0:04 [Applause]
0:09 how do we perform digital technologies
0:12 and how do digital technology to perform
0:14 us another way to ask this question is
0:18 what are the physical and behavioral
0:20 symptoms of digital technologies present
0:23 within our everyday lives
0:25 to think about this I want to talk about
0:27 one thing which is your phone you've
0:29 heard it all night but ask yourself can
0:32 you count how many times you've checked
0:34 your phone since you've entered this
0:35 building right um during talks do you
0:41 feel the need to look at your phone even
0:44 if you don't do it no and asking these
0:49 two simple questions
0:50 how has your physical and affective
0:52 state changed just by thinking about it
0:56 my name again is Jessica Rajko and I'm a
0:58 professor in the school of film dance
1:00 and theatre my background is in dance
1:02 and somatic practices and given this you
1:04 may be wondering why I'm asking you
1:06 about your phone it's real right but the
1:09 reason is is because I am very
1:11 interested in and concerned with how we
1:13 physically engage in our everyday world
1:15 I'm also really interested in our
1:18 conscious awareness of how we do that
1:20 physically I just so happened to take
1:23 those practices and put them into
1:25 thinking about the usage and making of
1:27 technologies now this gives you kind of
1:31 a picture of what I do but in like true
1:33 Ted fashion I gave myself a really
1:35 cheesy title just for this talk and so
1:37 here it is I am a compassionate
1:40 kinesthetic disrupter of digital
1:48 so downward from the bird passionate
1:54 other people's distress feeling their
1:56 struggled as if they were my own in
1:58 other words I empathize with people
2:00 the other one is kinesthetic meaning
2:03 that I engage in physical f2 big
2:05 physical embodied bodily consciousness
2:07 connecting my consciousness to my
2:10 physical sense of self
2:12 the last one is disruptor hmm I aim to
2:16 interrupt your break apart
2:17 infrastructures and processes as I see
2:19 meeting radical change and it just so
2:22 happened that one of those faces that I
2:23 really see meeting radical change is our
2:25 relationship with our consumer digital
2:28 technologies why is this though it's a
2:31 really great question and then to answer
2:35 that I brought on three people to
2:38 explain data that's a really good
2:46 question right it's a question I feel
2:48 like I should be able to answer I mean I
2:50 think about this stuff all the time for
2:52 example in the short relationship I had
2:54 with my fitness tracker I found in an
2:56 attempt to meet my daily goals that I
2:58 became a sort of data prisoner I would
3:01 pace around the house late at night in a
3:03 sad attempt to get to those 10,000 steps
3:05 and I only ever met that goal once I
3:10 have similar issues with my phone in
3:14 general I'll pick it up at the first
3:15 hint of boredom throughout the day
3:16 according to this self tracking app I
3:19 have on my phone called moment I check
3:21 my phone 70 times a day that means on
3:26 average I'm spending about 2 hours and
3:28 43 minutes just staring at my phone now
3:32 I know I don't need to check things like
3:34 Facebook that often but still I do and
3:37 this moment app is supposed to help me
3:39 take some conscious steps to limit my
3:41 digital interactions but mostly it makes
3:43 me feel super self-conscious so what's
3:47 the point now I have another app to tell
3:49 me things I already know and still my
3:52 behavior hasn't changed what is data
3:55 doing to me everybody this is at least
4:00 a cliff Juan Rodriguez and Laci Garcia
4:04 three of the 14 artists I worked with on
4:06 an evening leg performance work titled
4:08 be my quantified self and I in this work
4:14 we explored the physical symptom in our
4:18 everyday life we told stories through
4:21 movement and words many of the stories
4:23 coming from the dancers themselves like
4:25 the one you just heard from Elisa and
4:27 you may hear some some things that are
4:29 familiar to you in this and I don't know
4:32 if everyone got one but you may have
4:34 gotten a piece of paper that had a
4:36 phrase on it yeah that had a big blank
4:38 spot to put a word if you want to join
4:41 us in this next part I thought we could
4:42 do it together optional of course but
4:45 we're going to do a demo version just so
4:46 you get a sense of how we're going to do
4:47 this okay so you have a everybody has a
4:50 different phrase and we have three of
4:52 them in total spread throughout the
4:53 audience we're going to demo what to do
4:56 with Netflix hmm yes i watch netflix
5:01 about one hour a day so as you heard us
5:06 come together you can do the same the
5:09 next one we're going to do is go to
5:11 Facebook yeah on Facebook I spend about
5:15 40 minutes a day I see some in there
5:18 yeah just so you know the average user
5:22 according to Facebook spends a few
5:24 minutes a day on this on the site okay
5:27 this one look at a screen about six
5:32 hours a day all right according to the
5:38 2016 Nielsen Company audience report the
5:42 average adult US citizens spends about
5:44 10 hours and 39 minutes looking at a
5:48 screen consuming media each day yes and
5:52 it's going up last one
5:55 I sit about five hours a day
5:59 any sitters in there yeah the average US
6:03 office worker spends about 10 hours a
6:06 day sitting just sitting
6:11 we see these numbers and maybe we're
6:14 surprised or maybe we've heard them
6:16 before but have you ever been asked to
6:19 write them down for yourself and look at
6:20 your own numbers hold them in your hand
6:22 so you can look at them and they can
6:23 look back at you right what do we want
6:29 from our digital technologies what do we
6:32 want from our quality of life with these
6:34 types of technologies many of us go
6:37 through lies we sit stand walk eat top
6:41 hang out with people without actually
6:43 being aware of our physical sensing body
6:45 through these processes and somatic
6:48 practices we call this somatic amnesia
6:50 what it means is we are so habituated
6:52 our own body that we can physically
6:54 engage in our world without being
6:55 consciously aware of how that feels
6:57 in our own body we are literally
7:02 practicing our bodies out of our way of
7:04 being in the world
7:08 we are literally practicing our bodies
7:10 out of our way of being in the world
7:22 to make this more palpable I want you to
7:24 go ahead and close your eyes don't do
7:28 anything but just close your eyes and
7:29 I'm just going to say some things to
7:31 take you through consciousness of your
7:32 own body connect first to your breathing
7:36 with your eyes closed where do you feel
7:42 it is it up towards the neck is it in
7:44 the ribs or down at the belly how deep
7:47 is it do you have to increase your
7:51 breath just to feel it inside yourself
7:55 this involuntary action we have to do
7:59 every day bringing your awareness to the
8:03 outside surface of your body I want you
8:05 to pay attention to how you're sitting
8:06 in your seat take note of where you feel
8:08 pressure where it feels more or less
8:10 maybe where muscle is is a little less
8:13 maybe where bones are like those sits
8:14 bones we sit on is a little bit more you
8:19 might even know if you're tilting side
8:21 to side one side to another just by the
8:23 pressure you feel in the back of your
8:25 legs maybe one leg isn't even touching
8:27 because your legs are crossed
8:30 going back internally into the body feel
8:34 where you're holding muscular tension
8:35 don't change it
8:37 but just ask yourself recognizing your
8:40 own bodily intelligence if you did some
8:42 simple thing how could this position
8:44 feel better what could you do this act
8:48 of sitting go ahead and open your eyes
8:59 [Music]
9:09 [Music]
9:20 you
9:21 [Music]
9:43 you
9:50 [Music]
10:31 so this is a solo that Lacey Garcia and
10:34 I co-created as part of my quantified
10:36 self and I and in the practice of making
10:39 this work we were thinking about if we
10:41 listen to our bodies what would it say
10:44 to us when we're working with
10:47 technologies we wrap our bodies in these
10:49 strange positions in order to stare at a
10:51 screen or our phones oftentimes twisting
10:54 ourselves in these strange places not
10:56 really even recognizing that our body is
10:58 seeking out into the world feeling and
11:00 sensing which it is always doing until
11:04 we maybe stand up and move again
11:05 maybe you would like a good stretch or a
11:07 sigh or even throwing our brow maybe
11:10 even a little hint of frustration by the
11:12 fact that our body just can't quite
11:15 conform to the ongoing practice of
11:17 sitting still like I said we are
11:21 literally practicing our bodies out of
11:23 our way of being in the world or to go
11:25 back to one of my earlier questions we
11:27 could say yes that digital technologies
11:30 are performing us and in this
11:31 performance our bodies are really no
11:33 longer really needed I want to show you
11:36 an image this image comes from Donna
11:39 Sullivan and Tom igoe's book on physical
11:41 computing and it was made to imagine how
11:44 computers would see us based on the way
11:46 we use them right one eye to ears in a
11:50 digit that is what we are to most of our
11:53 consumer devices so if this is how
11:57 computers see us they don't see us as
11:58 human beings who can skip walk run or
12:01 dance they see this as an assemblage of
12:04 three body parts so what are we doing to
12:08 change this a lot of things that I'm
12:10 doing is considering this idea of play
12:12 right when we hear the word play we
12:15 think of children because they're so
12:16 stinking good at it right really good
12:19 they are masters of like moving through
12:22 their world and being aware of what
12:24 they're doing
12:24 right they are very aware of how their
12:26 bodies are moving in space and how
12:27 they're learning from them it's just so
12:29 happens that as we turn into adults
12:31 these sort of repertoire that is
12:34 acceptable has shrunk and it means that
12:36 learning is oftentimes denoted passively
12:39 and an active mind not if you're a
12:43 dancer though I hate to tell you we have
12:45 all the fun as dancers we are just it
12:49 this is our lifeblood is movement we are
12:51 constantly in the ongoing sophisticated
12:53 practice of learning through our own
12:55 physical experience a lot of times we
12:57 call this movement improvisation but for
13:00 the sake of today let's call it critical
13:01 play not frivolous play that's just sort
13:04 of open-ended without any sort of
13:06 intention but free and open play that is
13:09 guided by the idea that we can learn
13:11 something from that this is what we do
13:15 and it's something that as I went into
13:18 grad school has started to get into
13:19 human-computer interaction design spaces
13:21 I realize could be really really useful
13:23 in such spaces and this was really
13:25 reaffirmed for me when I read Phoebe
13:27 singers a chapter on an engineering of
13:30 experience and in this chapter she talks
13:33 about Frederick Taylor's work during the
13:35 Industrial Revolution right making
13:38 movement efficient and engineering our
13:41 physical experience to cut out all the
13:43 excess stuff cut it out so that we can
13:46 do the work that we need to do in
13:47 factories but the interesting thing is
13:50 if you look at our contemporary
13:51 environment hasn't changed much even
13:53 though we're no longer working in
13:54 factories we are still using efficiency
13:57 with our devices and our engineered
13:59 experience and our engineered world as a
14:02 major metric that we use to define what
14:05 is good what she argues and I would I
14:08 would agree with is that maybe we should
14:10 forego efficiency for a little while and
14:11 think about things like fun play
14:14 movement physicality so how I'm doing
14:18 this is I started to look at things like
14:20 this is my lab this is a very large arts
14:24 festival family-friendly and what you're
14:26 seeing in here are interactive
14:28 sculptures that we've made they resonate
14:30 or vibrate in real-time with people's
14:33 personal data output meaning that when
14:35 people lay roll hang
14:37 out on these sculptures and they play on
14:39 their phones they can actually feel
14:41 their mobile phone device output in real
14:43 time we call it data ship so what does
14:48 it mean to think of this as our lab not
14:51 just our academic setting this is our
14:53 iterative process these is our
14:55 colleagues doing things like this and
14:58 this and this and this so asking other
15:07 people to participate in fun things is
15:09 not really that but what if we ask
15:14 designers to dance to play yeah as part
15:18 of their process is a requirement as
15:20 part of their process so one thing I did
15:22 is I made a rapid rote prototype
15:23 wearable technology band where you could
15:25 snap in a bunch of different sensors and
15:27 feedback modules meaning that when I
15:29 teach designers I asked them to move
15:31 first into play first before they ever
15:33 sit down and start to design those
15:35 technologies so they have to start
15:37 through action through play here's some
15:41 other examples and here's with people
15:43 who never danced where they started
15:46 thinking about the body different places
15:49 and we typically do right so this is
15:58 some of the work that I do just two
15:59 quick examples of my work as a
16:01 compassionate kinesthetic disrupter I'm
16:03 compassionate about the difficulty of
16:05 working with bodies it's not easy as a
16:07 designer but I'm also compassionate
16:09 about the idea that we might want more
16:10 from our technologies than what we get
16:13 right now I'm kinesthetic I come at
16:16 things physically first tactic first I'm
16:19 a tangible human being I like tangible
16:22 things and I'm a disrupter because I
16:25 think we need radical change in these
16:26 spaces because if we want our
16:29 interactions with technology to look
16:30 like something more than this and we
16:35 want our bodies in relationship to
16:37 technology to look like more than this
16:40 then we need designers who are willing
16:43 to do this and we need to make sure
16:46 dancers are at the table when we're
16:48 designing our technology
16:50 so that we can have experiences with
16:53 technology that look a little bit more
16:54 like this thank you
16:57 [Applause]