Designing Interaction Categories for Kinesthetic Empathy: A Case Study of Synchronous Objects

Synchronous Objects is an interactive online dance work that allows audiences to look inside the choreographic structure of William Forsythe's One Flat Thing, reproduced (2000). Ohio State University, in collaboration with Forsythe, created twenty interactive visualizations or "objects" with varying levels of interactivity that present three main choreographic principles: alignments, cueing and movement material. This design allows users to empathize with the movement on multiple levels--shifting attention away from aesthetic biases and highlighting qualities of the movement that may otherwise be missed. We conducted a close reading analysis of the interaction design strategies employed within Synchronous Objects in order to understand what interaction design features support kinesthetic empathy. We suggest categorizing the objects into three types: instructional, exploratory, and translational and claim these interaction categories provide a useful framework for understanding how to design for kinesthetic empathy in computational models of movement. We discuss how these interaction categories represent movement through relatable images that a broader audience can appreciate and connect with. Our analysis contributes to research in movement and computation by including kinesthetic empathy as a design principle within movement representations.