The mocking gaze: The social organization of kinect use

Abstract

As the Kinect sensor is being extended from gaming to oth-er applications and contexts, we critically examine what is the nature of the experience garnered through its current use in gaming in the home setting. Through an exploratory study of family experiences with Kinect in gaming, we dis-cuss the character of the experience as one that entails users reveling in absurdity of movement that is required by the Kinect sensor. Through this analysis, we liken the 'third-space' defined by Kinect-based gestural interaction to that of Bakhtin's mocking gaze in the contexts of carnivals. This is followed by remarks on the implications this re-specification of understanding Kinect-enabled interaction has for the term 'natural' and relatedly the emphasis on the 'user' as 'the controller' in HCI. Remarks will be made on the implications of this for the application of the Kinect sensor to distributed gaming and other non-gaming interac-tion spaces in the home. Copyright 2013 ACM.