Urban kinesic: A gestural interface for the expression of emotions through bodily movements

This research through design project presents Urban Kinesic (UrK), a hand held device that enables the expression of emotion through gestural dance movement. Expressive body movement is another interaction and communication channel in our analogue world. We know this from how a gesture can support speech in a face-to-face conversation. To this end the authors firstly observed how expressive movement is used in expressive dance. Findings from these observations informed the design of the UrK, which is a curious electronic device with a silicon skin. It communicates via Bluetooth with a network and uses multi-modal channels such as haptics, vibration and heat transfer to indicate its functional states. In use, the UrK is tracked using an accelerometer to initiate sound modulations that accompany an expressive dance movement. This paper gives an account of the design, development and initial user findings of the UrK with a dance troupe, which reveals some interesting initial insights into the expressive nature of the activity it enables, due to its design