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Haptics and the role of ‘body-as-interface’ in artistic immersive/virtual experiences
No full textCreating an emotional and physical connection between virtual environments and interactive storytelling, using actuation (physical action on the body) in haptic interfaces, can be an effective way to design and deeply experiential, immersive engagement for audiences. Haptics have been considered the most powerful way to elicit a fully embodied experience for ‘immersants’ for VR pioneer Char Davies since the 1990’s (2004). While narrative and design grammars for making virtual reality and immersive storytelling experiences are still evolving, artists and designers are developing a better understanding of what audiences respond to within the experiences they create, and haptics are one of the powerful ways to engage them. After many years of diving deep into the emerging practices of digital and electronic art, starting with Net Art, then exploring the potentials of mobile phones and wearables in performance and interactive installations, this author has been making extended reality installation experiences, developing impactful narratives from first person health stories since 2019, using haptic garments in performative works to focus on invisible experiences of women's reproductive illnesses and treatments. The sense of touch, combined with the other sensory modalities, forms a coherent and robust perception of the world, and thus, this chapter will discuss touch, sensing and haptics more broadly. It will also explore the role of haptic sensations as part of virtual and extended reality experiences to make audience experiences richer, deeper, more visceral, and personal. It will also share discoveries from the design and exhibition of the author’s own XR installation artworks INTER/her and Mammary Mountain
Retrofit as ecological citizenship towards participatory resilient and regenerative design
No full textRetrofit is typically framed as a technical intervention in existing buildings aimed at improving energy performance and reducing emissions. Yet the act of retrofitting also reorganises social relations, skills, material flows, and everyday practices, with implications that extend beyond the household to neighbourhoods, supply chains, and regional ecologies. This paper reframes retrofit as a participatory design practice that cultivates ecological citizenship, a distributed capability to learn, make, organise, and steward ecological relations through the built environment. We ground this argument in three design-led cases: (1) The Wild House (University of Brighton), a regenerative retrofit “show home” in social housing that prototypes an Ecology of Things (EoT) linking occupants, materials, and multispecies habitats through sensorial interactions; (2) Ag. Lab (University of Exeter), a bioregional, distributed manufacturing model enabling off-season farm-based production of plant-based insulating blocks using existing agricultural skills and machinery; and (3) Unlocking retrofit uptake through community champions (SEI), a street-by-street engagement and finance model that mobilises trusted local actors, deploys accessible financing, and uses behavioural insights and GIS targeting to normalise retrofit, especially for middle-income households excluded from grants. We synthesise findings into a role-based framework, citizen-learner, citizen-producer, citizen-ecologist, community champion, and derive design implications spanning methods, tools, organisational models, and learning infrastructures. Contributions include: (a) positioning retrofit as a vehicle for sufficiency and circularity rather than solely efficiency; (b) articulating participatory toolchains for distributed material production and ecological integration; and (c) proposing governance and finance patterns that enable neighbourhood-scale delivery. We conclude with a research agenda for scaling participatory retrofit across diverse housing stocks, emphasising equity, quality assurance, ecological metrics, and long-term maintenance cultures
Biofibre explorer: An augmented reality (AR) tool to promote circularity through material knowledge
Full text linkAugmented Reality (AR), which overlays digital information on the physical world, is frequently used in textile retail to improve shopping experiences by simulating product appearance and enabling virtual customisation. While these applications foster brand engagement and purchasing decisions, they largely promote consumption rather than encouraging circular behaviours. This study introduces the AR Biofibre Explorer, an innovative tool designed to reconnect consumers with materials and processes by demonstrating the wet spinning process for producing cellulose-based textiles. Through a mixed-methods evaluation, we reveal how the tool enhances understanding of material origins and their applications, promoting informed decisions and circular practices. Aligning with The wellbeing framework for consumer experiences in the circular economy of the textile industry, the tool incorporates dimensions such as learning, attachment, competence, and playfulness. This research establishes AR as a means to foster sustainability and circularity in fashion by bridging material knowledge gaps, enhancing consumer engagement, and enabling sustainable consumption choices
From volunteering to civic ecological labour: An institutional design framework for civic ecological labour infrastructures
No full textSustainability transitions are increasingly characterised by the need for public engagement in ecological care, such as urban greening, biodiversity observation, habitat restoration, and environmental maintenance. However, under most policy frameworks, such a task is either provided through diminishing public services or through voluntary work. The paper contends that the present overdependence on voluntary ecological work is a failure within the political economy of sustainability transitions. A new institutional form, "Civic Ecological Labour," is proposed, understood as paid, part-time, locally rooted ecological work that falls between employment, voluntary work, and the welfare system. Based on the theories of ecological economics, institutional economics, and public value theory, this paper proposes a conceptual and methodological framework for what we call Civic Ecological Labour Infrastructures: the governance, legal, financial, and organisational systems necessary to integrate ecological care into the heart of local economies. We examine the ideological assumptions implicit in contemporary regimes of labour and environmental governance, demonstrate how they necessarily externalise ecological care, and outline the institutional design principles necessary to facilitate scalable, inclusive, and just ecological work. This article makes a contribution to ecological economics in that it redefines labour, care, and stewardship as prime economic functions in the transition to sustainability rather than mere moral actions. This article introduces a new analytical term that describes the provision of public ecological goods and outlines some design options that can be applied on the municipal, community, or hybrid levels
Role in the new built env paradigm; domestic property adaptation and collective futures
No full textDomestic retrofit is commonly framed as a technical optimisation challenge or as a market-activation problem addressed through incentives, information, and finance. This paper argues that such framings systematically understate the political, ethical, and relational dimensions of dwelling, and consequently undermine legitimacy, inclusion, and long-term performance. The paper therefore reframes domestic retrofit as ecological citizenship, understood as a civic and everyday practice through which households participate in shared socio-ecological care and negotiate rights, responsibilities, risks, and benefits with institutions, communities, and supply chains. The study addresses three research questions: (1) What design and governance conditions are required for retrofit to be conceived and organised as civic infrastructure rather than a consumer service? (2) Which generative mechanisms enable retrofit pathways to produce trust, inclusion, and legitimacy across diverse households and housing types? (3) How can national and local delivery models be coherently aligned to achieve both contextual fit and scalable impact? Methodologically, the paper combines design ethnography, participatory workshops, and speculative prototyping with realist evaluation and contribution analysis. Empirically, the argument is developed through three contrasting case studies: ROSSY/YorEnergy, a municipal one-stop shop that positions retrofit as a public service; Wildhouse, an experimental retrofit that foregrounds more-than-human dwelling through bio-based materials, biodiversity features, and sensory feedback; and AgLab, a distributed farm-led model that links retrofit to material commons and regenerative local economies. The analysis identifies eight recurring mechanisms that shape retrofit outcomes across contexts: institutional trust, contextual fit, friction minimisation, finance intermediation, supply-chain co-production, demonstration effects, governance agility, and equity-by-design. Together these mechanisms extend conventional definitions of success beyond installation counts and carbon metrics towards the capacity of retrofit systems to reach, activate, convert, and retain households in staged, coherent, and socially just journeys. The paper contributes (1) a theoretical reframing of retrofit as ecological citizenship, (2) a pattern language of designable defaults for civic retrofit infrastructures, and (3) a federated delivery model described as “national rails and local doors”, aligning national standards and capital with local legitimacy and delivery capacity. It concludes that retrofit should be treated as civic infrastructure in which design mediates between policy, materials, institutions, and everyday life, and that fail-to-safe institutional patterns are essential to just, durable, and scalable decarbonisation
Bernard Berenson: Connoisseurship and the art market
No full textBernard Berenson (1865-1959) was an American connoisseur of Lithuanian Jewish extraction who was a hugely significant figure in the evolution of the commercial art world from the late 1880s to the 1940s. This book examines his conception of connoisseurship and its impact through his famous protégés, who included Geoffrey Scott, Meyer Shapiro, John Walker and especially art historian Kenneth Clark, of Civilisation fame. This is framed through a biographical account of Berenson’s complex and duplicitous character, together with a description of his important methods for determining authorship and assigning value to Renaissance artworks
Holy AI? Unveiling magical images via photogrammetry
Full text linkRecent text-to-image AI systems have revived the long-standing fantasy of the image that appears to generate itself. Building on Chesher and Albarrán-Torres’s concept of ‘autolography’, this article situates contemporary AI-generated imagery within a longer lineage of self-generating images that extends from religious acheiropoieta (‘not made by hand’) through photography to computational image-making. Through the lens of Practice-as-Research (PaR), it positions digital photogrammetry as a knowledge ground in which the fantasy of the self-generating image continues to perform the faith structures of earlier visual cultures. Drawing on photogrammetric experiments originating within Lisbon’s Church of São Domingos in 2018, this article examines unexpected artifacts—ghosts, smears, and fragmentations—that emerge from movement, and reveal the body of the researcher in the centre. It argues that such digital ‘miracle’ images function as contingent, embodied events, and renders visible the labour, presence, and gestures typically erased by automated systems. It playfully proposes the ‘cheiropoieton’ (‘made by hand’) as an embodied counter-ethics to autolography, insisting on friction, care, and accountability in contemporary image-making
Sustainable symbiosis: Creating conditions for ecological citizen(s)
No full textDesign (as a practice) has a duty of care to society (above financial gain) navigating: consequence mitigation, empowering others, nurturing circularity, cross-fertilising disciplines, ecological restoration, and cultivating regenerative futures. We require diverse approaches, and regenerative pilots, to disrupt damaging trajectories. As Manzini alludes, design should ‘create the conditions’ for others to enact change. Authors see fresh roles for participatory design and social innovation, creating conditions for ‘Sustainable Symbiosis’. The article navigates an Ecological Citizen(s) deployed example with Ealing Borough Council (municipality) exploring citizen-led models. Scenarios leverage ‘micro-interactions’ instances that benefit communities through financial remuneration, creating peer-to-peer opportunities benefiting each other and the planet. Ecological Citizen(s) are intent on ‘creating the conditions’ transcending traditional boundaries activating communities, reshaping relationships and accessibility to ‘catalyse sustainable conditions’... i.e. Sustainable Symbiosis. The work is UK-focused, with international application
Advances in you only look once algorithms for lane and object detection in autonomous vehicles
Full text linkEnsuring the safety and efficiency of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) necessitates highly accurate perception, especially for lane detection and lane-change manoeuvres. Among object detection frameworks, “You Only Look Once” (YOLO) algorithms have emerged as prominent contenders due to their rapid inference and commendable accuracy. However, the broad spectrum of YOLO variants and their applications in complex, real-world environments remain insufficiently mapped, necessitating a more integrative and critical perspective than what is typically offered by surveys. This comprehensive review synthesizes theoretical foundations, architectural innovations, and empirical evaluations of YOLO-based algorithms in AV-related tasks. It not only highlights key findings—such as the notable gains in real-time detection and adaptability to a range of driving conditions—but also explicitly identifies persistent gaps and limitations. These include difficulties in detecting subtle or degraded lane markings, handling unpredictable environmental factors like adverse weather and varied lighting, mitigating adversarial perturbations, and scaling effectively across diverse datasets and geographic regions. By critically examining these vulnerabilities, we illuminate the opportunities for refining YOLO's training paradigms, optimizing model architectures, incorporating sensor fusion, and fostering universally applicable datasets. The implications of addressing these gaps extend beyond mere technical refinements. Proactively tackling YOLO's current challenges can expedite the realization of safer, more robust, and globally adaptable AV navigation systems. In doing so, this review provides clear, actionable insights for researchers, engineers, and policymakers, guiding them toward strategic innovations that will strengthen AV perception and contribute to more reliable, future-ready transportation solutions