Employing creative practice as a research method in the field of wearable and interactive technologies

Abstract

With the emergence of relatively accessible programmable microcontrollers, artistic use and designer application of wearable technologies have increased significantly over the last decade. This paper suggests these creations are more than a mere implementation of emerging technologies for creative practitioners to extend their artistic expression, but a method applicable within research and development. Creative practitioners generally approach their subject matter intuitively and holistically and are therefore capable of facilitating insights where rational approaches may not. Working on the periphery of computer science has the advantage of an outsider perspective, which can result in un-thought of solutions to previously unresolved problems. In this paper we discuss the merits of this approach within wearable and interactive research and describe one such procedure on the basis of a wearable device. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.