Body Architectures

Publication: Data, Matter, Design, Body Architectures, Bodies, Data, and Architecture

Role: AR/VR Creative Technologist Tutor

Features: VR, Lidar / 3D Scanning, Physical Computing, Fabrication, Real-Time Data Visualization

Medium: Unreal Engine, 3D Rigging, VR Oculus, Arduino, OSC

Date: 2018 - 2019, NYC

In this project our interdisciplinary team created and explored methods for merging and blending the users physical and virtual environments, through the design of wearable devices, or ‘body architectures’, that are embedded with sensors and actuators. This allows for haptic and visual feedback through the use of data that reflects changes in the surrounding physical environment, and visualized in the immersive VR environment.

We consider the Body Architectures project to serve as mechanisms for augmenting the body in relation to the virtual architecture. These wearable devices serve to bring a hyper-awareness to our senses, as closed-loop cybernetic systems that utilize ‘digitized’ biometric and environmental data through the use of 3D scanning tool and cloud point models, virtual reality visualization, sensing technologies, and actuation. The design of body architectures relies on hybrid design, transdisciplinary collaborations, to explore new possibilities for wearable body architectures that evolve human-machine-environment interactions.