The Bodies of TEI – Investigating Norms and Assumptions in the Design of Embodied Interaction

Abstract

In the few decades since the first mainframe computers, computing technologies have grown smaller, and more pervasive, moving onto and even inside human bodies. Even as those bodies have received increased attention by scholars, designers, and technologists, the bodily expectations and understandings articulated by these technological artefacts have not been a focus of inquiry in the field. I conducted a feminist content analysis on select papers in the proceeding of the ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) since its inception in 2007. My analysis illustrates how artefacts are implicitly oriented on unmarked bodily norms, while technologies designed for non-normative bodies treat those as deviant and in need of correction. Subsequently, I derive a range of provocations focused on material bodies in embodied interaction which offer a point of reflection and identify potentials for future work in the field.