Mind the Gap: Technology as soma

Abstract

The author argues that the notion of wearable technology betrays a materialistic approach to design that constrains the construction of a means to fully facilitate the functionality of technology. It is argued that by taking the view that technology can be considered an extensive form of humanity a space can be opened for designers to explore how the body can be considered an architecture for facilitating consciousness and technology a means of distributing consciousness by means of an extended body. The author - by sketching out a new design territory calling into question some current approaches to usability - intends to provoke thought rather than to provide answers.