HCII PhD Thesis Proposal - Bea Maggipinto
When
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Description
Aqueous Logic: Designing Playful Interactive Experiences for Ocean Stewardship
Committee:
Jessica Hammer, HCII, CMU
Nuno Nunes, ITI/LARSyS at U. Lisbon
Valentina Nisi, ITI/LARSyS at U. Lisbon
Daragh Byrne, HCII, CMU
Teresa Almeida, ITI/LARSyS at U. Lisbon
Sara Heitlinger, University of the Arts London
Abstract:
The Ocean remains poorly understood despite its vital role in sustaining life on Earth, and awareness of marine degradation does not necessarily translate into care or action. Beyond information-based approaches and recurring doom-and-gloom narratives of the environmental crisis, play offers opportunities for a mode of engagement that is experiential, low-stakes, and emotionally resonant. This thesis treats play as a serious method for nurturing ecological consciousness and Ocean stewardship, exploring how playful interactive experiences can foster curiosity about Ocean life, emotional connection with more-than-human beings, and reflection on ecological interdependences within the hydrocommons, opening pathways towards Ocean stewardship. It develops Aqueous Logic, a design framework for “designing like a body of water”, that introduces six interconnected dimensions for designing with, in, and for aquatic environments. The framework is applied to game design prototyping and developed as a toolkit for game designers to reflect about the hydrocommons through their practice.
Aqueous Logic emerges from an iterative Research through Design process that brings posthuman theory, hydrocommons thinking, and ecopsychology into dialogue with empirical and practical inquiry. Through autoethnography and sensory ethnography of freediving, it examines how sensory attention, bodily adaptation, vulnerability, and communal care cultivate ecological attunement, revealing human bodies as interdependent with the wider hydrocommons. These embodied experiences provide an empirical grounding for the framework, while game prototyping and evaluation with game designers explore how its dimensions can be translated into design practice and refined through making.
The framework is explored through Echo of the Abyss, a virtual reality experience in which players embody a diver descending into the deep sea, guided by marine animals. The prototype explores three dimensions of Aqueous Logic: porosity, kinship, and temporalities, demonstrating how immersive, playful encounters with more-than-human life can foster ecological connection and invite new ways of relating to the deep sea. Through these contributions, this thesis aims to advance posthuman approaches in HCI by exploring how the hydrocommons can inform the design of playful interactive experiences that foster ecological attunement and human–more-than-human relations with aquatic environments. Aqueous Logic offers a theoretical framework and practical toolkit for translating these perspectives into game design, exploring how playful and embodied engagements with aquatic environments can cultivate ecological attunement and open new possibilities for Ocean stewardship.
Proposal Draft Link:
BeaMaggipinto_ThesisProposal.pdf
Location:
Zoom