When We Touch
Symposium:
Presentation Title:
- When We Touch
Presenter(s):
Abstract:
When We Touch is a workshop designed to explore the several social and cultural meanings and effects of touch by creating interactive, tactile interfaces and audio stories that utilize various forms of touch. In this workshop diverse community participants in Pachuca, Mexico explored first-voice storytelling, physical computing with microprocessors and basic programming while crafting interfaces that utilized interpersonal touch and tactile listening. Kristine Diekman, the workshop designer and facilitator, collaborated with Sexto de Bordado, a local embroidery collective, to teach the participants to how to create embroidered sensors using conductive thread and how to combine these with microprocessors and basic programming. The city of Pachuca is in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, well-known for its tenango embroidery practices by the Otomi people. The workshop brings together traditional and contemporary craft, storytelling, and embodied experience. The workshop was organized by Fronda Simbiosis, a local organization dedicated to showcasing international artists within com-munity settings.
