hipDisk: Understanding the value of ungainly, embodied, performative, fun

hipDisk is a wearable interface that extends the hips and torso horizontally to give the moving body musical capabilities. The device prompts wearers to move in strange ways, bypassing norms of self-constraint, to actuate sound. As the wearer bends and twists their torso, causing the disks to touch, a single tone may be triggered through the integrated speakers. The result is sonically and physically ungainly, yet strangely compelling, and often prompts spontaneous laughter. hipDisk emerged from an embodied, performative research approach. It began as a single user device, and evolved to support social interaction and co-creation, as well as creatively engaged, embodied discovery and learning. The focus in this paper is on the third, participatory, phase of the project, and the value of emergent, performative research.