mixedrealitylab/people/steve.benford
- **Botao 'Amber' Hu** (5) — Researcher, University of Oxford; founder of Reality Design Lab; inventor of HoloKit. Designer and researcher (Tsinghua BS, Stanford MS in AI) who leads Reality Design Lab's work on embodied, social mixed reality and XR soma design; his group's works have been shown at SIGGRAPH, CHI, TEI and Ars Electronica. https://reality.design
- **Frédéric Bevilacqua** (5) — Head of Sound Music Movement Interaction team (ISMM), IRCAM. Researcher who has led IRCAM's work on gesture following, motion-sound interaction and embodied music tools since the 2000s. https://ismm.ircam.fr/
- **George Poonkhin Khut** (5) — Artist; Senior Lecturer, UNSW Art & Design. Australian artist and interaction designer who has made heart-rate, breath and brainwave biofeedback artworks since the early 2000s, for galleries and for children's hospitals. https://www.georgekhut.com
- **Jiabao Li** (5) — Artist, designer and technologist; Associate Professor, Northeastern University. Chinese-born artist and inventor (Harvard GSD alum, former Apple designer) whose installations, wearables, XR, bio-art and performances deal with perception, feminist biotech and the more-than-human; co-directs work with Reality Design Lab. https://www.jiabaoli.org
- **Jules Françoise** (5) — CNRS researcher, LISN, Université Paris-Saclay. Researcher in movement-sound interaction and interactive machine learning. https://julesfrancoise.com/
- **Katta Spiel** (5) — Assistant Professor, Human-Computer Interaction group, TU Wien. HCI researcher working on neurodivergent, disabled, non-binary and trans perspectives on embodied interaction; SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award 2020.
- **Kelsey Cotton** (5) — Singer, composer and HCI researcher (KTH; Chalmers University of Technology). Kelsey Cotton is a classically trained singer who designs and performs with breathing-driven instruments and robotic garments, first at KTH and then in a PhD on AI and voice at Chalmers.
- **Laia Turmo Vidal** (5) — Researcher, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid / KTH. Interaction designer researching technology for physical training, movement learning and embodied design methods. https://www.laiaturmovidal.com
- **Lygia Clark** (5) — Artist and therapist (1920–1988). Brazilian Neo-Concrete artist who moved from painting to 'propositions' completed by participants' bodies, and finally to a therapy with relational objects. https://portal.lygiaclark.org.br/
- **Paul Tennent** (5) — Associate Professor, Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham. HCI researcher on amusement rides, bodily experience and biosensing in extreme experiences. https://paultennent.wordpress.com
- **Richard Shusterman** (5) — Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities, Florida Atlantic University. American pragmatist philosopher who founded somaesthetics, the study of the body as the site of sensory appreciation and self-fashioning, and a trained Feldenkrais practitioner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shusterman
- **Toni Robertson** (5) — Professor Emerita of Interaction Design, University of Technology Sydney. Interaction design researcher who brought Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology into the study of cooperative work and movement-based interaction.
- **Caroline Hummels** (4) — Professor of Design and Theory for Transformative Qualities, Eindhoven University of Technology. Design researcher who works on embodied, movement-based and first-person design, and on design for societal transformation.
- **Jeffrey Bardzell** (4) — Professor of Informatics, Pennsylvania State University. HCI theorist working on design criticism, aesthetics and feminist and humanistic perspectives on interaction design.
- **Joo Young Park** (4) — Interaction design researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Joo Young Park designs touch technologies for menstrual discomfort and critiques FemTech through feminist disability studies.
- **Kristina Popova** (4) — Researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. HCI researcher on vulnerability, ethics and intimate data in soma design.
- **Mark Johnson** (4) — Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Oregon. Pragmatist philosopher who developed image schemas and argues that meaning is rooted in bodily, felt, aesthetic experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Johnson_(philosopher)
- **Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze** (4) — Professor of Affective Computing and Interaction, UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC). Researcher on body movement, touch and affect, who led the EmoPain project on technology for chronic pain rehabilitation.
- **Ozgun Kilic Afsar** (4) — Researcher, MIT Media Lab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Ozgun Kilic Afsar develops fluidic fibre actuators and soft robotic garments, combining a KTH soma design PhD with work in MIT's Tangible Media Group.
- **Phoebe Sengers** (4) — Professor of Information Science and Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University. Cultural theorist and technologist whose work on reflective design, affect and ambiguity shaped critical and experiential HCI.
- **Rob Comber** (4) — Associate Professor of Communication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. HCI researcher on civic, feminist and food technologies, formerly at Open Lab, Newcastle University.
- **Susan Kozel** (4) — Professor, School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University. Dancer, philosopher and researcher whose phenomenology of performance with technology shaped somatic approaches in HCI.
- **Yoav Luft** (4) — Researcher and martial arts practitioner, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Yoav Luft builds sensing and actuation systems for the soma design group and brings a long martial arts practice into design.
- **Ana Tajadura-Jiménez** (3) — Associate Professor, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; lead of the i_mBODY Lab. Researcher in multisensory body perception who uses sound to change how people feel their own body; led the ERC project BODYinTRANSIT. https://imbodylab.com/ana-tajadura-jimenez/
- **Aneesha Singh** (3) — Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC). HCI researcher on chronic pain, body awareness and technology for health and wellbeing.
- **Anupriya Tuli** (3) — HCI researcher, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT-Delhi). HCI researcher on menstrual health, education and mobility in India, working with feminist and period-positive approaches.
- **Brendan Walker** (3) — Artist and 'thrill engineer'; founder of Thrill Laboratory; collaborator of the Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham. Brendan Walker designs amusement rides and VR swings as artworks about thrill and the felt body.
- **Danlin Huang** (3) — Artist, designer-researcher and AR developer; Reality Design Lab. Trained in industrial design and media art at the China Academy of Art; uses XR, biosensors and AI to enrich bodily experience; lead designer of FeltSight.
- **Ekaterina R. Stepanova** (3) — Researcher, iSpace Lab, Simon Fraser University. Ekaterina Stepanova studies transformative and self-transcendent experiences in VR.
- **Eugene Gendlin** (3) — Philosopher and psychotherapist, University of Chicago (1926–2017). American philosopher who described the 'felt sense', a bodily, pre-verbal sense of a whole situation, and developed Focusing and Thinking at the Edge from it. https://focusing.org
- **John Desnoyers-Stewart** (3) — Artist-researcher, iSpace Lab, Simon Fraser University. John Desnoyers-Stewart makes social VR installations about connection, breath and touch.
- **Jon Kabat-Zinn** (3) — Molecular biologist, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Jon Kabat-Zinn (born 1944) holds a PhD in molecular biology and founded the Stress Reduction Clinic and MBSR at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn
- **Jun Nishida** (3) — Assistant Professor, University of Maryland; director of the Embodied Dynamics Lab. Japanese researcher who designs wearables that let people borrow each other's bodies: EMS devices that share muscle activity and rigs that give you a child's eye height; previously at the University of Tsukuba and the University of Chicago. https://junnishida.net
- **Marshmallow Laser Feast** (3) — Experiential art collective. Marshmallow Laser Feast is a London collective (Barney Steel, Robin McNicholas and others) making multisensory VR and installations about perception and the natural world. https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com
- **Martin Jonsson** (3) — Interaction design researcher, Södertörn University. Martin Jonsson (also published as Jönsson) co-developed the heated Soma Mat and the Sarka sound mat with Höök's group.
- **Miquel Alfaras** (3) — Biomedical engineer and HCI researcher (PLUX Wireless Biosignals; Universitat Jaume I). Miquel Alfaras worked on biosignal hardware at PLUX and on soma design with KTH in the AffecTech network.
- **Neha Kumar** (3) — Associate Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology. HCI researcher on technology and global development, with a focus on women's health in the Global South.
- **Pedro Lopes** (3) — Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Chicago; director of the Human Computer Integration Lab. Pedro Lopes builds devices that integrate with the body, such as electrical muscle stimulation that moves the wearer's limbs. https://plopes.org
- **Sara Eriksson** (3) — Interaction design researcher (PhD, KTH), drones and choreography. Sara Eriksson studied how a choreographer and engineers shaped the movement of drones for an opera, and the ethics of movement.
- **Sarah Homewood** (3) — Design researcher, feminist and somatic HCI. Design researcher working on feminist, somatic and more-than-human perspectives on the body and self-tracking.
- **Teresa Almeida** (3) — Interaction design researcher; PhD from Open Lab, Newcastle University; later at Umeå University. Portuguese designer-researcher who works on women's intimate health, pelvic fitness and self-knowledge of the body through wearables and interactive systems.
- **Thomas Hanna** (3) — Philosopher and founder of Hanna Somatic Education (1928–1990). American philosopher who coined 'somatics' and defined the soma as the body experienced from within by first-person perception; he trained with Moshe Feldenkrais. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Louis_Hanna
- **Antonio Camurri** (2) — Professor, DIBRIS, University of Genoa; founder of Casa Paganini–InfoMus. Italian computer scientist who built EyesWeb and has studied expressive movement qualities in dance for three decades. http://www.casapaganini.org/
- **Antonio Damasio** (2) — University Professor of Neuroscience, University of Southern California. Neuroscientist whose somatic marker hypothesis showed that bodily feeling is part of reasoning, and who traces consciousness to the body's homeostatic feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Damasio
- **Audrey Desjardins** (2) — Associate Professor, School of Art + Art History + Design, University of Washington. Design researcher who works through autobiographical design and living with prototypes at home. https://desjardins.design
- **Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen** (2) — Movement artist, occupational therapist, founder of Body-Mind Centering. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen is an occupational therapist, dancer and educator who founded the School for Body-Mind Centering in 1973. https://www.bodymindcentering.com
- **Carl Unander-Scharin** (2) — Composer and opera singer; Professor, Karlstad University. Swedish tenor and composer who builds interactive instruments for singers, co-author with Kristina Höök. https://www.operamecatronica.com/
- **Carman Neustaedter** (2) — Professor, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University. HCI researcher on domestic and family technologies and telepresence.
- **Caroline Yan Zheng** (2) — Researcher in soft robotics and affective touch, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Caroline Yan Zheng designs soft robotic touch and studies how technologies can touch people well.
- **Char Davies** (2) — Painter and virtual reality artist; founder of Immersence. Canadian artist who made Osmose (1995) and Ephémère (1998), VR works navigated by breath and balance. https://www.immersence.com
- **Dag Svanæs** (2) — Professor of Interaction Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Interaction design researcher who has worked since the 1990s on what Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology means for interaction design.
- **Danielle Wilde** (2) — Professor of Embodied Design, Umeå Institute of Design / University of Southern Denmark. Designer and researcher working with the body, performance, wearables and participatory futures.
- **Diane Gromala** (2) — Professor, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University; former Canada Research Chair in Computational Technologies for Transforming Pain. Artist and researcher who has worked on VR and the body since the early 1990s, and on immersive technology for people living with chronic pain.
- **Dōgen Zenji** (2) — Zen master (1200–1253), founder of Japanese Sōtō Zen. Japanese Buddhist monk who brought Caodong Chan from Song China to Japan, founded Eiheiji and wrote the Shōbōgenzō and the Fukanzazengi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dgen
- **Evan Thompson** (2) — Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia. Philosopher of mind who co-authored The Embodied Mind and developed the deep continuity of life and mind, working across phenomenology, biology and Buddhist thought. https://evanthompson.me
- **Fannie Liu** (2) — HCI researcher; research scientist at Snap Research during Significant Otter. HCI researcher who studied expressive biosignals in a PhD at Carnegie Mellon's HCI Institute and built heart-rate sharing apps for close relationships. https://research.snap.com/publications/significant-otter-understanding-the-role-of-biosignals-in-communication.html
- **Francisco Varela** (2) — Biologist, neuroscientist and philosopher, CNRS Paris (1946–2001). Chilean biologist who co-developed autopoiesis, founded enactivism and neurophenomenology, and brought Buddhist mindfulness practice into cognitive science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Varela
- **George Lakoff** (2) — Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science and Linguistics, UC Berkeley. Cognitive linguist who, with Mark Johnson, showed that abstract thought is structured by metaphors grounded in bodily experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff
- **Gijs Huisman** (2) — Researcher in social touch technology; formerly University of Twente, later TU Delft. Gijs Huisman builds and studies devices for touch at a distance, such as the TaSST tactile sleeve.
- **Guðrún Margrét Ívansdóttir** (2) — Interaction design researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Guðrún Margrét Ívansdóttir designs haptic data physicalisations and shape-changing interfaces in the soma design group.
- **H. Henrik Ehrsson** (2) — Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet; Brain, Body and Self Laboratory. Henrik Ehrsson studies how the brain builds the feeling of owning a body, using illusions of body swap and out-of-body experience.
- **Hélio Oiticica** (2) — Artist (1937–1980). Brazilian Neo-Concrete artist whose Parangolés, Penetrables and environments turned viewers into wearers, dancers and inhabitants.
- **Ichikawa Hiroshi** (2) — Philosopher (1931–2002); professor at Meiji University. Japanese phenomenologist of the body who proposed the 'body as spirit' and the concept of mi, the lived body-self that extends into tools, others and the world. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/市川浩_(哲学者)
- **Irmgard Bartenieff** (2) — Dance theorist, physical therapist, pioneer of dance therapy. Irmgard Bartenieff (1900–1981), a student of Laban, applied his spatial concepts to polio rehabilitation in the 1940s and developed the body-level exercises known as Bartenieff Fundamentals. https://labaninstitute.org
- **Jin Moen** (2) — Interaction designer; founder of Movinto Fun (Oriboo); PhD KTH. Swedish designer who developed kinaesthetic movement interaction from modern dance and built the BodyBug wearable.
- **Joe Marshall** (2) — Associate Professor, Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham. Joe Marshall designs breath- and body-controlled experiences, from the Broncomatic ride to VR.
- **Jonas Löwgren** (2) — Professor of Interaction and Information Design, Linköping University. Interaction design researcher known for work on design knowledge and interaction aesthetics.
- **Joris H. Janssen** (2) — Researcher in affective computing (formerly Philips Research / TU Eindhoven). Researcher who studied heartbeats as social signals and physiological empathy at Philips Research and Eindhoven University of Technology.
- **Josh Andres** (2) — Researcher in human-computer integration; Australian National University (formerly Exertion Games Lab). Designer-researcher of integrated exertion systems such as eBikes that act with the rider.
- **Jérémy Frey** (2) — Co-founder, Ullo; HCI and physiological computing researcher. Researcher in physiological computing and tangible interfaces (Inria, IDC Herzliya) who co-founded Ullo to make biofeedback objects. https://phd.jfrey.info
- **Kouta Minamizawa** (2) — Professor, Keio University Graduate School of Media Design (KMD). Haptics researcher who leads the Embodied Media Project at Keio KMD, working on telexistence, haptic transmission and shared bodies. https://embodiedmedia.org
- **Kristina Mah** (2) — Design researcher, The University of Sydney. Design researcher who studies contemplative and compassion practices as a way to train designers' self-observation.
- **Kyung Yun Choi** (2) — Researcher; PhD, MIT Media Lab. Korean designer-researcher who builds tactile and pneumatic wearables that guide heart rate and breathing through gentle rhythms on the skin.
- **Manos Tsakiris** (2) — Professor of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London. Psychologist and neuroscientist of the bodily self, interoception and body ownership; leads the Lab of Action & Body. https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/
- **Marco Donnarumma** (2) — Performance artist, composer and researcher. Italian artist who makes biophysical music and performances in which muscle sounds and bioelectric signals drive sound, light and machines. https://marcodonnarumma.com/
- **Maurice Merleau-Ponty** (2) — Philosopher, Collège de France (1908–1961). French phenomenologist who argued that perception is the body's lived engagement with the world, and later described body and world as one 'flesh'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty
- **Mehmet Aydın Baytaş** (2) — HCI researcher and designer; worked on human-drone interaction at Koç University and Chalmers University of Technology. Mehmet Aydın Baytaş studies the design of social drones and co-authored the Drone Chi work.
- **Mirjana Prpa** (2) — Researcher, Simon Fraser University. Interaction designer working on breath, attention and immersive experiences.
- **Moshé Feldenkrais** (2) — Physicist, judo teacher and founder of the Feldenkrais Method. Moshé Feldenkrais (1904–1984) was a physicist and judo black belt who developed a method of learning through slow, attentive movement, taught as Awareness Through Movement group lessons and hands-on Functional Integration. https://feldenkrais-method.org
- **Muhammad Umair** (2) — HCI researcher, Lancaster University (AffecTech network). Muhammad Umair designed materials-based affective interfaces for emotion regulation in the EU AffecTech network, working with Höök's group on biodata and actuation.
- **Nancy Stark Smith** (2) — Dancer, co-founder of Contact Improvisation and Contact Quarterly. Nancy Stark Smith (1952–2020) was a founding participant of Contact Improvisation, co-editor of Contact Quarterly and creator of the Underscore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Stark_Smith
- **Os Keyes** (2) — Researcher in HCI and science and technology studies (PhD, University of Washington). Writer and researcher on gender, disability and technology, known for critical work on automated gender recognition.
- **Palindrome (Robert Wechsler)** (2) — Interactive dance company led by choreographer Robert Wechsler; co-developers of EyeCon and MotionComposer. Founded in New York in 1982 and based in Germany since 1991, Palindrome made early dance pieces in which camera tracking, skin contact and body signals play music and light, mostly with engineer Frieder Weiss. https://www.palindrome.de
- **Peter A. Levine** (2) — Psychologist, developer of Somatic Experiencing. Peter A. Levine (born 1942) holds doctorates in medical biophysics and psychology and developed Somatic Experiencing, a body-based approach to trauma. https://traumahealing.org
- **Petr Slovák** (2) — Reader in Human-Computer Interaction, King's College London. HCI researcher working on social-emotional learning, mental health and technologies that support felt, embodied skills.
- **Rebecca Horn** (2) — Artist (1944–2024). German artist who began with wearable body extensions (horns, feathers, long gloves) and moved on to kinetic sculpture.
- **Rem RunGu Lin** (2) — Media artist and researcher; Reality Design Lab collaborator. Media artist and researcher who combines contact improvisation, neurofeedback and mixed reality; co-teaches XR soma design with Botao Amber Hu.
- **Richard Byrne** (2) — Researcher, Exertion Games Lab (RMIT / Monash). Game designer and researcher on digital vertigo play using galvanic vestibular stimulation.
- **Scott Brave** (2) — Former researcher, Tangible Media Group, MIT Media Lab. Scott Brave built inTouch with Andrew Dahley and Hiroshi Ishii in the Tangible Media Group.
- **Shaan Chopra** (2) — HCI researcher (IIIT-Delhi; later University of Washington). HCI researcher on menstrual health and chronic illness self-management.
- **Stelarc** (2) — Performance artist; Distinguished Research Fellow, Curtin University. Cyprus-born Australian artist who since the 1970s has extended, suspended and wired his own body with robots, prostheses and networks. https://stelarc.org/
- **Tatsumi Hijikata** (2) — Dancer and choreographer (1928–1986), founder of butoh. Japanese choreographer whose 1959 Kinjiki started Ankoku Butoh, the 'dance of darkness' built from images, memory and the collapsing body. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsumi_Hijikata
- **Thomas Fuchs** (2) — Karl Jaspers Professor of Philosophical Foundations of Psychiatry, Heidelberg University. Psychiatrist and phenomenologist who describes the brain as an organ of a living body in relation with others, and developed the idea of intercorporeality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fuchs_(psychiatrist)
- **Wayne McGregor** (2) — Choreographer; Artistic Director, Studio Wayne McGregor. British choreographer who has worked with cognitive scientists and technologists on how movement ideas are made. https://waynemcgregor.com/
- **William Forsythe** (2) — Choreographer. American choreographer who directed Ballett Frankfurt and The Forsythe Company and developed digital tools to teach and analyse improvisation. https://www.williamforsythe.com/
- **Yuasa Yasuo** (2) — Philosopher (1925–2005); professor at Osaka, Tsukuba and Obirin universities. Japanese philosopher, a student of Watsuji Tetsurō, who wrote on the body, ki, self-cultivation and Jungian psychology; his 1977 book on the body became the main English-language source on Eastern mind-body theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuo_Yuasa
- **Yves Candau** (2) — Researcher and somatic movement practitioner, Simon Fraser University. Movement practitioner and researcher who connects somatic practices, embodied cognition and interaction design.
- **Zhuangzi** (2) — Daoist philosopher (c. 369–286 BCE). Warring States thinker whose book, the Zhuangzi, uses stories of craftsmen, butchers and swimmers to show skill as effortless, attuned action. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuang_Zhou
- **Åsa Unander-Scharin** (2) — Choreographer; Professor, Luleå University of Technology. Swedish choreographer and dancer who choreographs robots and mechatronic opera with Carl Unander-Scharin (Opera Mecatronica). https://www.operamecatronica.com/
- **A. D. (Bud) Craig** (1) — Neuroanatomist; formerly Barrow Neurological Institute. Neuroanatomist who mapped the interoceptive pathway from the body to the insular cortex and wrote How Do You Feel? (2015).
- **Aaron Pengyu Zhu** (1) — HCI researcher. HCI researcher studying reflection, contemplative traditions and non-Western epistemologies in interaction design.
- **Ad Verheul** (1) — Therapist, De Hartenberg Institute, Ede (Netherlands). Dutch therapist and co-founder of Snoezelen with Jan Hulsegge.
- **Alex A. Ahmed** (1) — HCI researcher; founder of Project Spectra (PhD, Northeastern University). Researcher and developer who built free, open-source voice training tools with and for trans communities.
- **Alexander Toet** (1) — Senior scientist, TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research). Alexander Toet studies perception, emotion and mediated social touch.
- **Alexis E. Block** (1) — Roboticist; PhD at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and ETH Zurich (HuggieBot). Alexis Block built the HuggieBot series of soft, warm hugging robots with Katherine J. Kuchenbecker.
- **Alice Haynes** (1) — Researcher in soft robotics and haptics; PhD at the University of Bristol. Alice Haynes designs soft, shape-changing objects for emotional support, such as a cushion that breathes.
- **Alva Noë** (1) — Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley. Philosopher who argues that perceiving is something we do with our moving bodies, through our practical grasp of how sensation changes as we move. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_No%C3%AB
- **Amanda Lazar** (1) — Associate Professor, College of Information, University of Maryland. HCI researcher working on ageing, dementia, menopause and the lived experience of changing bodies.
- **Amey Holden** (1) — HCI researcher (PhD, Open Lab, Newcastle University). Researcher on wearable technology for upper limb rehabilitation after stroke.
- **Amy Huggard** (1) — Designer; Exertion Games Lab alumna (RMIT University). Game designer who led Musical Embrace, a game played by strangers hugging a pillow-like controller.
- **Ana Paiva** (1) — Professor, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon (GAIPS, INESC-ID). Ana Paiva leads research on affective agents and social robots in Lisbon. In the EU SAFIRA project, Paiva's team built SenToy with Höök's SICS team.
- **Andrés Lucero** (1) — Professor of Interaction Design, Aalto University. Interaction design researcher working on participatory, playful and first-person design methods.
- **Angela Chang** (1) — Designer and researcher; formerly Tangible Media Group, MIT Media Lab. Angela Chang designed ComTouch, a vibrotactile device that adds touch to phone calls.
- **Anna Eaglin** (1) — HCI design researcher (Indiana University at the time of the work). Design researcher who studied sex toys and their users with Shaowen Bardzell.
- **Anna Halprin** (1) — Choreographer, pioneer of postmodern dance and dance for healing. Anna Halprin (1920–2021) founded the San Francisco Dancers' Workshop, developed the RSVP Cycles with Lawrence Halprin and co-founded the Tamalpa Institute with her daughter Daria in 1978. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Halprin
- **Anna Vallgårda** (1) — Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhagen. Interaction design researcher on computational composites, materiality and the body.
- **Annkatrin Jung** (1) — Interaction designer, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Annkatrin Jung designed the Breathing Garment, which applies deep touch pressure in time with breathing.
- **Antti Oulasvirta** (1) — Professor of Computer Science, Aalto University. HCI researcher, early on in mobile and contextual design, later in computational models of interaction.
- **Art Orienté Objet** (1) — Artist duo of Marion Laval-Jeantet and Benoît Mangin. Art Orienté Objet is a French duo working at the edges of art, ethology and biology since 1991.
- **Astrid Twenebowa Larssen** (1) — Interaction design researcher, University of Technology Sydney (formerly). Interaction design researcher who studied how movement-based interaction feels from the mover's own perspective.
- **Atsuko Tanaka** (1) — Gutai artist (1932–2005). Japanese artist of the Gutai group, known for Electric Dress, Bell and paintings of circles and wires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsuko_Tanaka_(artist)
- **B. K. S. Iyengar** (1) — Yoga teacher, founder of Iyengar Yoga. B. K. S. Iyengar (1918–2014) learned yoga from Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, taught in Pune and, after meeting Yehudi Menuhin in 1952, in Europe and the US; Light on Yoga (1966) made his method known worldwide. https://bksiyengar.com
- **Baptiste Caramiaux** (1) — CNRS researcher, ISIR, Sorbonne Université; formerly IRCAM and Goldsmiths. Baptiste Caramiaux studies machine learning for expressive gesture, music and movement.
- **BeAnotherLab** (1) — Interdisciplinary collective for embodiment and empathy research. BeAnotherLab is a collective founded in Barcelona in 2012 that builds low-cost embodiment systems for swapping perspectives and bodies. https://beanotherlab.org
- **Bernhard E. Riecke** (1) — Professor, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University; leads the iSpace Lab. Researcher on self-motion perception, VR and technology for transformative, connected experiences.
- **Bessel van der Kolk** (1) — Psychiatrist and trauma researcher. Bessel van der Kolk (born 1943) is a Dutch-born psychiatrist and trauma researcher, author of The Body Keeps the Score (2014). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessel_van_der_Kolk
- **Bigna Lenggenhager** (1) — Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Konstanz; formerly EPFL (Blanke lab). Bigna Lenggenhager led the 2007 full-body illusion study with Olaf Blanke and Thomas Metzinger.
- **Bronwyn Tarr** (1) — Evolutionary anthropologist and dancer; formerly Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford. Bronwyn Tarr studies how dancing and moving in synchrony bond people together.
- **Carey Jewitt** (1) — Professor of Learning and Technology, UCL; director of the UCL Knowledge Lab. Carey Jewitt led the ERC project IN-TOUCH on how digital technologies reshape touch and communication.
- **Carl DiSalvo** (1) — Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology. Carl DiSalvo works on design, robots and public life; at Carnegie Mellon he co-designed The Hug, a robotic pillow for intimate communication.
- **Catherine D'Ignazio** (1) — Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning, MIT; director of the Data + Feminism Lab. Scholar, artist and designer working on feminist data practices; co-author of Data Feminism (2020).
- **Cathy Treadaway** (1) — Professor of Creative Practice, Cardiff Metropolitan University; leads the LAUGH project. Design researcher on compassionate design, playful objects and wellbeing in advanced dementia.
- **Charles Windlin** (1) — Interaction design researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Charles Windlin designed and built the Soma Bits, the lab's kit of heat, vibration and shape-change actuators for sketching with the body.
- **Charlotte Selver** (1) — Teacher of Sensory Awareness. Charlotte Selver (1901–2003) studied with Elsa Gindler in Berlin, emigrated to the US in 1938 and taught the work as Sensory Awareness, including at Esalen from 1963. https://www.sensoryawareness.org
- **Cheng Man-ch'ing** (1) — Tai chi teacher, painter, poet and physician (1902–1975). Student of Yang Chengfu who created the 37-posture short form and taught it in Taiwan and, from 1964, in New York. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheng_Man-ch%27ing
- **Chinese Health Qigong Association** (1) — National association for Health Qigong under the General Administration of Sport of China. Body that in the early 2000s standardised traditional qigong sequences such as Baduanjin, Yijinjing, Wuqinxi and Liuzijue as 'Health Qigong'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baduanjin_qigong
- **Chris Elsden** (1) — Research Fellow in Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh. HCI researcher who studies personal data, memory and speculative design of data-driven futures.
- **Chris Woebken** (1) — Designer and researcher; co-founder of the Extrapolation Factory. Chris Woebken is a German-born designer working on speculative and participatory futures. https://www.chriswoebken.com
- **Christian Boltanski** (1) — Artist (1944–2021). French artist whose installations about memory, absence and death used photographs, clothing, light bulbs and sound.
- **Christian Nold** (1) — Artist, designer and researcher. Artist and researcher who invented the Bio Mapping device and has run participatory emotion-mapping projects in more than 25 cities. http://biomapping.net/
- **Chunky Move (Gideon Obarzanek with Frieder Weiss)** (1) — Contemporary dance company. Australian dance company; its piece Glow (2006) was made by choreographer Gideon Obarzanek with software artist Frieder Weiss. https://chunkymove.com/
- **Claire Petitmengin** (1) — Professor Emerita, Institut Mines-Télécom; member of the Archives Husserl, Paris. Philosopher and researcher who developed the micro-phenomenological interview from Varela's neurophenomenology and Vermersch's explicitation interview. https://www.microphenomenology.com
- **Clara Moge** (1) — HCI researcher; formerly UCL Interaction Centre. Clara Moge studies how physiological data can be shared between people to support social and emotional connection.
- **CuteCircuit** (1) — Wearable-technology fashion label founded by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz. CuteCircuit, founded in 2004, designs garments with embedded electronics that light up, sense and touch the wearer. https://cutecircuit.com
- **Daito Manabe** (1) — Artist and programmer, Rhizomatiks. Japanese artist, programmer and DJ, co-founder of Rhizomatiks, working with data, bodies and electrical stimulation. https://www.daito.ws/en/
- **Daria Halprin** (1) — Expressive arts therapist, co-founder of the Tamalpa Institute. Daria Halprin is a movement-based expressive arts therapist who co-founded the Tamalpa Institute with Anna Halprin in 1978 and directs it. https://www.tamalpa.org
- **David Kirsh** (1) — Professor of Cognitive Science, UC San Diego. Cognitive scientist who studies thinking with bodies and things, including how dancers think through marking movement. https://adrenaline.ucsd.edu/kirsh/
- **David Rokeby** (1) — Media artist. Canadian artist whose Very Nervous System (1982–91) was one of the first camera-based interactive sound environments. http://www.davidrokeby.com/
- **Deborah Hay** (1) — Choreographer, member of Judson Dance Theater. Deborah Hay (born 1941) danced with Merce Cunningham, took part in Judson Dance Theater and developed a choreographic practice built on attention questions such as 'What if every cell in my body at once has the potential to perceive…'. https://www.deborahhay.com
- **Dennis Schleicher** (1) — Design researcher and consultant; OCAD University Strategic Foresight and Innovation alumnus. Design researcher who wrote on bodystorming as a form of embodied designing.
- **Dianya Mia Hua** (1) — HCI and design researcher. HCI researcher working on somaesthetic, feminist and disability-informed design for sexual wellbeing.
- **Die Gute Fabrik** (1) — Independent game studio (Douglas Wilson, Nils Deneken, Hannes Hvidberg). Copenhagen studio known for physical, screenless party games such as Johann Sebastian Joust. https://www.gutefabrik.com/
- **Domna Banakou** (1) — Researcher in virtual embodiment; formerly Event Lab, University of Barcelona. Domna Banakou studies how virtual bodies change perception and bias.
- **Don Hanlon Johnson** (1) — Professor, founder of the Somatics graduate program, California Institute of Integral Studies. Philosopher and Rolfer who founded the first accredited graduate program in somatics and edited anthologies that gathered the founders of the somatic movement. https://www.donhanlonjohnson.com
- **Drew Leder** (1) — Professor of Western and Eastern Philosophy, Loyola University Maryland. Philosopher and physician who analysed why the body usually recedes from awareness and 'dys-appears' in pain and illness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Leder
- **Edmund Husserl** (1) — Philosopher, founder of phenomenology (1859–1938). German philosopher who founded phenomenology and distinguished the lived body (Leib), felt from within, from the physical body (Körper) seen as a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl
- **Eleanor Rosch** (1) — Professor Emerita of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley. Cognitive psychologist known for prototype theory of categories and for bringing contemplative practice into the study of mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Rosch
- **Elsa Gindler** (1) — Gymnastik teacher, pioneer of somatic education. Elsa Gindler (1885–1961) was a Berlin gymnastik teacher whose 'work on the human being' explored sitting, standing and walking through self-observation, in collaboration with Heinrich Jacoby. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_Gindler
- **Emilie Conrad** (1) — Dancer, founder of Continuum. Emilie Conrad (1934–2014) was a dancer who, after years in Haiti, founded Continuum in 1967, a practice of breath, sound and fluid micro-movement. https://continuummovement.com
- **Erin Gee** (1) — Artist and composer. Canadian artist and composer who builds biosensors and robotic instruments to make emotional and bodily states audible. https://eringee.net
- **Ernesto Neto** (1) — Artist; soft walk-in sculptures. Brazilian artist who builds large crocheted and stretch-fabric environments, often scented, that visitors walk through, lie in and touch.
- **Eva Hornecker** (1) — Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. HCI researcher who built frameworks for tangible and embodied interaction, focusing on physical space, bodily movement and social use.
- **F. Matthias Alexander** (1) — Actor and founder of the Alexander Technique. Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869–1955), an Australian reciter, lost his voice on stage and spent years watching himself in mirrors until he found how his head-neck habits interfered with his whole coordination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Matthias_Alexander
- **Franca Garzotto** (1) — Professor, Politecnico di Milano; leads the I3Lab. HCI researcher on smart multisensory spaces and technology for children with neurodevelopmental disorders.
- **Game Oven** (1) — Independent game studio (Adriaan de Jongh, Bojan Endrovski, Jonathan Barbosa). Game Oven made playful games about physical closeness between players, including Fingle and Bounden.
- **Genevieve Bell** (1) — Anthropologist; former Intel Fellow and Director of the School of Cybernetics, Australian National University. Cultural anthropologist who studied technology in everyday life across cultures.
- **Gerda Alexander** (1) — Rhythmics teacher, founder of Eutony. Gerda Alexander (1908–1994), a German-born Dalcroze rhythmics teacher, emigrated to Denmark in 1933, founded her training school in Copenhagen in 1940 and named her method Eutony in 1956. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerda_Alexander
- **Giovanna Colombetti** (1) — Professor of Philosophy, University of Exeter. Philosopher who brought affective science and enactivism together, arguing that the whole living body, not only the brain, is the organ of feeling. https://experts.exeter.ac.uk/1082-giovanna-colombetti
- **Gopinaath Kannabiran** (1) — Researcher in interaction design, IT University of Copenhagen. Brings queer, ecofeminist and sexuality perspectives into HCI and computational art.
- **Haiyan Zhang** (1) — Designer and engineer; Director of Innovation, Microsoft Research. China-born Australian designer and engineer at Microsoft Research who builds assistive and playful technologies; featured on the BBC's Big Life Fix.
- **Hanne De Jaegher** (1) — Ikerbasque Research Fellow, University of the Basque Country. Enactive philosopher who, with Ezequiel Di Paolo, developed participatory sense-making: meaning created in the coordinated movement of interacting bodies. https://hannedejaegher.net
- **Hester Anderiesen-Le Riche** (1) — Designer; founder of Tover (PhD, Delft University of Technology). Industrial designer whose PhD on playful design for people with advanced dementia led to the Tovertafel.
- **Hideyuki Ando** (1) — Professor, Osaka University. Japanese researcher and media artist working on perception, galvanic vestibular stimulation and sensory interfaces.
- **Holger Schnädelbach** (1) — Architect and HCI researcher; founder of the Adaptive Architecture research group, formerly Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham. Holger Schnädelbach designs adaptive architecture that changes shape and atmosphere in response to the people inside it.
- **Holland Haptics** (1) — Dutch start-up that made the Frebble hand-holding device. Holland Haptics, founded by Frederic Petrignani, developed Frebble, a handheld device for holding hands at a distance.
- **Huang Yi** (1) — Choreographer, dancer and inventor; founder of Huang Yi Studio +. Taiwanese choreographer who programs industrial robot arms himself and dances with them. https://www.huangyistudio.com
- **Huangdi Neijing authors (anonymous)** (1) — Anonymous physicians of the Warring States and Han periods. The Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor was compiled by unnamed physicians between roughly the 3rd century BCE and the 1st century BCE and framed as dialogues between the Yellow Emperor and his ministers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing
- **Humberto Maturana** (1) — Biologist, University of Chile (1928–2021). Chilean biologist who, with Francisco Varela, defined living systems as autopoietic, self-producing, and cognition as the living process itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humberto_Maturana
- **Hunter G. Hoffman** (1) — Research scientist, Human Photonics Lab, University of Washington. Cognitive psychologist who, with David Patterson, pioneered immersive virtual reality for pain relief during burn wound care.
- **Ida Rolf** (1) — Biochemist, founder of Structural Integration (Rolfing). Ida Rolf (1896–1979) held a PhD in biochemistry and from the 1940s developed Structural Integration, a ten-session series of deep manual work on connective tissue. https://rolf.org
- **Ilias Bergström** (1) — Researcher in sound and interaction, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Ilias Bergström works on sonification and virtual embodiment; at KTH, Bergström built the Sarka mat with Martin Jonsson.
- **Ilse Middendorf** (1) — Breath therapist, founder of the Perceptible Breath. Ilse Middendorf (1910–2009) developed 'Der Erfahrbare Atem' (the perceptible breath), founded her breath-therapy institute in Berlin in 1965 and became a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts in 1971. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilse_Middendorf
- **Iris Marion Young** (1) — Political philosopher, University of Chicago (1949–2006). Feminist philosopher whose phenomenology of feminine bodily comportment showed how social norms shape how bodies move and feel their own capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Marion_Young
- **Jacob Buur** (1) — Professor of User-Centred Design, University of Southern Denmark. Design researcher who works on participatory innovation and on design as a bodily, material practice.
- **Jakob Tholander** (1) — Interaction design researcher, Stockholm University. Jakob Tholander studies whole-body interaction, sports and bodily experience, and co-organised the Move to be Moved workshop behind the first-person soma design paper.
- **Jan Hulsegge** (1) — Therapist, De Hartenberg Institute, Ede (Netherlands). Dutch therapist who, with Ad Verheul, developed and named Snoezelen in 1978 and co-wrote Snoezelen: Another World.
- **Jane Aspell** (1) — Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Anglia Ruskin University. Cognitive neuroscientist of bodily self-consciousness who worked with Olaf Blanke at EPFL on full-body and cardio-visual illusions.
- **Jane Fulton Suri** (1) — Partner Emeritus and Chief Creative Officer, IDEO. Psychologist and designer who shaped human-centred design research at IDEO.
- **Janet Adler** (1) — Dance therapist, developer of the Discipline of Authentic Movement. Janet Adler studied with Mary Starks Whitehouse and developed Authentic Movement into a discipline of mover and witness. https://disciplineofauthenticmovement.com
- **Janghee Cho** (1) — Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore. Korean HCI researcher who studies reflection, wellbeing and everyday technology use.
- **Jarmo Laaksolahti** (1) — Researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Jarmo Laaksolahti is a long-time SICS and KTH collaborator of Höök, from the Sensual Evaluation Instrument and Affective Diary to the Soma Bits toolkit.
- **Jay Vidyarthi** (1) — Designer of meditation technology (MSc, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University). Designer and researcher who creates interactive tools for meditation and mindful technology use.
- **Jean Costa** (1) — HCI researcher (PhD, Cornell University). HCI researcher who designed wearables that regulate emotion through false and ambient bodily feedback, working with Tanzeem Choudhury and Malte Jung at Cornell.
- **Joan Mora-Guiard** (1) — Researcher, Full-Body Interaction Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Researcher on full-body mixed reality for social interaction in autistic children.
- **Joan Skinner** (1) — Dancer, creator of Skinner Releasing Technique. Joan Skinner (1924–2021) danced with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham and first shared the beginnings of Skinner Releasing Technique with her students at the University of Illinois in 1966–67. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_Releasing_Technique
- **Joan Sol Roo** (1) — HCI researcher (PhD, Inria Bordeaux, Potioc team). Researcher on spatial augmented reality and tangible mixed reality for introspection.
- **John Dewey** (1) — Philosopher, psychologist and educator (1859–1952). American pragmatist philosopher whose theory of experience treated the live creature and its environment as one continuous process; he also studied with F. M. Alexander. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
- **John McCarthy** (1) — Professor of Applied Psychology, University College Cork. Psychologist and HCI researcher who co-developed experience-centred design with Peter Wright.
- **Jonas Fritsch** (1) — Associate Professor of Digital Design, IT University of Copenhagen. Interaction design researcher working with affect theory, atmospheres and sound in design.
- **Joseph Pilates** (1) — Physical trainer, creator of Contrology (Pilates). Joseph Pilates (1883–1967) was a German-born trainer who opened a studio in New York and set out his method, Contrology, in books of 1934 and 1945. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pilates
- **Joseph W. Newbold** (1) — HCI researcher (PhD, UCL Interaction Centre; later Northumbria University). Researcher on musical sonification of movement for physical rehabilitation.
- **Julia Werner** (1) — Interaction designer; studied at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. Julia Werner designed United-pulse with Reto Wettach and Eva Hornecker.
- **Jérôme Bel** (1) — Choreographer. French conceptual choreographer whose pieces put dancers' own bodies and biographies on stage. https://www.jeromebel.fr
- **Karen Anne Cochrane** (1) — Design researcher, Carleton University. Design researcher working on body maps, wearables and emotion.
- **Kathryn E. Ringland** (1) — Assistant Professor of Computational Media, University of California, Santa Cruz. HCI researcher on autism, sensory experience, disability and play.
- **Kazuo Ohno** (1) — Butoh dancer (1906–2010). Co-founder of butoh with Hijikata, who kept dancing past 100 and taught that dance begins in the soul and the life of the body. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Ohno
- **Kazuo Shiraga** (1) — Gutai painter and performer (1924–2008). Gutai artist who painted with his feet while hanging from a rope and later became a Tendai monk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Shiraga
- **Ke Huang** (1) — Artist and designer; Reality Design Lab collaborator. Designer who directs Reality Design Lab's kinetic and machine-vision installations Cybroc and Body Oracle.
- **Kenichi Okada** (1) — Designer; Royal College of Art Design Interactions graduate. Kenichi Okada is a Japanese designer who co-created Animal Superpowers with Chris Woebken.
- **Kirsten Boehner** (1) — HCI researcher (PhD, Cornell University). Researcher in information science and critical HCI who, with Dourish and Sengers, formulated the interactional approach to emotion in design.
- **Konstantina Kilteni** (1) — Neuroscientist, Donders Institute; formerly Karolinska Institutet and Event Lab, Barcelona. Konstantina Kilteni studies body ownership, self-touch and the sense of embodiment.
- **Laura Devendorf** (1) — Associate Professor, ATLAS Institute and Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder; director of the Unstable Design Lab. Laura Devendorf is a designer and artist working on weaving, smart textiles and hybrid human-machine making. https://unstable.design
- **Lin Hwai-min** (1) — Choreographer; founder of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Taiwanese writer and choreographer who founded Cloud Gate in 1973 and built its training on tai chi daoyin, meditation, martial arts and calligraphy. https://www.cloudgate.org.tw/en
- **Lisa Feldman Barrett** (1) — University Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Northeastern University. Psychologist and neuroscientist who developed the theory of constructed emotion, in which the brain builds emotions from interoceptive predictions. https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com
- **Lone Koefoed Hansen** (1) — Associate Professor of Digital Design, Aarhus University. Digital design researcher working on aesthetics, critique and embodied experience with technology.
- **Lulu Sweigard** (1) — Movement educator, developer of Ideokinesis. Lulu Sweigard (1895–1974), a student of Mabel Todd, researched imagery and skeletal alignment, taught at the Juilliard School and named the practice ideokinesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideokinesis
- **Mabel Elsworth Todd** (1) — Movement educator, author of The Thinking Body. Mabel Elsworth Todd (c.1880–1956) taught posture through imagery at Columbia Teachers College and published The Thinking Body in 1937. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Elsworth_Todd
- **Maiken Hillerup Fogtmann** (1) — Interaction design researcher, Aarhus School of Architecture / Aarhus University. Interaction design researcher who studied bodily engaging games and interactive environments for movement.
- **Marco Gillies** (1) — Reader in Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London. Marco Gillies researches movement interaction, virtual characters and interactive machine learning.
- **Mariam Hassib** (1) — HCI researcher (LMU Munich at the time of HeartChat). HCI researcher working on physiological sensing for communication and on affective and brain-computer interfaces.
- **Marian Chace** (1) — Dancer, founder of dance/movement therapy. Marian Chace (1896–1970) trained at Denishawn, began dancing with psychiatric patients at St. Elizabeths Hospital in 1942 and became the first president of the American Dance Therapy Association in 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Chace
- **Marianna Obrist** (1) — Professor of Multisensory Interfaces, University College London. HCI researcher who leads the SCHI Lab and studies touch, taste and smell as channels of experience and emotion.
- **Marion Buchenau** (1) — Designer, formerly IDEO. Interaction designer who, with Jane Fulton Suri, described experience prototyping at IDEO.
- **Marion Rosen** (1) — Physical therapist, founder of Rosen Method. Marion Rosen (1914–2012) trained in Berlin with Lucy Heyer, a student of Elsa Gindler, and developed Rosen Method Bodywork in Berkeley; the Rosen Institute was formed in 1980. https://rosenmethod.org
- **Mark Coniglio / Troika Ranch (with Dawn Stoppiello)** (1) — Interactive dance-theatre company; Mark Coniglio created the Isadora media software and the MidiDancer sensor suit. Composer-programmer Mark Coniglio and choreographer Dawn Stoppiello founded Troika Ranch in 1994; their sensor suits and camera tracking let dancers shape video, sound and light. https://troikaranch.org
- **Mark Morris Dance Group** (1) — Dance company, Brooklyn; co-founder of Dance for PD with the Brooklyn Parkinson Group. Modern dance company founded by choreographer Mark Morris in 1980; its Dance for PD program is led by David Leventhal.
- **Martin Hachet** (1) — Research Director, Inria Bordeaux (Potioc team). Researcher on tangible and augmented interaction for learning, art and wellbeing.
- **Mary Overlie** (1) — Choreographer, originator of the Six Viewpoints. Mary Overlie (1946–2020) was a choreographer and teacher who originated the Six Viewpoints (space, shape, time, emotion, movement, story), taught at NYU's Experimental Theater Wing from 1978. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Overlie
- **Mary Starks Whitehouse** (1) — Dancer and dance therapist, originator of Authentic Movement. Mary Starks Whitehouse (1911–1979) studied with Mary Wigman and Martha Graham and, drawing on Jungian active imagination, developed 'movement in depth' in the 1950s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_Movement
- **Matthew Botvinick** (1) — Cognitive neuroscientist; formerly Princeton University and DeepMind. Matthew Botvinick and Jonathan Cohen described the rubber hand illusion in 1998.
- **Max Rheiner** (1) — Media artist; creator of Birdly and founder of Somniacs; formerly Zurich University of the Arts. Max Rheiner is a Swiss media artist who developed Birdly at the Zurich University of the Arts.
- **Maxine Sheets-Johnstone** (1) — Philosopher and former dancer-choreographer, University of Oregon. Dancer turned phenomenologist who argues that movement, not the static body, is the ground of thinking, feeling and self. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Sheets-Johnstone
- **Mencius** (1) — Confucian philosopher (c. 372–289 BCE). Second great Confucian thinker, who taught that human nature is good and that moral life is nourished like a body, through qi and daily cultivation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencius
- **Merce Cunningham** (1) — Choreographer (1919–2009). American choreographer who used chance procedures, film and, from 1989, the Life Forms software to make dances. https://www.mercecunningham.org/
- **Michael Karlesky** (1) — HCI researcher (PhD, New York University). Researcher on fidgeting and embodied self-regulation at the margins of digital work.
- **Michi Kanda** (1) — Researcher, Keio University Graduate School of Media Design (KMD). Japanese researcher designing somaesthetic toolkits with and for people with visual impairment.
- **Mikko Salminen** (1) — Researcher, Tampere University (Gamification Group); formerly Aalto University. Mikko Salminen studies emotion, empathy and physiological synchrony in VR.
- **Milica Zec** (1) — Film director and VR storyteller. Milica Zec is a Serbian-born director who makes VR films about nature and empathy. https://www.treeofficial.com
- **Min Tanaka** (1) — Dancer and actor (born 1945). Japanese dancer who left conventional dance in the 1970s, developed Body Weather training and founded Body Weather Farm in 1985. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Tanaka
- **Morihei Ueshiba** (1) — Martial artist (1883–1969), founder of aikido. Japanese martial artist who turned Daitō-ryū jujutsu into aikido, a practice of blending with an attacker's movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morihei_Ueshiba
- **Mousa Sondoqah** (1) — Researcher, Politecnico di Milano (Drone Arena project with RISE, KTH and Stockholm University). Mousa Sondoqah studied how teams program drones by feeling out their behaviour, in the Drone Arena challenges held at KTH's Reactor Hall.
- **Myron Krueger** (1) — Computer artist; pioneer of 'artificial reality'. American artist-engineer who from the 1970s built responsive environments in which people's video silhouettes play with graphics.
- **Narcís Parés** (1) — Associate Professor; leads the Full-Body Interaction Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Researcher on full-body interaction and embodied cognition in interactive environments.
- **Nicolas Rasamimanana** (1) — Researcher and co-founder of Phonotonic; formerly IRCAM. Violinist and researcher in gesture and music who led the design of IRCAM's Modular Musical Objects.
- **Nikki Theofanopoulou** (1) — Researcher; co-founder of Purrble (King's College London / Sensing Self). Researcher on in-situ, embodied interventions for children's emotion regulation.
- **Nishida Kitarō** (1) — Philosopher (1870–1945), founder of the Kyoto School. Founder of modern Japanese philosophy, known for 'pure experience', the logic of basho (place) and 'action-intuition' (kōiteki chokkan). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nishida-kitaro/
- **Noguchi Haruchika** (1) — Founder of Seitai (1911–1976). Japanese healer who founded Seitai, a system of body types (taiheki), hand attention (yuki) and spontaneous movement (katsugen undō). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruchika_Noguchi
- **Noguchi Michizō** (1) — Physical educator (1914–1998); professor, Tokyo University of the Arts. Former military gymnastics teacher who, after the war, developed Noguchi Taisō, a practice of releasing effort and letting weight and momentum move the body. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/野口三千三
- **Odile Fillod** (1) — Independent researcher in the sociology of science. French researcher who critiques biological claims about sex and gender and made an open-source, life-size 3D model of the clitoris in 2016.
- **Ohad Naharin** (1) — Choreographer, creator of Gaga. Ohad Naharin (born 1952) was artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company from 1990 to 2018 and developed the movement language Gaga. https://www.gagapeople.com
- **Oliver L. Haimson** (1) — Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan. Social computing researcher on trans people's experiences with technology; author of Trans Technologies (MIT Press, 2025).
- **Oscar Tomico** (1) — Associate Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology; Elisava Barcelona. Design researcher on soft wearables, first-person and embodied design research.
- **Owen Harris** (1) — VR designer and artist; co-creator of DEEP. Owen Harris makes meditative VR; he built DEEP with Niki Smit after using breathing to manage his own anxiety. https://www.exploredeep.com
- **Paul Bucci** (1) — Researcher; formerly SPIN Lab, University of British Columbia. Paul Bucci led CuddleBits, small breathing robots prototyped together with their behaviour.
- **Paul Dourish** (1) — Chancellor's Professor of Informatics, University of California, Irvine. Computer scientist and social scientist who brought phenomenology into HCI and defined embodied interaction. https://www.dourish.com
- **Pauline Oliveros** (1) — Composer, founder of Deep Listening. Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016) was a composer and accordionist, a founder of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, whose Sonic Meditations (1971) grew into the practice of Deep Listening. https://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu
- **Perttu Hämäläinen** (1) — Associate Professor, Aalto University. Finnish researcher on movement games, martial-arts and acrobatics interfaces and simulated movement.
- **Peter Wright** (1) — Professor of Social Computing, Open Lab, Newcastle University. HCI researcher who, with John McCarthy, drew on Dewey and Bakhtin to frame technology use as felt, lived experience.
- **Petra Sundström** (1) — Interaction design researcher (SICS and Stockholm University), creator of eMoto. Petra Sundström (published earlier as Petra Fagerberg) designed eMoto, an affective messaging service, as doctoral research with Höök.
- **Pichet Klunchun** (1) — Dancer and choreographer. Thai dancer trained in classical masked khon who makes contemporary work from its body knowledge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pichet_Klunchun
- **Ping-Hsuan Han** (1) — HCI researcher, National Taiwan University (Yi-Ping Hung's lab). Taiwanese researcher who builds mixed reality tools for learning embodied skills such as tai chi.
- **R. Michael Winters** (1) — Researcher in sonification and auditory display (PhD, Georgia Tech). Researcher in sonification and music technology who studied heartbeat sounds as expressive biosignals at Georgia Tech's Sonification Lab.
- **Rafael Lozano-Hemmer** (1) — Artist. Mexican-Canadian media artist whose large-scale participatory installations use biometric signals such as heartbeat, breath and fingerprints. https://www.lozano-hemmer.com
- **Rakesh Patibanda** (1) — HCI researcher, Exertion Games Lab, Monash University. Researcher on breathing games, bodily play and actuated bodily extensions.
- **Rebecca Fiebrink** (1) — Professor, UAL Creative Computing Institute. Rebecca Fiebrink is a computer scientist and musician who builds interactive machine learning tools for artists. http://www.wekinator.org/
- **Ron Kurtz** (1) — Psychotherapist, founder of the Hakomi Method. Ron Kurtz (1934–2011) developed the Hakomi Method in the 1970s, a body-centred psychotherapy that works in mindfulness, and co-founded the Hakomi Institute in 1981. https://hakomiinstitute.com
- **Rosalind Picard** (1) — Professor, MIT Media Lab; founder of the Affective Computing group. Electrical engineer who founded the field of affective computing and co-founded Affectiva and Empatica. https://www.media.mit.edu/people/picard/overview/
- **Rosemary Candelario** (1) — Dance scholar and butoh choreographer; Texas Woman's University. Dance scholar and butoh practitioner, author of Flowers Cracking Concrete on Eiko & Koma, who choreographs site-based butoh.
- **Rudolf Laban** (1) — Dance theorist, choreographer, founder of Labanotation and Effort theory. Rudolf von Laban (1879–1958) was a Hungarian-born dance artist and theorist who created a notation for movement (1928) and theories of Effort and space harmony. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_von_Laban
- **S. N. Goenka** (1) — Teacher of Vipassana meditation. Satya Narayan Goenka (1924–2013) was born in Burma to an Indian family, learned Vipassana from Sayagyi U Ba Khin and from 1969 taught free ten-day residential courses worldwide. https://www.dhamma.org
- **Sarah Fox** (1) — Assistant Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. HCI and design researcher on feminist hacking, menstrual technologies and labour.
- **Sarah Garfinkel** (1) — Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL. Neuroscientist who studies how signals from the heart shape emotion, cognition and mental health.
- **Scott Klemmer** (1) — Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science, UC San Diego. HCI researcher working on design tools, tangible interaction and how people learn design. https://d.ucsd.edu/srk/
- **Shaun Gallagher** (1) — Lillian and Morris Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy, University of Memphis. Phenomenologist and cognitive scientist who distinguished body schema from body image and helped found 4E (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) cognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Gallagher
- **Shigehisa Kuriyama** (1) — Historian of medicine; Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History, Harvard University. Japanese-born historian of medicine who compares how Greek and Chinese physicians learned to touch, see and name the body. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigehisa_Kuriyama
- **Shigenori Nagatomo** (1) — Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Temple University. Japanese philosopher and translator of Yuasa Yasuo who writes on Japanese Buddhism, the lived body and ki. https://sunypress.edu/Contributors/N/Nagatomo-Shigenori
- **Shigeo Yoshida** (1) — Researcher, OMRON SINIC X; formerly University of Tokyo. Japanese researcher on how altered bodily feedback, such as one's own facial expression, changes emotion and behaviour. http://www.shigeodayo.com
- **Shizuto Masunaga** (1) — Shiatsu practitioner and psychologist (1925–1981). Japanese psychologist and shiatsu teacher who created Zen Shiatsu, combining meridian theory with a two-handed, relaxed, listening touch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shizuto_Masunaga
- **Shunichi Kasahara** (1) — Researcher, Sony Computer Science Laboratories; Cybernetic Humanity Studio. Japanese researcher who studies the sense of agency and self in human augmentation.
- **Simo Järvelä** (1) — Researcher in psychophysiology and VR, Aalto University and University of Helsinki. Simo Järvelä studies shared biofeedback, meditation and social presence in virtual reality.
- **Somniacs** (1) — Swiss VR simulator company behind Birdly. Somniacs was founded by Max Rheiner to develop Birdly, a full-body flight simulator. https://www.birdlyvr.com
- **Sputniko! (Hiromi Ozaki)** (1) — Artist and designer. Japanese artist and designer (born 1985) known for speculative films and devices about technology and gender; trained in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art. https://sputniko.com
- **Steve Paxton** (1) — Dancer, choreographer, initiator of Contact Improvisation. Steve Paxton (1939–2024) danced with Merce Cunningham, co-founded Judson Dance Theater and Grand Union, and in 1972 initiated Contact Improvisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Paxton
- **Steve Yohanan** (1) — Researcher; formerly SPIN Lab, University of British Columbia. Steve Yohanan built the Haptic Creature, a furry robot that breathes, purrs and stiffens under the hand.
- **TERMINALBEACH** (1) — Artist duo (Peter Votava and Erich Berger). Austrian artist duo of Peter Votava and Erich Berger working with audiovisual performance, biofeedback and generative systems.
- **Tabitha C. Peck** (1) — Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Davidson College. Tabitha Peck studies avatar embodiment, bias and perception in VR.
- **Takanori Shibata** (1) — Chief senior research scientist, AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology). Japanese roboticist who has developed PARO, a therapeutic seal robot, since 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_(robot)
- **Tao Ye** (1) — Choreographer; co-founder of TAO Dance Theater. Chinese choreographer who founded TAO Dance Theater in 2008 with Duan Ni and makes numbered works built on continuous circular movement. https://www.taodancetheater.com
- **Taro Maeda** (1) — Professor, Osaka University; formerly NTT Communication Science Laboratories. Japanese researcher in human interfaces and telexistence who led the galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) work at NTT.
- **Thich Nhat Hanh** (1) — Vietnamese Zen monk and teacher (1926–2022), founder of Plum Village. Vietnamese Thiền monk, peace activist and author of The Miracle of Mindfulness, who taught mindful breathing, walking and eating to a worldwide lay public. https://plumvillage.org
- **Thomas Thwaites** (1) — Designer. Thomas Thwaites is a designer known for The Toaster Project and GoatMan. https://www.thomasthwaites.com
- **Thórhildur Ásgeirsdóttir** (1) — Interaction design researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Thórhildur Ásgeirsdóttir uses soma design to rethink everyday relations with energy.
- **Tom Calvert** (1) — Professor Emeritus, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University. Computer scientist who led the SFU team that built Life Forms (later DanceForms), a figure-animation tool for choreographers.
- **Tomoya Sasaki** (1) — Researcher, Embodied Media Project (Keio KMD) and University of Tokyo. Japanese researcher who designs wearable robotic limbs and studies how extra limbs enter the body schema.
- **Tu Weiming** (1) — Confucian philosopher; professor emeritus, Harvard University and Peking University. Leading New Confucian thinker who reinterprets self-cultivation (xiushen) and 'embodied knowing' (tizhi) for the modern world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Weiming
- **V. S. Ramachandran** (1) — Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego. Neuroscientist known for work on phantom limbs, body image and synaesthesia; author of Phantoms in the Brain (1998).
- **Valeria I. Petkova** (1) — Cognitive neuroscientist; formerly Karolinska Institutet (Ehrsson lab). Valeria Petkova led the 2008 body-swap illusion study with Henrik Ehrsson.
- **Vygandas Šimbelis** (1) — Artist and interaction design researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Vygandas Šimbelis is an artist who made the Metaphone biofeedback painting machine during doctoral work with Höök at KTH.
- **Wang Xiangzhai** (1) — Martial artist (1885–1963), founder of Yiquan. Xingyiquan master who stripped martial training down to standing (zhan zhuang) and felt intention, founding Yiquan (also called Dachengquan). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Xiangzhai
- **WhiteFeather Hunter** (1) — Bioartist and researcher. Artist and researcher working with tissue culture, bioart and feminist technoscience.
- **William Steptoe** (1) — VR researcher; formerly Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics group, UCL. William Steptoe led the Human Tails study on owning and controlling an extra body part in VR.
- **Winslow Porter** (1) — Immersive producer and creative director. Winslow Porter co-created the VR works Giant and Tree with Milica Zec.
- **Wonjun Lee** (1) — Design researcher; KAIST Department of Industrial Design (at the time of the study). Korean design researcher who, with Youn-kyung Lim and Richard Shusterman, tested somaesthetic practice as preparation for product ideation.
- **Xinglin Sun** (1) — HCI researcher. HCI researcher who designs embodied probes for adolescent mental health.
- **Yang Chengfu** (1) — Tai chi master (1883–1936). Grandson of Yang Luchan who standardised the large-frame Yang-style tai chi form and taught it widely in Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Chengfu
- **Yi Je-ma** (1) — Korean physician and thinker (1837–1900). Joseon-era physician who founded Sasang constitutional medicine in his book Dongui Suse Bowon (1894). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Je-ma
- **Yoko Ono** (1) — Artist, musician and peace activist. Japanese-American artist (born 1933) close to Fluxus, whose instruction pieces and performances ask the audience to complete the work with their own bodies. https://imaginepeace.com
- **Yolande Strengers** (1) — Professor of Digital Technology and Society, Monash University. Sociologist of technology working on smart homes, gender and intimate technologies; co-author of The Smart Wife (2020).
- **Zeami Motokiyo** (1) — Noh actor, playwright and theorist (c. 1363–1443). Master of Noh theatre whose secret treatises, such as the Fūshikaden and Kakyō, set out how an actor trains body, voice and awareness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeami_Motokiyo
- **Zhuying Li** (1) — HCI researcher; PhD, Exertion Games Lab (RMIT and Monash). Chinese HCI researcher whose doctoral work founded 'ingestible play', games played with sensors swallowed into the body.
- **Ziyue Piao** (1) — Researcher, McGill University (Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory). Researcher in music technology who studies performers' breathing and somatic experience.
- **doppel** (1) — Wearable technology company. London start-up founded in 2015 by four Royal College of Art / Imperial College graduates that makes a wristband emitting a heartbeat-like pulse. https://feeldoppel.co.uk