This co-design workshop is part of STATE of Emotion Festival, Berlin. (link to workshop page)

Affective computing is increasingly capable of quantifying human emotional cues and endowing machines with ‘emotional intelligence’. Robotic materials responsive and adaptive to human emotional cues can be made into artefacts for the body. What if your jewellery, your furniture and your curtains could do something when you feel bad? The workshop invited participants to join the debate on ‘extimacy’ (a term coined by Laçan, 1960).

The workshop consisted of three parts. In part one, participants brought an object or image and talked about personal objects that they connect with emotionally. They also named a movement that made them feel particular emotions. In part two, participants interacted with the artefacts and described how they felt about them by interviewing another person to fill in the questionnaire. In part three, participants worked in groups to create their own “emotional bot”.

Image credit: Caroline Yan Zheng