Assistive technologies play a significant role in many people’s lives. These range from prostheses that are attached to the body, to assistive devices such as crutches and wheelchairs, through to tableware, furniture and other home products, that are designed to be accessible. Traditionally such products have been medicalised, either explicitly by being prescribed, or implicitly by having a noticeable ‘medical’ aesthetic. This project will explore how people can use their expressive skills to interact with generative algorithms to personalise products, stamping them with their identities to make them more desirable and meaningful.
Researchers will engage with professional disabled dancers to create an inspiring portfolio of prototype products by dancing with our existing generative design algorithms. We will use this portfolio to engage further stakeholders to explore the co-design of a wider variety of everyday accessible products.
Project team: Kate Marsh, Virginia Portillo, Feng Zhou, Sarah Whatley, Steve Benford, Paul Tennent, Praminda Caleb-Solley, Ian Ashcroft
Project partners: Candoco Dance Company, Remap
Project start date 1 April 2023 – 30 September 2024 (extended to run until January 2025)
Introduction blog
Outputs:
Paper: Personalising prosthetics: digital interventions in disability and dance
Paper: How Artists Improvise and Provoke Robotics
This project sits within Horizon’s Consumer Products Campaign
Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of
Nottingham Innovation Park, Triumph Road, Nottingham,
NG7 2TU
horizon@nottingham.ac.uk
