Heart of the matter: Affective computing in fashion and architecture

Abstract

What if material interfaces could physically adapt to the user’s emotional state in order to develop a new affective interaction? By using emotional computing technologies to track facial expressions, material interfaces can help to regulate emotions. They can serve either as a tool for intelligence augmentation or as a means of leveraging an empathic relationship by developing an affective loop with the user. This paper explores how color- and shape-changing operations can be used as interactive design tools to convey emotional information, and is illustrated by two projects, one at the intimate scale of fashion and one at a more architectural scale. By engaging with design, art, psychology, and computer and material science, this paper envisions a world where material systems can detect the emotional responses of a user and reconfigure themselves in order to enter into a feedback loop with the user’s affective state and influence social interaction.