Stimulation Sleeve
Stimulation Sleeve is a low-frequency electrical device that foregrounds and concentrates the role of self-stimulation in human body. This challenges the definition of stimulation and raises speculative discussion about its characteristics, based on Gayle Rubin's theory of "benign sexual variation". Stimulation Sleeve is a concentrated expression of people's self-stimulation compulsion, a generative, seductive, electric experience.
Final Output Display
Wearables
The project began in the "wearable" domain, but after brainstorming and research, I shifted focus to the relationship between the human body and mind. It all started with me learning to dance, where I discovered that some muscle groups are easily controlled by the mind, others struggle to follow conscious instructions, and some operate with muscle memory shaped by years of habitual behavior.
How does mind-generated illusion affect the human body?
How does the physical sensory perception of the human body influence mind in?
When a person wears (has) a limb (organ) that does not belong to a normal person, does the person's perception of his or her senses and body change? (For example, if the device is worn for a long period of time, does the tester suffer from phantom limb syndrome after removal)
Which side bears the greater responsibility (perceived information), mind or body, as the primary means of human perception of the outside world?
" Ghost Zone"
But maybe it's a simple act of raising my arm, and I never even think carefully about it, what makes me raise my arm? Do I have the height of inertia to lift my arm? If my arm does not want to be raised, what kind of signal will it send, or rather, my arm does not have the ability to think on its own, so it also loses the initiative in action, but is in a dominated position.
When we think we are in complete control of our bodies, is it just our own imagination?
Pushing a part of my body into an uncontrollable state while | was extremely clear-headed was something magical.
A certain BLIND spot in the human body that the mind could not control
Phantom limb syndrome & Supernumerary phantom limb
"Ghosts" exist in the human body
"Ghosts" exist in the human body
AMASS
After first round of research and brainstorming, we had an exhibition called "AMASS" to show all the inspirations, references and our experiments.
References
CRITICAL POSITION (First Stage)
Everything is about "control" and "non-control". So my device will create a system of the struggle for "control" in which some of the "muscle groups" can be controlled by you, but can also be controlled by the outside world, producing uncontrolled responses. In this process, I want to observe how the body struggles for control, but also encourage the body to enjoy this uncontrolled state.
The structure of the human body is not shifted by the subjective will of
human beings, and what human beings do from birth is to adapt to the
natural structure of the human body, so the relationship between our mind
and body is not a mechanism that can be freely chosen.
And in the process of adaptation, there are many unstable moments between human mind and body (I call them ghost time). In these uncontrollable moments, people panic more because of the loss of control. Whether it is body or mind, there are too many areas that people still can't understand (I call it Ghost Zone).
For my project, I try to convince people to enjoy such moments of loss of control. The point of loss of control is not to correct, but to refresh people's perception of mind and body. People's grasp of the accuracy of AI and machinery actually reflects people's desire to control things, and the same desire to control is also reflected in people's control of their own bodies.
Everything is about "control" and "non-control". So my device will create a system of struggle for "control" in which some of the "muscle groups" can be controlled by you, but can also be controlled by the outside world, producing uncontrolled responses. In this process, I want to observe how the body struggles for control, but also encourage the body to enjoy this uncontrolled state.
In order to explore this uncontrollable state, I finally used muscle sensors and heartbeat sensors for testing, used modeling and 3D printing and other technologies to design the first version of the wearable device and conducted user testing.
The First Version Prototype
But...
With the muscle sensor and heart sensor, after user testing, it was hard to find the state of "uncontrolled", so I decided to use low frequency therapy instrument, which could provide electrical shot to the body and make it uncontrollable.
I used relays and other Arduino hardware to make the device automatically trigger every 30 seconds.
Testing
I tested the device on different people when they were doing different things to make sure the device could really make their muscle uncontrollable.
Muscle dynamics after electric shock
I found that after using this device, there will be corresponding muscle reactions in the arms and palms. This muscle reaction occurs in many people and the muscle movement trends are the same, so I want to use a way to amplify this uncontrollable state. ——Appearance.
Final Making Process
Final Adjustment
After finalizing the making process and adjusting the size for my model, the whole device was done and I started to prepare for my grad show!
Final Muscle Test
Prepare for the Grad Show
In order to let the audience get to know more about the muscle reaction, I created an image loop to show the reaction of the hands in every second.