TDS-433: Body Tracking

Tracked by personal cell phones, high-resolution urban sensors, snapped selfies, and satellite arrays, the human body is becoming digitized, documented, and distributed across a wide web of technologies. In this course students will use motion capture suits, character animation software, and virtual reality platforms to imagine an emerging digital nervous system. How might we design for this future body and its virtual shadow? What new interactions and inputs might we have when we can sense beyond the bounds of the skin and be tracked, down to the location of our fingertips? How might our identities change as we virtually and physically wander, becoming a part of other people, places, or things? In this course students will use hands-on prototyping to explore virtual and physical body parts, sensory devices, spatial interactions, and wearables. Topics will include cybernetics, Kinesiology, biomechanics, and sensory design.