What is woo-woo “energy”? A conversational theory…

One evening I was having dinner with a research biologist. For some reason we arrived ar the topic of woo woo ‘energy’ and he was highly skeptical of the term, obviously. Wine in hand, I took up the challenge to explain it.

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What’s feeling got to do with Big Data?

April Greiman, Poster for Design Quarterly, 1986

My research interest in emotion stems from times when I was cut off from myself – “emotionally vague”. Without processing my feelings I could not connect the information signals between body and mind. I was often overloaded, drained and disconnected. Tai Chi and meditation helped to reduce anxiety and bring calm. Observing feeling-sensation informed the initial idea for the visual research. There’s an urgent need to weave understanding of feeling, time, place and feedback loops.

Transmediale 2016 / Reflections on Tech, Presence and Intimacy

Foyer installation at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) encouraging conversation and informal exchanges. Credit: Transmediale.de

Berliners told me it’s a highlight of the year so I stayed for Transmediale ‘the post-digital culture event’ held annually at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.

The programme was not compatible with my simple 8-bit brain. Even the veterans I petitioned for guidance admitted to information overload, apt considering this year’s theme of anxiety. My final strategy was to neglect most lectures and prioritise hanging out, absorbing installations and workshopping. From these I’m teasing out one strand of interest but for more on the wider experience, read Renee Carmichael’s review.

What are Emotions, Feelings and Sensations? Composite or Hierarchical models?

A visitor to this blog, Aghar just asked “I have this question: What is a feeling, emotion, and sensation? are they different things?”. Thanks for asking!

So I started reflecting visually…

Soma}News – May/June

A round-up of soma-related emotion research and connections to mobile tech, media, crossing senses…

Taste metaphors engage the emotional brain

Soma}News – March/April – Part 2

Continued round-up of soma-related research and connections to emotion, sound, morality, mind, soul, health and contagions. Plus this edition’s featured lexicon entry: “wu-wei”.

The higher the sound in pitch, the higher we perceive it to be in space.

Soma}News – March/April – Part 1

A round-up of soma-related emotion research and connections to facial expression, pain management, body in space and technology. Plus two upsides of sadness.

OLED displays show images of eyes that reflect engagement and emotion.

“Bodily Map of Emotions” – Research paper (Nummenmaa, Glerean, Hari, Hietanen)

A team of Finnish researchers Nummenmaa, Glerean, Hari, Hietanen recently published a paper “Bodily Map of Emotions”. It outlines how people describe their emotion related body sensations. This blog post responds to the work in the context of it’s own research ‘Emotionally}Vague‘, (video presentation here).

Art and Illness Symposium: What does illness feel like?

For the vast majority of us, illness is where life and death meet. It’s a guarantee that even if we ourselves don’t get seriously sick soon one of our loved ones will. Knowing a little of what to expect and trying to imagine that will prepare us and help us be more compassionate if our mother, say, screams random obscenities at us. Or we ourselves might find strength knowing that this indescribable agony is shared with countless others. I know it did for me. I hope this post may be of some value to even one person who may feel confused or misunderstood right now. The speakers gave so much of their time to the symposium (more here) that I hope to do a little justice to them here.

Gary Wolf – The Quantified Self