“Intouch: Ambient Remote Communication in Parent-child Relationships” presented by Seo
Image2: Interacting with the dresses ;Image 3: Soft Circuitry sewn on inTouch dresses
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Pedagogy, Developmental Psychology
Presentation Title:
- Intouch: Ambient Remote Communication in Parent-child Relationships
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
inTouch is a set of dresses that consists of a mother’s dress and a child’s dress sharing touch information through garments in an ambient way. They share touch information around the child dress and visualize it on the mother’s dress using thermochromic paint. This was developed to explore how remote touches can convey emotion and help people maintain being connected between remote locations. in inTouch, the artist focuses on creating an affective/shared moment that any parentchild relationships should have via an ambient visual effect on the garment. This project was created based on the artist’s personal experience with her child. When her son was one year old, he stayed with his grandparents in Korea apart from the artist. “Even though I was able to see him everyday via Skype and watch videos of him recorded by my parents over and over, I struggled emotionally very much because I wasn’t able to feel him.
I felt I was missing many important moments of my son’s life at that time. I wanted to him and wanted to be touched by him. Since he wasn’t able to communicate verbally at that time, a physical touch was a very important communication between us. Apparently, I often hugged a cushion that my son used to play with and I even smelled it. That really helped me to feel the presence of him in my place.”
As an artist, she wanted to capture that moment as a tangible artwork exploring the concept of remote touch. The child dress has five touch sensitive spots that look like flowers. When they are triggered by human touch, the green pattern of the flower changes its color to yellow and the touch signal is sent to the mother’s garment. The flower on the mother’s dress mapped to the sensor on the child’s dress changes its color from dark pink to lighter pink. This creates not an immediate alert rather an ambient experience. The final outcome and the process of inTouch really helped the artist to get immersed in the parent-child relationship and get overcome the emotional challenge. It is known that touch is immediate in that it carries emotional meaning in ways that words cannot express.
In inTouch, a parent can increase the vividness of her conversation with a child through contextualized touch, and the loved ones may enhance the affective tone of their communication using a remote touch technology. inTouch garments have been created using soft circuit techniques. All the electronic components for sensing human touches and actuating color-changing garment were integrated on the main fabrics. Even though the design of the dresses has a certain style, the concept was realized as a tangible form and the technology was implemented to two wearable garments. It can be expanded to different designs (i.e. cushion or toy) and applications to investigate qualities of tactile experience. Wearer-friendly designs are suggested to be worn in the daily life.
Thematic Statement
This project may fit into the main theme “Cultural Revolution”. In inTouch, the mother’s garment and the child’s garment communicate wirelessly via a wifi module and a Lilypad Arduino. The artist explores an embodied communication way of the parent-child relationship. Through the project, a parent can increase the vividness of her conversation with a child through contextualized touch, and the loved ones may enhance the affective tone of their communication using a remote touch technology. “Remote touch” is the ability to produce physical sensations without physical interaction. This concept has been experimented and created by artists and researchers. In inTouch, the artist focuses on creating an affective/shared moment that any parentchild relationships should have via an ambient visual effect on the garment.
