Designing from Embodied Knowing: Practice-Based Research at the Intersection Between Embodied Interaction and Somatics

Abstract

While third wave HCI foregrounds experience and embodiment, the design paradigm was initially terse on methodologies to guide embodied inquiries through actual movement techniques and practices. We consider here a number of related design approaches developed to amend this gap. They incorporate somatic practices into their design processes, and draw on conceptual frameworks interweaving phenomenology, pragmatism, and embodied cognition. Somatic practices are first-person methodologies to investigate and cultivate the embodied self. They involve sustained learning strategies integrating movement, attention, and a range of sensory modalities. While embodied processes are complex and elusive, somatic practices provide instrumental methodologies to circulate between the fullness of felt experience, and a variety of views to articulate and elaborate these experiences. In synergy with embodied interaction, the field of somatics has much to offer to flesh out design practices.