Embodied Memory Maker
Designing for grief as a private and shared crafting experience
Elena Margarella
Dr. Michael Nitsche, Advisor
Dr. Anne Sullivan, Committee
Dr. Janet Murray, Committee
EMMA
Designing for grief as a private and shared crafting experience
Elena Margarella
Dr. Michael Nitsche, Advisor
Dr. Anne Sullivan, Committee
Dr. Janet Murray, Committee
Table of Contents
I. Introducing EMMA
An overview of components and supporting research fields.
Hardware:
Software:
Hardware:
Software:
Computer
Arduino Uno
Touch Sensor
Craft
Memory
Digital Media
II. Motivation
What started as personal inquiry into grief evolved into a more provocative question.
Physical
Digital
Physical
Physical
Digital
Physical
Private
Digital
Physical
Private
Shared
Memorialization Matrix
Digital
Physical
Private
Shared
Digital
Physical
Private
Shared
📍
Social media
📍
Tribute walls
Digital
Physical
Private
Shared
📍
Funeral services
📍
Social media
📍
Tribute walls
Digital
Physical
Private
Shared
📍
Funeral services
📍
Mementos
📍
Altars
📍
Gravesites
📍
Photo / video collection
📍
Social media
📍
Tribute walls
📍
Altars
Digital
Physical
Private
Shared
📍
Social media
📍
Funeral services
📍
Tribute walls
📍
Mementos
📍
Gravesites
📍
Photo / video collection
Opportunity area
(Then, 2020)
Motivationing Question
How can we leverage digital and physical affordances to create a memorial experience that is both individual and shared?
III. The Role of Craft
Paper piecing overview + existing projects that inspired my work and design criteria.
Design guideline
Facilitate mindfulness
⭐️
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Craft
Memory
Digital Media
Paper piecing
Photograph of the oldest known paper-pieced quilt, dated 1718.
Modern Quilt Guild. The History of English Paper Piecing. (2020, April 16) https://community.themodernquiltguild.com/resources/history-english-paper-piecing
Reading Glove
AIDS Quilt
Reading Glove
Talking Quilt
Spyn
Rosner, Daniela K., and Kimiko Ryokai. "Spyn: augmenting the creative and communicative potential of craft." Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. 2010.
Heitlinger, Sara, et al. "The Talking Quilt-Augmenting domestic objects for communal meaning-making." EVA. 2012.
Blair, Carole, and Neil Michel. "The AIDS Memorial Quilt and the contemporary culture of public commemoration." Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2007): 595-626.
Tanenbaum, Theresa Jean, Karen Tanenbaum, and Alissa Antle. "The Reading Glove: designing interactions for object-based tangible storytelling." proceedings of the 1st augmented human international conference. 2010.
Memorialization Matrix
Digital
Physical
Private
Shared
Craft
Memory
Digital Media
AIDS Quilt
The Talking Quilt
The Reading Glove
Spyn
English Paper Piecing
Spyn
“A handcrafted artifact can physically embody the skill and time involved in its production.”
“The spyn system explores digital enhancement by augmenting the experience of craftwork without requiring changes to the finished product or the production process.”
Infrared ink printed on yarn to correlate location in knit fabric to messages recording during the process.
Spyn
Design guideline
Maintain a balance of digital and physical engagement.
⭐️
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IV. A Conversation with a Grief Counselor
Interviewing a subject matter expert at Georgia Tech; High-Level Insights
Personal expression is powerful.
“Grief isn’t a one-size fits all thing.”
“There’s a bit more individuality or flexibility with the [middle stages of grief], which is where the emotions are often the most powerful.”
Design guideline
Enable creative expression and personalization.
“Grief isn’t a one-size fits all thing.”
“There’s a bit more individuality or flexibility with the [middle stages of grief], which is where the emotions are often the most powerful.”
⭐️
⭐️
Sharing is a healing opportunity.
“[Sharing] can be a meaningful, healing opportunity...”
“It doesn’t have to be that they all lost the same person, but they may have had similar types of loss in their life to the loss that you had in your life.”
Sharing is a healing opportunity.
“[Sharing] can be a meaningful, healing opportunity...”
“It doesn’t have to be that they all lost the same person, but they may have had similar types of loss in their life to the loss that you had in your life.”
(This comes back into play.)
V. Design Goal
To create a memorial crafting experience that provides private space to process grief alongside others
Enable personalization
Facilitate mindfulness
Balance digital + physical
Design Guidelines
Fall 2019
Spring 2020
Fall 2020
Spring 2021
Establishing Motivation & Opportunity Areas
Humanities research & Related DM Projects
Iterations upon Iterations (LED Candle)
More Iterations & Final Concept (Touch sensor)
Rough Timeline
VI. Prototyping
Picture of v1 with materials all laid out
What I learned
VI. Prototyping
B. Digital intervention: Crafting tool as touch sensor
What I learned
VI. Current State
C. Where we are now.
VII. Evaluations
Preliminary conversations with users.
On creative expression.
“Whether it's grief or any other emotion, like, more power to people who use this very healthy medium to process their grief.”
“Like I used to write a lot and I haven't written in years. So for people who are having a hard time putting their thoughts down or sorting their thoughts out, this is probably a great way to do that.”
“It seems limiting in terms of shape but I guess there are only so many shapes in the world.”
“It’s still something I’d have to learn...”
Personalization is present but needs refinement.
👈
👈
On mindfulness.
“I guess, I would equate it to meditating a little bit because you would be very engaged in just the activity that you're doing.”
“Personally, I would not be able to think of other things while I was doing this. So maybe it would be kind of therapeutic?”
“...a low-pressure environment.”
“You're looking at a screen. You're also looking at other people interacting in your own interaction, so that could take you out of it.”
👈
Web engagement needs to be revisited.
On balance of digital + physical.
“I can't separate COVID from it now because all I can think about is how I can't physically meet people… I haven't seen my family in so long, like, this would be a great bonding tool if they like to do crafts.”
“Translating your mental thoughts into physical activities is something a lot of people do, so this feels like a form of that.”
“As long as the tool doesn’t feel weird or heavy, like as long as there’s no structural barrier, it seems fine.”
👈
Refine sensory experience of the template.
VIII. Future Iterations
Some developing idea(l)s.
Possibilities
Sketch out the ideal state here, or it can take up entire slide and just voice over it??
Links & Resources
Thank you ‘n
Congrats Class of ‘21!
Memorialization & Embodiment
⭐️
⭐️
⭐️
Physical
Digital
Private
Shared
📍
Social media
📍
Tribute walls
📍
Funeral services
📍
Altars
📍
Gravesites
📍
Photo / video collection
📍
Mementos
Opportunity area