Participants on the workshop were a group of HCI researchers and was facilitated by researcher Katerina Stepanova, visiting ITU from Simon Fraser University, Canada, and Assoc. Prof. Vasiliki Tsaknaki (ITU).

As part of their research on design with breathing for embodied connection, the researchers conducted a somaesthetic design workshop prototyping with somadigital materials. They explored the qualities of experiences that emerge when the sense our own and other’s breathing is mediated though different materials. Part of the workshop focused on reflection on how we perceive and connect to human and more-than-human others by sharing the experience of breathing, how this experience unfolds, and what type of cues could support its unfolding. Katerina brought the VR demo Star Stuff (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361590556_Star-Stuff_A_Shared_Immersive_Experience_in_Space), which participants and other faculty had the chance to experience in the lab.

Katerina Stepanova is PhD Candidate at iSpace lab at the School of Interactive Art and Technology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. Through an embodied cognition, phenomenology and soma-design her work explores how VR and bio-responsive technology can support intimate, and sometimes transformative experiences of feeling connection to oneself, others, and the world.