“Whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more, for space in the image of man is place, and time in the image of man is occasion. Split apart by the schizophrenic mechanism of deterministic thinking, space and time remain frozen abstractions. Place and occasion constitute each other’s realization in human terms.”
—Aldo van Eyck (1961)
A Corporeal Instrumentality Project encompasses a series of speculative design artifacts and interventions which explore alternative methods for reckoning space, time, and other dimensions through the body. They take the form of existing instruments (tools that quantify a dimension according to a system of measurement) which are “hacked” to substitute cardinality for corporeality—for example, a wristwatch where the second hand advances not with the steady vibration of a quartz crystal, but at the variable rhythm of a heartbeat.
These are not products manufactured in the traditional paradigm, but decentralized prototypes under the umbrella of DIY. Step-by-step tutorials for this watch (as well as similar projects) are shared on an online repository, welcoming readers to give them a try and even contribute their own creations. Along the Situationist critique, the meta-project celebrates the creativity and curiosity of Makers as a driving force for interventionism at an individual scale, while leveraging the collective, grassroots impulse of Maker Culture to challenge endemic structuralisms in how modernized society has quantified the world around us.
Project Origins
My thesis began with extensive primary and secondary research into the augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go, culminating in an online survey posted on Reddit which received a flabbergasting 1043 responses totalling roughly four novels of text. I synthesized the presence of an "Information Age colonialism" wherein the inadequate curation of PokéStops (points-of-interest on the in-game map, central to gameplay) by the San Francisco-based developer left many players feeling disenfranchised over their inability to better their experiences in a game taking place in their very own local neighbourhoods.
Although I moved away from Pokémon Go after September, the central theme of the relationship between the individual and the broader societal structure they dwell within (often defined through maps) was a theme I continued to explore throughout the remainder of the project.
Research & Literature
In the first semester of the project, to build a theoretical foundation for my project, I engaged with my liberal arts professors to learn more about topics surrounding corporealization, structuralism, and so forth. A key topic was the idea of "non-linear mapping," or blank maps featuring only destination-points and no lines, used for enabling Situationist experiences wherein the navigator must contend with the corporeality of existing within an interstitial, negative space.
I also transferred these explorations into the thesis course itself, running a research workshop in October (using a methodology I had learned on exchange in Denmark), as well as a gamified wayfinding activity in December with non-linear maps. Research reports are linked below.
A summary of the high-level conceptual framework behind the first part of my thesis project. Reading time: 5–8 minutes.
An explanation and gallery of my experiments with non-linear maps. Reading time: 5–8 minutes.
Summaries of some key academic sources I looked at in October. Reading time: 5–8 minutes.
In October, I conducted a workshop with the Stoneturner method of cultural probing I learned on exchange in Denmark. Reading time: 3–5 minutes.
In October, I documented walls and analyzed risk aversion strategies around them for a sociology course. Reading time: 5–8 minutes.
In December, I ran a gamified research activity on user experiences and strategies while wayfinding using a non-linear map I had made. Reading time: 3–5 minutes.
An examination of wayfinding, documented as I climbed three of Bergen's "seven mountains" in April 2019. Reading time: 3–5 minutes.
An analysis of souvenir-fragments I encountered in Berlin in July 2019, through the lens of what I refer to as the "corporeal simulacrum." Reading time: 8–10 minutes.
A sentimental essay on my biking adventures contextualized with Marc Augé's "non-place" and Paul Virilio's "polar inertia." Reading time: 8–10 minutes.
"Off Course" Exhibition
In January, our class exhibited at "Off Course" as part of DesignTO 2020, where we won a Juror's Choice. At this exhibition, I presented two interactive prototypes—on how we might understand "place" and "time" through the body in non-linear ways—as well as the numerous critical essays, research reports, and "non-maps" I had created throughout the first semester.
It was an enjoyable challenge communicating my highly-academic concepts to a fresh audience for the first time, and I tried to mediate the dense, rigorous material into approachability. Over 300 people attended over the course of the show, and I reckon I did my (very lengthy) elevator pitch about forty times or so, to the point where I was operating on an algorithm. I found that people grasped the "time" concept more easily than "place." In spite of everything I could ever hope to say, what always worked best was the "aha" moment when the viewer actually tried the prototypes for the first time.
Concept Finalization
Following the exhibition, I shifted my priorities away from the question of "How can I make a device that lets people have radically non-linear experiences through the body?" and towards "How might I empower others to use their own bodies as a performative method for exploring ways of knowing and making?" So I began looking into Maker Culture as a user group and an ideology.
In the second semester, I continued my diverse explorations into corporeal cartographies, before finally settling upon revisions of my "Off Course" prototypes—albeit reframed under the manifesto of what became A Corporeal Instrumentality Project. In my capacity as a designer, rather than be a supplier of such predefined experiences for others, I would enable them to make (or hack) their own devices into being. This practice of user-driven interventionism addressed two key factors: it aligned with the Situationist ethos of my thesis, and that this hands-on, tactile approach to discovery was immensely more comprehensible than reading about it (as "Off Course" had shown).
Main Prototype: Heartbeat-Watch
This is an analog quartz watch (a Casio MQ-24) that has been hacked to advance at the pace of the wearer's heartbeat. Using Arduino, soldering, and a bit of 3D printing, I was able to replace the steady vibration of the quartz crystal with the variable rhythm of the heart, as tracked through a pulse sensor. By driving the watch's Lavet-type stepper motor according to this new corporeal reference, the face of the clock remains visually identical but takes on a radically different signification. Severed from the cardinality of time zones and measured time, it no longer "tells time," but instead, counts the number of heartbeats that have elapsed since an earlier occasion. This instrument empowers its user to "fall out of time" and experience an absolutism reborn in relativity. After all, what does noon mean to the body?
Curated Explorations
These are some of the other prototypes I made throughout both semesters. When viewing these artifacts, it is useful to think of them as "maps" taking diverse forms (with reference to the semiotic components of interval, referent, operator, and indicator). Some are maps of spaces, some of time, and some even of other dimensionalities, yet all of them are realized through the human body in some manner.
For example, in the Random-Knot Mapping workshop (cf. video and images 1–2), I asked four participants to walk randomly around a space while unspooling twine in their wake. Once pulled taut, the resulting knot becomes a scaled map of the space, dimensioned not in terms of linear feet but human feet—brought into existence by the entanglement of four simultaneous journeys of the human body.
Random-Knot Mapping
Random-Knot Mapping
Footprint-Maps
Adverts on Corporeal Mapping
Body-Maps
Body-Maps
Handsigns-Clock
Handsigns-Clock
Human Looms
Human Looms
Non-Mapper Software
Non-Linear Maps
Non-Linear Maps
Wayfinding Challenge
Primary Diagrams
These diagrams below provide a systemic overview of the meta-project and visualize some of the key hierarchies and interactions within. Together, they describe the circumstances surrounding the creation of the artifacts in A Corporeal Instrumentality Project: a system intended to stimulate Situationist acts of DIY hacking and creation among keen Makers.
Supplementary Diagrams
Selected Sketchbook Pages
Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me.
And all that is left unsaid, remains inexpressible.