Imbodylab

The Slow Stitch: E-Textiles as a Medium for Critical and Reflective Design

Photo of Anna Blumenkranz

Date: Wednesday, Aprtil 30th, 2025, 14:00h-15:00h UTC+2 (CEST) Speaker: Anna Blumenkranz, research fellow and doctoral student at AIHI, University of Salzburg, Austria Title: The Slow Stitch: E-Textiles as a Medium for Critical and Reflective Design Abstract:  In this seminar, I will share my professional journey, from my beginnings as a creative technology educator to my design research in crafting electronic textiles, participatory design, and social design. Through various projects, I will discuss my experiences in developing soft interfaces for marginalised communities and fostering diversity in educational spaces. I will highlight my current research into the temporality of e-textile materials and design processes and how a slower pace can shape critical and reflective design practices. Biography: Anna Blumenkranz is a design researcher and educator focusing on electronic textiles. With a keen interest in critical design and the intersection of art, design, technology, and society, her work explores how these fields converge to shape our everyday lives. In her PhD research at the faculty for AI and Human Interfaces at the University of Salzburg, Anna is researching electronic textiles as a design material for slowing down in design practice and workshops. She is also involved in the research project  Diversity Computing Spaces, which focuses on fostering diversity in school spaces with interactive technologies and facilitating diverse pathways of interaction.Homepage: www.annablumenkranz.de Photo credit: Maria Donska To join the seminar online, send an email to jovegac@inf.uc3m.es — If you are interested in giving a talk please write an email to: lab.imbody@gmail.com.

From Sound Engineering to Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Date: 2025-02-05, 16:00h-17:00h UTC+1 (CET) Speaker: Inés Fernández Vallejo, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Title: From Sound Engineering to Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. Abstract:  In this seminar, I will share my academic and professional journey, from my beginnings in Sound and Image Engineering to my research in artificial intelligence applied to healthcare. Through different projects, I will explore how signal processing, virtual environments, and deep learning have been key to my development throughout my research career. I will also discuss my experiences in international projects and collaborations with research centers, highlighting applications in speech processing, disease detection, and behavioral analysis in psychiatry. Biography: Inés Fernández Vallejo is a researcher in the DEI group at the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (in the iambody lab), where she is pursuing her PhD on sensory and body perception in depressive disorders using wearable technology and machine learning. With a background in Sound and Image Engineering and a Master’s in Health Information Engineering, her work has focused on developing artificial intelligence models applied to healthcare. She has participated in international projects and collaborated with institutions such as the University Carlos III of Madrid, the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute, and the Polytechnic University of Madrid, working on voice analysis and biometrics for disease detection, including Parkinson’s disease and early risk factor identification in child psychiatry. — If you are interested in joining or giving a talk please write an email to: lab.imbody@gmail.com.

Thesis Talks 2024

Amar D’Adamo and José Vega-Cebrián participated in the UC3M Thesis Talk 2024 contest, presenting the contexts and results of their theses in less than 4 minutes. José had the opportunity to present their thesis talk in the live final event on June 12th, 2024. In the following links you can find the video recordings of their talks:

Participation in ESCAN 2024

Amar D’Adamo, Marte Roel and Karunya Srinivasan participated in ESCAN 2024, the 7th bi-annual ESCAN (European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience) meeting which took place in Ghent, Belgium, between the 22nd and 25th of May 2024. They presented the following posters: Social Support Influences the Malleability of Body Perceptions (D’Adamo, A, Sánchez, A., Tajadura-Jiménez, A.) Multisensory signals are a necessary anchor for the auditory Pinocchio illusion (Roel Lesur, M., Longo, M., Tajadura-Jiménez, A.) Researching body perception: towards an integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches to address the multiplicity of bodily experiences (Roel Lesur, M., Turmo Vidal, L., Slatman, J., Väljamäe, A., Tajadura-Jiménez, A.) Drawing a Straight Line From Body to Mind – The cognitive consequences of training the body in the process of drawing a perfectly straight line free-hand (Srinivasan, K., Soto-Faraco, S.)

Participation in CHI 2024

Amar D’Adamo participated in the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24), in Honolulu, Hawaii (May 11-16). He presented the following paper: Amar D’Adamo, Marte Roel Lesur, Laia Turmo Vidal, Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi, Daniel De La Prida, Joaquín R. Diaz-Durán, Luis Antonio Azpicueta-Ruiz, Aleksander Väljamäe, and Ana Tajadura-Jiménez. 2024. SoniWeight Shoes: Investigating Effects and Personalization of a Wearable Sound Device for Altering Body Perception and Behavior. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 93, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642651

Participation in Canal Connect 2024

Joaku (Joaquín R. Díaz) had a double participation in Canal Connect 2024, a festival for the intersections of the Arts, Science and Technology in Teatros del Canal. First, Joaku participated in a special program of the Efecto Doppler radio program, devoted to Canal Connect 2024. You can listen to the program here: Efecto Doppler: Especial desde Canal Connect 2024 (in Spanish). Then, Joaku participated in a roundtable discussion, LA QUIMERA EN LA INTERSECCIÓN ACTS (The Chimera at the intersection of Arts, Science and Technology), along with Esther Moñivas, Mónica Gutiérrez (Basurama), and moderated by Tere Badía. The following was the topic of the roundtable discussion: This roundtable will address the concept of chimera from different projects and perspectives. On the one hand, the integration of performance, the body and the language of technology in a device for critical thinking will be discussed. On the other hand, the research project In Serere (Basurama), which uses the technique of grafting citrus trees as a performative practice based on care. In addition, we will reflect on the relationships between contemporary artistic practices, bioethics and genetic engineering, which lead us to update the concepts of monster and chimera as principles of movements of attraction and repulsion. Translated from: Mesas redondas Canal Connect 2024

MH. Rahmani

Mohammad (MH) Rahmani is a PhD research candidate in Computer Science and Technology at UC3M, currently focusing on Embodied Perception through Interaction and Sensations.

Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi is now an IEEE Senior Member

Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi was promoted to the grade of IEEE Senior Member! This recognition reflects the exceptional collaboration with Mohammad’s dedicated students and esteemed senior colleagues. Over the last 15+ years, Mohammad has worked tirelessly to explore the boundaries of Machine Learning, Machine Vision, and Unconventional Computing. Congratulations!

Karunya Srinivasan

Karunya Srinivasan has a multidisciplinary background in Psychology, Expressive Arts Therapy, Somatic Education and Cognitive Science. Her studies and work have followed her belief that it is in movement where the body finds its meaning.