Moderators: Rachael Garrett, PhD student at the Division of Media Technology and Interaction Design, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Dominika Lisy, PhD student at the Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University

There are many disciplines dealing with the consequences and ethics of social robots that try to navigate future uses and relations with them. This workshop proposes to start with the body and our everyday affective encounters with technologies (frustrations or pleasures) and reframe these ethical considerations from post-hoc consequences to generative pathways for designing robotic materialities. Drawing from h feminist theory and soma design methods, we draw on neglected forms of knowing through the body and affects. In doing so, we aim to make our implicit bodily knowledge and examine the affects that unfold in an interaction with technology through the felt experiences on our skin surface. Using these sensations, we will create new avenues to consider the complexity of affective experiences beyond a verbal categorisation of emotions, bring layered experiences to the surface and investigate how technologies make us feel.

Concretely, in this workshop we will invite participants to recall a memory where the contact with some sort of technology involved strong emotions (participants will be encouraged to think either with their research topics or every-day technology). For example, the work with noisy drones that was upsetting, a machine that did not respond to the programmed code, or a robot’s expression that felt creepy. Or in a daily encounter, an app’s constant notifications that started to be annoying, posting content on social media that created stress, or a conversation in a comment section of a blog that created a sense of community.

We will then facilitate a two-part practical exploration where participants will be invited to somatically explore a selection of materials and tactile supplies, and then use their memory as a guide to create a haptic surface for a robotic form.

Our motivation and outcome:
Underlying this proposal is our joint interest in the design and development of robots centering corporeal and haptic sources of knowing. We are interested in affective and meaningful experiences with robots and how they inform our understanding of both the design of and the consequent interactions with robot surfaces.

First, this workshop will contribute an initial archive of material explorations in the design of robotic surfaces as well as the reflections around what participants find meaningful in their proposed haptic surfaces.

Second, the workshop will bring WASP-HS students together in a reflexive exercise that emphasises their personal experiences with their research on technology or even every-day technology as meaningful pieces of knowledge. We aim to lay the groundwork for a community interested in this topic where future research can be conducted.

Third, the results of this workshop will be useful for further collaboration between our individual WASP-HS projects.

Short format overview:
Max number of participants: 8

1. Introductions and reflecting on memory of a technological experience – 45 minutes
2. Exploring materials through touch and identifying affective materials – 30 minutes

Coffee Break – 30 minutes

3. Building haptic surfaces for robots – 30 minutes
4. Sharing and Wrap-Up Discussion – 45 minutes