Maintaining Relationships with Our Devices is a thesis and performance that explores whether the distance we have had between our bodies and our devices has given us the space to form meaningful relationships and how these relationships change when our devices become wearable.

Despite a strong commercial trend towards wearable technology, this thesis considers the distal devices that have played an important role in our lives for over twenty years. Suggesting that the distance we have had between our bodies and our devices has given us the space to form meaningful relationships; the research explores how these relationships change when our devices migrate onto and into our bodies in the form of wearable technologies. The methodology of performative scenarios is developed to examine examples of relationships between people and their devices. Using examples of technologies that live with us now to inform the design of future technological developments reflects a post-phenomenological perspective calling for a materially oriented design approach. This thesis will explore this approach through focusing on the question; what would we lose if our distal devices became wearable devices? Ideations aiming to prevent any loss caused by the transition of devices from distal to wearable will provide examples of post-phenomenological wearable technology that not only maintains our relationships with our devices, but also helps our relationships to grow.

A performance based on findings was performed at CHI 2016  and featured in Interactions Magazine in July 2016.