Sarotis Making Of

This post is about the proceedure behind the making of “Sarotis Experimental Prosthesis” as a technical investigation and “Sarotis; Wearable Futures” short film as an advanced prosthetic study. Following is a video to give you the large image of the development of Sarotis Project.

 

Sarotis Experimental Prosthesis

We are interested in art, architecture and specifically interaction design. We have been focusing on the body as our main design terrain and we are interested in how new technologies will affect the body image resulting a new type of body – space relationship. In this series of attempts we have experienced virtual reality, projection mapping and soft robotics which have led to our latest project, Sarotis.

 

Soft Robotics Workshop

 

Soft Screen I

A first demo of the “SoftScreen” was created in the Soft Robotics Workshop, while testing with various shapes, colors and making techniques.

Material Experiments

Lighting Experiments

A material test was important to define the final qualities of the silicone layers that were going to be used. The material was tested in terms of: thickness, colour intensity, elasticity and aesthetic quality. In the end the most successful samples were evaluated when interacting with light: they were inflated so as to reach the most suitable choice.

 

Soft Screen II

“SoftScreen” is a wearable device through which we explore soft robotics in technology and concept. It consists of six channels, each one of these work independently and are controlled through a series of switches and pipes so as to provide tactile feedback to the user. It pulses according to certain visual stimuli projected by an oculus rift helmet and integrates light through an electroluminescent sheet so at to reveal its operation to the viewers.

The “SoftScreen” project is an attempt towards exploring if a mediating human body interface could help us sense our own resonating consciousness. This project aims to take this idea into the level of sensing other forms of consciousness in the means of spatial terms. We think of this soft body technology as a way of mediating our conscious or even unconscious relationship to spaces of different scales. If we agree that the city is a resonating organism and has a kind of consciousness of its own, maybe we could explore the idea of the relationship between our consciousness and its surroundings in a larger scale like a neighborhood or even the city itself.

The “SoftScreen” project not only explores the ideas behind how the brain resonates in response to its environment but also tries to find a way to communicate this information with the outside world; this means the body is not only the interface but the canvas for all of these experiments.

Behaviour Design

Three behaviors are designed for the “SoftScreen”: balance, growth and breath. These are ways to demonstrate the physical potential of this device.

 

Sarotis Kit

Empirical Experimentation

An experimental prosthesis was designed to study if a person’s awareness of space could be amplified using live 3D scanning technologies that control the inflation and deflation of our soft robotic wearable. The results were successful and suggested possible applications for people with visual impairments. It also revealed the possibility of constructing virtual spaces within the physical space that could be sensed through it.

 

Liquid Bodies

Aesthetic exploration of soft fluidic interfaces.

To express Sarotis vision of the future of soft wearable technologies a speculative film reveals how fluidic hydrogel interfaces begin to truly dissolve the distinction between our physiology and machine technologies, addressing the topic of human bodies as evolutionary machines.

We try to achieve these goals in the context of bio-sensing and responsive materials. As the body is the main focus for our experiments, soft robotics was the best approach towards designing an adaptable responsive prosthesis with soft and complex behaviors.

 

Bibliography

-Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy?. Columbia University Press.

-Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. Routledge.

-Haraway, D. J. (2003). The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness (Vol.1). Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.

-Ihde, D. (2002). Bodies in Technology (Vol. 5). U of Minnesota Press. -Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Duke University Press.

-Nietzsche, F. W. (1950). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Kreactiva Editorial.

-Mitchell, W. J. (2001). The Reconfigured eye. The MIT Press.

-Debord, G. (1994). The society of the spectacle. Zone Books.

-Manovitch, L. (2002). The poetics of augmented space. Visual Communication, [online] Volume 5 (219). Available at: http://ift.tt/2dBOWp7 [Accessed 31 Dec. 2015].

Maria Paneta via Interactive Architecture Lab http://ift.tt/2dbSf8y