#lingql

A series of workshops were hosted during which participants engaged in debates and discussions on what concerns them about their city. The topic of Safety in the city and the participants’ experiences became a driving factor for the design and function of the wearable devices. I then went on to create 10 wearable-tech devices whereby the aesthetic were designed by participants in the workshop. They were then worn by different participants for a period of 1 week to track their perception of safety in the city. Powered by WearON, the wearables were designed to be real-time body gesture tracking devices, coupled with real time connectivity between wearers (i.e. wearer gets alerted through vibration if their partner was perceived to be unsafe). Participants can either choose to walk in pairs ( but far from each other) or as individual.

Participants took part in various stages of the project, from designing the wearable housing using simple materials such as foam (middle), tesing the earlier prototype of the electronics (far left) to wearing the final harness wearable design to collect data in the city(far right)

I made a few interesting observations based on the anecdotal feedback from the participants who wore the devices:

Situation Awareness: Some people reported that wearing the perception safety tracker made them feel more aware of their surroundings, hence safer as they felt protected by the wearable, thinking that it conveys real time data to a central control.

Togetherness: The design of the wearable (like a harness) made them feel protected physically and having the power to affect a change if anything were to happen because they feel like they are part of a bigger project.

Sense of connection:  Some of the participants reported feeling safer when walking in the city because they believe that the wearable can alert their friends if they were unsafe.

Demographically different: Data points collected throughout the whole 1 week suggested that different demographics might have different safety perceptions in the city compared to others. For example, a young white female student described feeling less safe walking in the city, whereas a mature black male participant described feeling safe walking in the city alone. The data points collected by the two participants also reflected their individual opinions. This of course raises a lot of issues about how much can be implied from self-reporting. As only 24 participants’ data were collected in total, further, further investigation would be needed.

Workshop session with participants

Collage of all the 24 participants that took part in this project

The process and outcome of creating this work highlights a couple of important aspects to creating social wearables that differ from the way that many popular wearables and mobile phones are configured:

1. Active and expressive wearable

This type of wearable distinguish itself from popular commercial wearables that merely provide notifications or passive sensing. As it gives wearers the added ability to send messages out (locally within proximity to some wearers) or globally (to all wearers) in the form of body gestures that are tracked by sensors from the wearable. This create immersive opportunity for:

1.data scientists to collect data regarding certain issues, e.g perception of safety around Braamfontein

2. wearers to participate and engage as part of a bigger community with similar interest, e.g tracking each other’s safety when in town

3. wearable designers to engage with wider variety of designing wearable that could potentially open up to new forms of wearable that differ from current trend e.g wearable that function as protective harness

4. wearable developers to experiment with new forms of interaction that could help open up more meaningful conversation in regards to wearable technology.

2. Flexible ways of interaction between wearers

Wearable technology can provide a communication portal for wearers to engage with each other through intuitive means. However, setting rigid rules of interaction does not necessarily help make the interaction meaningful or provide enough incentive for people to want to interact through this medium. Hence maybe setting a flexible interaction framework whereby users can e.g create their own “morse” code through setting vibration time range on their wearable in order to talk to friends could be a much more meaningful way of engagement.

3. Resilient community

Part of being socially connected is to have the sense of belonging, either to a group of friends or to a larger community. As wearable technology is designed to be worn for a prolonged period of time, it has an immensive potential to help create social structures in groups of wearers. And with time, it could grow stronger and might even evolve into resilient communities whereby people can help each other in ways that go beyond what the wearable technology can provide.

*The residency program was developed by Wits Art Museum, SA and Waterman Art Centre, UK, in partnership between the Department of Arts and Culture and the British Council.