image credits: whisper

whisper is a participatory installation that uses small, custom-designed wearable computers and handheld devices. Focusing on body architecture, whisper aims to unearth physical data patterns of the body, mapping physiological data onto linked and networked devices worn on or close to the skin and in garments. In other words, it involves collecting data from the bodies of participants, and through visualisation and sonification techniques, interpreting that data.

whisper is an acronym (wearable, handheld, intimate, sensory, personal, expressive, responsive system) and builds upon physical practices such as dance improvisation, manifesting cultural and scientific theories of embodiment to inform and to iterate sister methodologies in design, engineering and computing science.

Thecla Schiphorst is a Vancouver based computer media artist, Associate Professor of Interactive Arts at Simon Fraser University and project leader of the Interactivity Lab. She is the recipient of the 1998 PetroCanada Award in New Media, a biennial award granted by the Canada Council for the Arts, the winner of three first place festival awards at the International Digital Media Awards Festival, and a Graphex award in design. She is a member of the original design team that developed Life Forms, the computer compositional tool for animation and choreography, and has worked with choreographer Merce Cunningham since 1991.

Susan Kozel is an Associate Professor of Interactive Arts at Simon Fraser University. She is a dancer and has a PhD in phenomenology from the Philosophy Department of the University of Essex. She founded Mesh Performance Partnerships, a cross-disciplinary media performance company in London and is a Research Fellow at SMARTlab.