Simply Spinning: Extending Current Design Frameworks for Kinesthetic Empathy

We describe design considerations in Serpentine Dance, Refocused (SDR), an interactive movement installation that pays homage to Loie Fuller's mesmerizing creations of light and motion. Our design goals were inspired by kinesthetic empathy research. Fuller created the Serpentine Dance (1891) at a time when many artists turned to abstraction as a way for audiences to engage with the essence of motion rather than narrative plots. We sought to heighten the feeling of kinesthetic empathy through creating an interactive environment where audience members could physically engage and reflect on the sensation of spinning, a prominent action in the Serpentine Dance. Through our analysis of SDR we found that our design intentions relating to kinesthetic empathy were not addressed by current design frameworks for kinesthetic interactions. Based on kinesthetic empathy research, we restructure and extend these frameworks into an evaluative and generative framework for interactive systems. We propose that kinesthetic empathy is the center of all movement interactions. This broader definition of kinesthetic empathy can be used to evaluate and generate a wide variety of movement interactions. We discuss the design of SDR through the lens of our evaluative framework.