CUERPO INTEGRAL

Arnaldo Esté

tebasucv@cantv.net

Camille Baker, Ephemeral Touch: Bio-Sensing Devices and Skin Interfaces for Personal Engagement

SMARTlab Digital Media Institute, UK

My work is an enquiry into how embodied experiences could be embedded into media art practices, as well as how they could be experienced in the body, to access memory and altered consciousness. The assumption for me is always that the body is the integral site of the mind, so the experience must take place within the body. This research intended to return to the body for interpersonal exchange, wisdom, transcendence, and exploration, to immersively attune people to their own bodily sensations to harness the ‘virtuality’ of sensation, imagination and a dreamlike imaginative state. My aim is to understand how people can find alternate, embodied ways to ‘connect to each other’, wireless biofeedback sensor technology is used to assist as the embodied ‘interface’ with mobile devices. From there, it might be determined whether such an interface can facilitate various other non-verbal forms of communication and exchange. It might also reveal other opportunities or value from the body-as-interface, possibly serving as a conduit between technology and the body or for unique social interactions. Visceral, proprioceptive sensations of the internal activity include: hormones, pheromones, fluids and/or nervous reactions and responses triggered by emotional or other thoughts, affect or situations encountered by a person. I am interested in how this embodiment might be experienced and shared through the use of wearable devices to extend felt presence through time and space, just as telepathic exchanges can be said to extend emotionally and affectively experiences, responses and sensations from one body/ mind to another.