3.1.2 Description of the ‘whisper’ project
‘whisper’[225] is an interdisciplinary project that resulted in a participatory installation exhibited at DEAF03 in Rotterdam. ‘whisper’ is a project initiated by Thecla Schiphorst and Susan Kozel and developed by the ‘whisper’ team. In an interview conducted during this presentation, the aim of the participatory project was mentioned:
‘What we’re hoping is that as the whole trajectory of the piece will take people somewhere (…) and there will be the sense of having crafted something as a group, as a community.’ (Susan Kozel) [226]
(Collage 3. Impressions of whisper by Thecla Schiphorst, Susan Kozel and team; documentation photos by Jan Sprij © for V2_; visuals by whisper team)
(Collage 4. aRt&D team map whisper)
The description of the work below is written in collaboration with Thecla Schiphorst and the editorial team of DEAF03. Several team members worked together in a residence at V2_.
‘whisper’ is an acronym meaning wearable | handheld | intimate | sensory | personal | responsive | system. ‘whisper’ was a working title for an electronic art piece based on small wearable devices and handheld technologies. ‘whisper’(s) are wearable body architectures. Participants enter an exhibition space, which can best be described as a networked ecosystem containing small intelligent devices that emanate their state based on the wearer’s movement and intention. Up to 12 participants may move and browse the space with access to a set of devices that were sewn into garments. ‘whisper’ devices were networked to a central ‘whisper’ database server that constructed the system-state visualisation and transmitted to the projection surface in the space. The ‘whisper’ devices create their narratives based on the interaction body they presently inhabit, and their own past lives.
‘whisper’ was based on creative and collaborative processes that include collective first person methodologies and the artists’ version of the ‘sewing circle’, the phenomenon of participatory installation as an emergent, non-hierarchical performative form, the aesthetic that emerges directly from the materials (sensors, electronics embedded in the garments and the body) in a play across the opaque, translucent, transparent; and the reconfiguration of attitudes toward the body that allows for sensory experiences to be seen as fluid, networked and dynamic systems linked to networked devices.
The ‘whisper’ project critiques, in a mildly poetic way, the aesthetic and ethical aspects in today’s trends in wearable technology. This critique grounds the idea of connecting and mixing concepts of artistic experience with system design, fashion design, industrial design, interaction design, communication design, ambient intelligence, affective computing, and hard and software design. ‘Whisper’ mixes today’s art practice with other knowledge fields, like related work from artists who mix work e.g. in the field of art-smart fabric design (Joanna Berzowska, CND [227]) and art-fashion ecologies (Maja Kuzmanovic, NL/B [228] ) and art-biometric interface design (Sommerer and Mignonneau [229]). On the technical and scientific side ‘whisper’ explores the potential of today’s research as carried out in Artificial Intelligence fields, in the context of an artistic experience.
An ‘affective wearable' is a wearable system equipped with sensors and tools which enables recognition of its wearer's affective patterns. Affective patterns include expressions of emotion such as a joyful smile, an angry gesture, a strained voice or a change in autonomic nervous system activity such as accelerated heart rate or increasing skin conductivity…. Affective wearables provide a perfect opportunity to bring powerful computational methods to bear on testing emotion theories. (Rosalind Picard, Jennifer Healey)[230]
Besides the soft-critique of ‘whisper’, one could also look at this as the artistic response to a broadly acknowledged concern about a lack of design, aesthetics and ethics in software design and hardware system design (Buxton [231]). These ideas are expressed in ‘whisper’ in poetic texts, ironic garments and aesthetic, subtle visuals. The project builds on a large body of knowledge from phenomenology, performing arts, theatre, installation art, cultural studies and human centred H.C.I. practice.
Technologies used in ‘whisper’ are small wearable computers and blue tooth wireless computer communication protocol, MAX/MSP, mathematic visualisation software. The project builds upon physical practices such as dance improvisation, and manifests cultural and scientific theories of embodiment. ‘whisper’ borrows from biofeedback techniques to shift attention back to the intimacy of the autonomous self. This piece uses wearable devices, which resemble a cross between theatrical costumes and body sculpture.
The project was shown at various sites in Europe and further developed partly by a different team. Based on the initial ‘whisper’ design of user-oriented concept of wearable technology and interaction, the successor of the ‘whisper’ project, (working title: ‘Move-Me’) is included as the V2_ contribution to Passepartout, a large European research project. Interactive television manufacturers and interactive television producers initiated Passepartout. The: ‘Move-Me’ project continues to explore interface design and interaction patterns that are based on ‘personal’ or biometric information. Based on the previous experience, the team is downscaled and works in smaller clusters. We (V2_) work mainly on improvement of our previously developed technology, so the project can fully concentrate on the design and development of the interaction and the modelling of the user experience. For optimal team working with the other involved researchers, scientific researchers, software and hardware engineers and Thecla Schiphorst, the leading artist, we are working closely together, starting from a problem solving approach and moving towards a user-centred iterative approach later in the process, once the technical ‘problems’ are solved.
