Marty Miller
ABSTRACT
This work presents a critical design case that uses the metaphor of a cell in relation to its designed environment. It then unpacks a photo-taking sequence using a site-specific installation to analyze both mechanically observed and biologically-embodied interactions. Combining the biological with a systemic way of thinking affords a view of interaction with multiple epistemological consequences. Titled Tracing Spaces, the installation attempts to connect an experience of ‘nature’ to the tacit knowledge of being in a body while immersed within an environment. This reflection pays particular attention to ‘the unseen’ relationships enabled in the designed surroundings. To these, it proposes six points of interaction to reveal the technological, ready-to-hand habits needed for contemporary photo-taking. These points suggest an intricate entanglement between immediately physical embodied gestures made visible through visible-representational content pushed to an awkward extreme. Moreover, these relationships point back towards critical sensibilities for interactive technologies – imaging technologies in particular – embedded within the everyday.
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