Sarotis: wearable futures

Maria Paneta & Ava Aghakouchak (UK 2016)

Sarotis is a soft robotic wearable designed to study whether a person’s awareness of space could be amplified by 3D scanning technologies. Can fluidic hydrogel interfaces dissolve the distinction between our own physiology and that of the softening machines that will extend our bodies?

Ava Aghakouchak Maria Paneta

Ava Aghakouchak

― Artist

Ava Aghakouchak is an architectural designer, creative technologist and educator currently undertaking a PhD in architectural design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. She has been a member of the Interactive Architecture Lab, since her graduate studies in 2015, and now acts as a thesis supervisor on the course of Design for Performance and Interaction. Her graduate project at the IALab titled Sarotis has been highlighted by Domus as one of the top design projects of 2016 and awarded the Silver medal during the New York Design Awards 2018. Ava’s work has appeared in the ARS Electronica (Linz), Resonate Media Arts Festival (Belgrade), Museum of Contemporary Arts (Shanghai), King’s College (London), BodyHack Con (Texas) and Onassis Cultural Center (Athens). www.avakouchak.co.uk

Maria Paneta

― Artist

Maria Paneta is a multidisciplinary designer and practicing architect working between London and Athens. She has exhibited internationally with recent shows at MoCa Shanghai, Texas, London and Athens. She has worked with leading cultural and research institutions including the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Victoria & Albert Museum London, where she taught interaction design. Graduated from Interactive Architecture Lab in 2016, she is working on the verge of art and architecture with an interest in cybernetics, interaction and cognition. Her study in the Bartlett resulted in the development of the wearable ‘Sarotis’, a prosthetic device that augments spatial awareness and creates tactile virtual spaces. ‘Sarotis’ questions how soft prosthetic devices can modify the user’s spatial awareness and mitigate the distance between bodies, minds and space. She creates virtual spaces dealing with the augmented life in non-human environments and addresses the issues of non-familiarity and habitability.

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