Thinking through Making

A discussion of the relationship between making and thinking through documenting a visit to a potter and ceramicist based in Goa, India. It includes making distinctions between a designerly and crafty approach to the development of artifacts

Enabling self, intimacy and a sense of home in dementia

Design and digital technologies to support a sense of self and human relationships for people living with dementia are both urgently needed. We present an enquiry into design for dementia facilitated by a public art commission for an adult mental health unit in a hospital in the UK. The interactive art piece was informed by the notion of personhood in dementia that foregrounds the person's social being and interpersonal relationships as sites where self is maintained and constructed. How clients, clients' family members and staff used the piece is reported and insights related to the notions of home, intimacy, possessions and self are presented. The art piece served as window on both dementia and the institution leading to a number of insights and implications for design

The self between two places: Finding connections through digital jewellery

This paper presents work undertaken as part of the first author’s ongoing doctoral research into the nature of digital jewellery and the process of designing personal digital artefacts. In this paper we introduce two digital jewellery objects that focus on people in transition. Transitions in this context are the changes one experiences in physical, personal and social dimensions in the context of living in/between two countries. The concepts were inspired by the lives of three participants and the researcher who frequently travel back to their native countries, but who live permanently in the UK and who experience feelings of transition and what we will describe as “being in-between”. Topoi is a piece that reveals personal microphotographs at certain points in time. The piece is a hand held piece of jewellery containing tiny microfilm images from places that are significant to the individual from both countries. One can view the layers of microfilm with a magnifying glass and interact with different layers by manually focusing on different elements. A LED light activated by the heat of the palm allows one to peek briefly through the glass in short bursts. Togetherness is made up of two brooches, meant for two wearers in two countries. Each brooch works as data logger. The act of pinning the brooch on the body activates the piece, recording the time when the piece is worn. Such data logged is stored in a Micro-SD card inside the piece. This data is later used by an artisan to create a third piece that represents times when the two brooches were worn simultaneously. Most of the digital devices that we live with come with a set of expectations such as: What does it do? How long does the battery last? How cutting edge is the technology? By contrast, this research offers a focus on atypical personal interactions in order to address a different range of questions and potentially open up our expectations of the digital

DNA sequencing with MspA: molecular dynamics simulations reveal free-energy differences between sequencing and non-sequencing mutants

MspA has been identified as a promising candidate protein as a component of a nanopore-based DNA-sequencing device. However the wildtype protein must be engineered to incorporate all of the features desirable for an accurate and efficient device. In the present study we have utilized atomistic molecular dynamics to perform umbrella-sampling calculations to calculate the potential of mean force (PMF) profiles for translocation of the four DNA nucleotides through MspA. We show there is an energetic barrier to translocation of individual nucleotides through a mutant that closely resembles the wildtype protein, but not through a mutant engineered for the purpose of sequencing. Crucially we are able to quantify the change in free energy for mutating key residues. Thus providing a quantitative characterisation of the energetic impact of individual amino acid sidechains on nucleotide translocation through the pore of MspA

Authors’ Response: Balancing Openness and Structure in Conference Design to Support a Burgeoning Research Community

We focus on the following issues: our intentions behind establishing the new Research Through Design conference series; epistemological concerns around "research through design"; and how we might find a balance between openness and specificity for the conference series going forward

Mortality as Framed by Ongoingness in Digital Design

This article presents a number of perspectives on mortality in light of both Victorian mourning and memento mori jewelry and bereavement therapy and grieving. Both help to reveal valuable qualities for digital design. The article then illustrates how these qualities influenced the design of four digital lockets, examining how both Victorian and modern practices relate to mortality, mourning, grief, and death, and exploring possibilities for digital design. Finally, ongoingness—by reference to the work of artist Moira Ricci—is explained as both a theoretical construct and a resource for design practice. Central in the proposal is the notion that, rather than being distanced or detached from the deceased (as has been the predominant grieving therapy approach of modernity), the bereaved can continue to have an active and growing relationship with them

Emotionally charged: A practice-centred enquiry of digital jewellery and personal emotional significance.

The aim of this research was to explore the possible integration of digital technologies and contemporary jewellery towards the development of digital jewellery; jewellery objects embedded with electronic components. I sought to investigate the relevancies and appropriateness of such integration as extensions of contemporary jewellery through personally and emotionally significant experience. A critical contextual review reveals that wearable digital objects are fast emerging phenomena, but that the majority of existing approaches to their development, both conceptual and physical, are from outside the field of contemporary jewellery. In consequence the majority of developments commonly miss many of the subtleties and dynamics of what contemporary jewellery can be. Notable differences relate to interpretations of the aesthetics of jewellery, the relationship jewellery may have with the body and the role jewellery may play within human relationships. This critique is extended through the notion of the gadget. Current approaches to the design of wearable digital objects are led chiefly by an opportunistic use of the body as a mobile location serving to satisfy an increasing desire for ubiquitous computing. Such approaches encourage interpretations of digital objects as function led devices that have a transferable significance, are part of a fast paced consumption cycle and neglect considerations of emotionally rich interactions between people and digital objects. I have developed a practice-centred methodology rooted in craft practice that tests the appropriateness of contemporary jewellery practice as a creative strategy and research tool in the development of personal and emotionally significant digital jewellery. My process focuses on the involvement of individual participants with the aim of weaving aspects of their personal histories that are emotionally meaningful to them into pieces of digital jewellery. Innovative methods (stimuli) draw on methods from Interaction Design and atypical approaches to contemporary jewellery practice to facilitate contemporary jewellery practice as a directly social activity. In addition the research develops a perspective of the interconnected sensibilities within craft practice, of beauty, enchantment and empathy that enable it to offer an approach centred on the social and discursive elements of emotion. The participants' responses to the digital jewellery proposals reveal insights into opposing expectations and assumptions of digital objects and jewellery objects and also how the digital jewellery proposals were interpreted and appropriated in a personally emotionally significant context. Additional insights are revealed relating to perceptions of jewellery as intensely personal types of objects, strong connections between participants' inter-personal human relationships and their personal criteria for beauty and to shifts between how the participants referred to the pieces as personal or shared experiences depending on whether they regarded them as a piece of digital or non-digital jewellery.The research culminates in a body of work, both physical and conceptual that has relevance for both design and theory. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)