Seminar on Soma Design by Kristina Höök

Kristina Höök gave a truly interesting and engaging seminar on Soma Design. What is Soma design you might ask? Well, it draws upon the theories of Richard Shusterman on somaesthetics, joining the two words “soma” and “aesthetics”, where soma is our “living, purposive, sentient, perceptive body or bodily subjectivity” and aesthetics is the process of training your sensory appreciation abilities, allowing for “an awakening from the mindless, joyless behaviours” of everyday life.

The seminar started out with a fun, collective bodily exercise as an introduction to the Soma design concept. If you have tried out mindfulness, you would have been familiar. Höök went on to exploring how humans, with feelings, impressions and expressions, can interact with others and with physical materials and technology – and designing products from that.

About Kristina Höök
Kristina Höök is a professor in Interaction Design at the Royal Institute of Technology and also works part-time at RISE. Her research interests include affective interaction, somaesthetic design, internet of things and anything that makes life with technology more meaningful, enjoyable, creative and aesthetically appealing.

She recently wrote a book, Designing with the Body – Somaesthetic Interaction Design that you find here: mitpress.mit.edu/books/designing-body

More news

picture of a woman - Anna Furberg

The hidden climate cost of AI and Internet use

23/06/2025

The rapid growth of AI and internet usage is contributing significantly to increased energy consumption...

Reimagining Digital Futures through a Feminist Lens: Inside the FemTech and Feminist Tech Focus Period

19/06/2025

In May and early June 2025, the five-week Digital Futures FemTech and Feminist Tech focus...

Digital Futures Summer Research Internship (SRI) Program 2025: A Launchpad for Future Researchers

16/06/2025

The Digital Futures Summer Research Internship (SRI) is an exciting initiative aimed at offering undergraduate and master’s...

AI with a Purpose: AymurAI Supports Justice for Women and LGBTI People in Latin America

13/06/2025

A groundbreaking AI initiative is making a real-world impact in Latin America's justice systems. Ivana...