In Closer, Susan Kozel draws on live performance practice,
digital technologies, and the philosophical approach of
phenomenology. Trained in dance and philosophy, Kozel places
the human body at the center of explorations of interactive
interfaces, responsive systems, and affective computing,
asking what can be discovered as we become closer to our
computers--as they become extensions of our ways of
thinking, moving, and touching.

Performance, Kozel argues, can act as a catalyst for
understanding wider social and cultural uses of digital
technology. Taking this one step further, performative acts
of sharing the body through our digital devices foster a
collaborative construction of new physical states, levels of
conscious awareness, and even ethics. We re-encounter
ourselves and others through our interactive computer
systems. What we need now are conceptual and methodological
frameworks to reflect this.

Kozel offers a timely reworking of the phenomenology of
French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This method, based
on a respect for lived experience, begins by listening to
the senses and noting insights that arrive in the midst of
dance, or quite simply in the midst of life. The combination
of performance and phenomenology offered by Closer yields
entwinements between experience and reflection that shed
light on, problematize, or restructure scholarly approaches
to human bodies using digital technologies.

After outlining her approach and methodology and clarifying
the key concepts of performance, technologies, and
virtuality, Kozel applies phenomenological method to the
experience of designing and performing in a range of
computational systems: telematics, motion capture,
responsive architectures, and wearable computing.

The transformative potential of the alchemy between bodies
and technologies is the foundation of Closer. With careful
design, future generations of responsive systems and mobile
devices can expand our social, physical, and emotional
exchanges.

Susan Kozel is Associate Professor in the School of
Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University,
Vancouver, Canada.

April 2008
The MIT Press
A Leonardo Book
ISBN:0-262-11310-4
380 pp.