In this article, we present breathing-with as a contribution to cultivating concrete design tactics engaging with the more-than-human. We arrive at the concept based on an analysis of three distinct projects, each aimed at exploring the relationality between human and non-human bodies, and of extending the notion of the body in design processes toward the more-than-human, with a focus on breath and breathing. We analyze each project from the perspective of how breathing allowed us as designers to move from the intimate experience of our own bodies into an extended bodily awareness that included the more-than-human as material, living and social bodies. Based on this exploration, we propose breathing-with as a design tactic that can be used throughout the design process. We further reflect on how breathing-with can provide a generative design tactic for zooming in and out of the entangled relationships between human and more-than-human bodies, through surfacing notions of intimacy and vulnerability.

In this paper we present LYDSPOR; a site-specific sound experience, created in Elsinore, Denmark, consisting of two physical installations and an app-based soundwalk, which together allow people to feel and sense in their bodies certain narrative fragments of the history of the city. LYDSPOR is the result of a 1,5 year-long research project which had the aim of adopting soma design methods by drawing on affective interaction design and on an understanding of bodies as always multiple, relational, and never only human. Through an analysis of the design process and its outcome, the paper contributes an in-depth understanding of how to combine somatic and affective design approaches when creating site-specific sonic augmentations for historical dissemination in public space.

Museums are interested in designing emotional visitor experiences to complement traditional interpretations. HCI is interested in the relationship between Affective Computing and Affective Interaction. We describe Sensitive Pictures, an emotional visitor experience co-created with the Munch art museum. Visitors choose emotions, locate associated paintings in the museum, experience an emotional story while viewing them, and self-report their response. A subsequent interview with a portrayal of the artist employs computer vision to estimate emotional responses from facial expressions. Visitors are given a souvenir postcard visualizing their emotional data. A study of 132 members of the public (39 interviewed) illuminates key themes: designing emotional provocations; capturing emotional responses; engaging visitors with their data; a tendency for them to align their views with the system's interpretation; and integrating these elements into emotional trajectories. We consider how Affective Computing can hold up a mirror to our emotions during Affective Interaction

We reflect on two museum visiting experiences that adopted the strategy of interpersonalization in which one visitor creates an experience for another. In the Gift app, visitors create personal mini-tours for specific others. In Never let me go, one visitor controls the experience of another by sending them remote instructions as they follow them around the museum. By reflecting on the design of these experiences and their deployment in museums we show how interpersonalization can deliver engaging social visits in which visitors make their own interpretations. We contrast the approach to previous research in customization and algorithmic personalization. We reveal how these experiences relied on intimacy between pairs of visitors but also between visitors and the museum. We propose that interpersonalization requires museums to step-back to make space for interpretation, but that this then raises the challenge of how to reintroduce the museum’s own perspective. Finally, we articulate strategies and challenges for applying this approach.

This paper presents an exploration of play design as a relational strategy to intensify affective encounters during an art museum visit. Theoretically, the paper presents a foundation emphasising the relational aspects of designing playful museum experiences. Based on a detailed and contextual analysis of a mobile web app entitled 'Never let me go', designed to be used in art museums, we show how the app and infrastructure catalysed affective encounters and put the relations between the players, the architecture and the exhibited artworks into motion. In our analysis, we highlight four ways through which the players' experiences were intensified. Finally, we discuss the potential and concerns arising from working with relational play strategies in the design of affectively engaging museum experiences, emphasising emergence, intimacy, ambiguity and trust as key elements.

This paper presents an attempt to design for a combination of social play and introspection using a ludic approach within an art museum setting. The field trial is described of a mobile web app called 'Never let me go', a two-player system enabling visitors to an art museum to create impromptu experiences in-situ for a companion. The study reveals that players used the app for communicating with each other during the visit, often without speaking. This led to deeply personal and introspective moments, as well as, lots of teasing and playing. The implications of allowing for social, personal and playful experiences in an art museum are discussed, as well as, the advantages and challenges of designing for improvisation.