Beyond Boundaries

•

Hyperdigitalization has propitiated the monopoly of visual-auditive stimulation, leaving the sense of touch aside, being often punished or sexualized. Even though it is the most emotional sense and essential for human development, it is penalised depending on the cultural and social environment where it is conjugated.

Framed within the culture of ‘Look & Don’t Touch’, Beyond Boundaries is born as a result of an exploratory process around the sensory boundaries of human biology. It purposes how using technology, understood as a transformative element, and more specifically through haptic textures, those limits can be transgressed. The main objective is to explore new languages of interaction being more natural and intuitive for the body through tactile stimulation.

Project Opportunity

Case Study in Psychology

Pregnancy is one of the most complete sensory experiences of the human body, although it is a process that already half of the population aren't biologically prepared to experience. In addition, there is a large number of diseases that can cause infertility in bodies that were originally born capable of becoming pregnant. This causes a big sensorial gap between the members of a family unit when expecting a child, as there is an obvious imbalance between a body that gestates and one that does not.

This sensorial gap is even more obvious in the cases where pregnancy ends up in gestational loss. In those cases, both members of the couple have to grieve the loss although only one of them have experienced both pregnancy and the loss at a sensorial level.

Value Proposal

Shape

Textures

Textures constitute a means of communication. They inform us of situations and emotions.They are the simplest and more intuitive form of haptic technology.

There is a market opportunity in the use of textures in the product design process, since they can be used to communicate or to evoke emotions.

Auxetic Cuts

Exploring how to enable the free movement of the skin when the patches are attached to it, by making auxetic cuts on the defined shape, which enable improve elongation when the material is being stretched.

Material

A compostable gelatin based biomaterial fulfils the necessary technical requirements and can be manufactured by the users themselves (DIY), customizing it in terms of opacity, texture and perception.

A single fabrication process has been achieved to control its shape as well as generating its cuts and textures after doing a deep characterisation of the material.