Life-Affirming Biosensing in Public: Sounding Heartbeats on a Red Bench

“Smart city” narratives promise IoT data-driven innovations leveraging biosensing technologies. We argue this overlooks a potential beneft of city living: afrmation. We designed the Heart Sounds Bench, which listens to and amplifes the heart sounds of those sitting on it, as well as recording and playing back the heart sounds of previous sitters. We outline our design intent to invite rest, refection, and recognition of oth- ers’ lives in public space. We share results from a study with 19 participants. Participants expressed feeling connected to a shared life energy including others and the environment, and described heart sounds as feeling intimate yet anony- mous. Finally, we elaborate the concept of life-afrmation in terms of recognition of others’ lives, feeling connection, and respecting diference with opacity, as a way of helping “smart city” designs embrace a multiplicity of desires