Designing Embodied Interaction: Aesthetic, Technical and Theoretical Issues

Over more than two decades, Simon Penny has pursued the simultaneous development of Interactive Artworks and the design and construction of technologies for Embodied Interaction, utilising Machine Vision and Robotics technologies. This has involved fundamental technical R+D directed by a radically Interdisciplinary negotiation of Artistic goals and sensibilities with Engineering realities, informed by emerging Cognitive Science research and a Phenomenological critique. The talk will take video documentation of three major works (Petit Mal, 1993-5, Traces, 1997-9, and Fugitive II, 2000-2004) as starting points for the discussion. This lecture is part of the Segal Seminar Series at the Segal Design Institute, part of Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering.