Author: elizabeth.trevinopadilla

Since last semester I realized that different tools work better for different levels of aerialists, I decided to also test out the 3 prototypes with 3 different participants (henceforth referred to as P1, P2 and P3) who were complete beginners in aerial, with no experience in the field. The following are the findings of the research through design process. 

1. Hanger silk 

When explaining the basic French climb with the hanger silk, a problem arose in the fact that the explainer would need both hands to simulate the movement of the feet, but the hanger would still need to be held up. Plus, it was no more useful for P1, P2 and P3 than just explaining the French climb on the actual aerial silk, with hands instead of feet (in order to avoid the physical burnout and need for strength). P3 even mentioned that the hanger silk is not needed, since if you have the silk in front of you, you can also explain it there. Thus, I decided to remove the hanger silk from the final prototype kit. 

2. Neon sleeves 

Contrary to the advanced learners and to what was expected, P1 preferred the use of the neon sleeves when she put them on the opposite side of the side the explainer had them on. When asked about this, P1 mentioned that it helped her to pretend that she was seeing in a mirror rather than trying to copy another person. Instead of seeing this as a challenge, I choose to see it as an opportunity of the product itself – with no rules and no restrictions, people can use it however will be more useful to them. When P3 put on the sleeve, after a bit of time I noticed that she didn’t have it on anymore. When asked, she said that she took it off because she was hot. Additionally, since she doesn’t have any problem distinguishing left and right, she said that the neon sleeves didn’t really have an effect on her learning. This furthers the conclusion that the sleeves are useful only in specific cases, and should be included in the final prototype kit, even if they’re not the main focus. 

3. Little guy 

This prototype was extremely useful for P1, who said “the little guy gives me confidence that I’m not going to die, because I see that he is not falling so it means I will not fall”. For P2, since she had less upper body strength than P1, the little guy was not really useful; however, she expressed interest in being able to keep using it during her aerial silks journey as a helpful tool. In the case of P3, she said the little guy was her favorite prototype, as it really helped her to understand the difference that body position makes. However, even though she theoretically understood the importance of folding your body to do the hip-key, she still wasn’t able to perform the hip-key in the first attempts, since she wasn’t folded enough. When asked about this, P3 said that she “didn’t think it was necessary to be that extreme”. This furthers the conclusion (from the user testing with advanced students) that one of the most important elements of the little guy is the ability to let students touch and explore through him. In P3’s case, it would’ve been useful to understand the breakpoint from which you go from falling out of the hip key to being locked in place. However, despite this slight hiccup, P3 was able to successfully complete 3 new figures, stay hands-off on the hip-key, AND learn how to climb, which is an impressive feat and not at all expected for beginners, indicating that the use of the prototypes helped accelerated her learning. 

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Sources: 

Own research. 

What problem are you solving? Externalizing one’s own internal proprioception and bodily and spatial awareness is not easy, and varies from person to person depending on their mental model.  

Why should we care about it? Through sports (specifically aerial silks, in this case), people get adrenaline, maintain good physical and mental well-being, and create community. However, there is a barrier to entry in the fact that people believe it’s harder and less safe than it actually is, leading to people potentially not finding a hobby that could bring them joy. 

What is the solution you are offering? How does it work? I am offering an aerial silks teaching kit including colorful sleeves and a physical 3D model of a human, which has articulating joints and an additional apparatus add-on (starting with aerial silks). This model would have the possibility of demonstrating aerial silks figures on a smaller scale and with lower stakes. Plus, a premium model would have digital capabilities, with sensors embedded in the sleeves to track the person’s movements and be able to represent it autonomously in the model. This kit would also come with an accompanying app that will function as a personal digital aerial diary to log and track your own progress and create community. 

Who is the target audience? Who is the customer? The target audience is the aerial silks student who wants to learn new figures. However, the customer is both the student and also the aerial silks teacher that wants to be able to explain in more classes without having to expense copious amounts of physical energy. 

What is going to happen? (Change & Impact) Aerial students will be able to have more mental security that they will be safe trying out a specific new figure. They will get a deeper understanding for their own body and spatial awareness. The learning curve of new tricks will be lesser, making students able to learn and retain information quicker. Students will be able to, on their own, see if a figure is appropriate for their level, decipher individual moves, try it out in a low-stakes environment, and identify which points have to be taken more care of in order to be safe (e.g. detect essential and nonessential parts of a figure). 

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Source:  

Own ideation  

The following are representations of the 2 customer profiles, the value proposition map, and the business model canvas of my prototype. 

Own image. 

Own image. 

Own image. 

Own image. 

Own image. 

Through this exercise, I realized the possibility of expanding my low-level prototype into a digital tool and environment. It would be interesting to explore how a tailor-made app can elevate the experience of using my tool and learning aerial silks, working as a sort of personal diary to log your learnings and new tricks (in progress/mastered) and create community for aerialists from all over the world to help each other. Not only that, but sensors could be added to the wearable sleeves that could communicate with a “premium” (premium because it would have digital capabilities besides his analog ones) version of the 3D little guy aerialist to observe what an aerialist did that was wrong/right.  

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Source:  

Own ideation  

Yesterday, I tried out the 3 prototypes with 3 different participants (henceforth referred to as P1, P2, and P3) of intermediate aerial silks level. The following are the findings of the research through design process. 

1. Hanger silk 

This prototype was not really useful for the intermediate aerialist, since they all have knowledge of the basic knots used in most figures (e.g. footlock, hip key, russian climb, etc.) There was no use case for this object in their case. I tried to use it to teach catcher’s pose to P3, but it didn’t really help. This is because catcher’s pose is not a mentally complex knot, rather a physically complex one. She understood what she had to do, but she mentioned she didn’t have the proper bodily proportions (her arm is not long) to do it properly, nor was she strong enough to hold herself in an inverted position for a long time to try out other solutions. 

However, an interesting finding when talking with P3 is that she uses a longer (3m) piece of old silk to teach these same knots to kids. She explains that while it’s a useful tool for base knots, when it comes to kids, the problem becomes that she doesn’t know how to get them to stop playing with the silk and use it in a serious manner. As such, this made me reformulate my intended audience to exclude kids. This is because kids pose an extra challenge in their interaction with physical objects, and it’s outside of the scope of this investigation, even if I hadn’t explicitly known it before. 

2. Neon sleeves 

P2 and P3 seemed the most interested in this prototype, since they both mentioned they have trouble remembering to distinguish between left and right, both when watching the teacher and when in the air. P2 mentioned that, when both her and the teacher wore it on the same arm, it made communication easier and faster. Not only could she visibly see the teacher’s colored vs bare arm, but also when there were errors in P2’s attempts, it was easier to identify and correct. It removed the extra layer of thinking for her. P2 noted that it sped up the learning process for her, since she was able to copy the teacher’s moves without too much mental load. Plus, after 2 times practicing the move with the sleeves on, she managed to do the 3rd try all on her won without any mistakes. 

3. Little guy 

I had high hopes for the little guy, hoping he would be the star of the show. However, when externalizing the internal bodily sensations, little guy proved to be somewhat of a nuisance rather than a help. This doesn’t mean to say that this kind of 3d model is not useful; rather, that the framing of the model was lacking, and the fact that it was a quick-and-dirty prototype made the model itself harder to use in practice.  

The first problem encountered was the fact that one person can’t manipulate both the little guy and the mini-silks. Luckily, P3 had a camera tripod to lend me, which made the usage of the little guy much easier (a second, smaller learning through this process was the fact that we had to tie the mini-silks to the tripod, as they can’t balance on their own). 

Own image. 

In using the little guy to teach a new sequence to P1, we found that the characteristics of the mini-silk didn’t quite match up with the intended use – the ribbons used in the prototype are much too big (width wise), too short (length wise) and don’t allow for the flowiness that real silks have. This made smaller moves like a footlock harder to display on the little guy, and it made it hard to use as a teaching tool for footlock-based sequences. Another learning was the fact that he’s missing a clearly identifiable front and back, something that both P1 and P3 agreed they would like for him to have.  

P1, a very good aerialist, mentioned she wanted to play around with the little guy and make him do a hip key. Despite being able to do this skill in her sleep, she failed to understand what she was doing wrong that made the little guy unable to hold the hip key in the mini-silks. In reality, what was missing was the fact that even if she knew what to do when she herself was up on the silk, she forgot to fold the little guy inward. This step is critically important – as I showed a few weeks ago in the prototype video, the “lock” on the hip key that makes you not fall is the physical act of folding yourself inward. When I told her what she forgot, she mentioned that she “didn’t want to break the prototype”, which is another piece of evidence supporting the fact that for the little guy to work, his model form must be easy to manipulate and visibly tough. Through this process, however, P1 mentioned that she found it much easier to learn from the little guy when it was not just the teacher showing a figure through him, but when she was actually able to touch and manipulate his figure. 

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Sources: 

Own research. 

From the 6 readings we did in class, 4 stood out to me as really insightful food for thought regarding my own research project about aerial silks. 

[1]’s main argument is that the goal of research through design is not to make a single artefact; rather, the goal is to generate new knowledge and understanding. This is especially relevant to my topic in the sense that it helped me to redirect my focus and let go of the erroneous idea that everything has to be perfect. 

[1] also defines language as “all means of communications [sic] (oral or not) and terms used by a professional community”. This is definitely one of the quotes that I would like to include in my thesis, as it directly relates to my topic – teaching aerial silks is, at its core, a language and communication problem. 

[2]’s main argument is that the scientific approach to experiments and irrefutable statements are directly in conflict with research through design; rather, these generalizations should be used for inspiration, not as definite facts. Similarly to [1], this article helped me reframe my thought process and let go of the hard grasp on scientific rigidity that my previous studies had instilled in me. 

[3]’s main objective was to present the different schools of thought regarding research through design. When talking about knowledge, [3] defines and differentiates tacit vs explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge, according to [3], “cannot be communicated by mere words. Material artifacts and experiences are deemed to be part of this communicating.” This is also relevant to my own research due to the fact that proprioception and body awareness can be deemed tacit knowledge – how do you communicate how your body feels? How do you communicate what your muscles are doing? Furthermore, I expand on this point to ask, how do you even know what your muscles are doing? With my thesis, I aim to answer these questions with research through design in the context of aerial silks.  

“Ingold (2013) explains the distinction of tacit knowledge as a difference between knowing and telling, describing how a maker’s ways of knowing and doing are told ‘by hand’. The artifacts, especially prototypes, are said to be carriers of such knowledge. Aligned with this position, some state that the prototype itself is the knowledge, but few will agree that ‘this apple’ by itself will be able to tell that it is ‘a body’. Such a framing has to be added explicitly.” – Extract from [3] 

Finally, [4] shows a practical example as to how to actually apply research through design in a real-life project. In their case, they used a physical abstraction to represent the internal bodily process of digestion, which is very similar to what I aim to achieve in my project. However, [4] rightfully states that “When we use abstractions, we hide the complexity of the actual processes and introduce new complexity. Hence, abstraction creates a challenge that users may not understand what each module represents for the first couple of interactions. However, previous works suggest that understanding of abstract physical visualisations improve over time.” This is a very important thing to keep in mind for me, since the abstract nature of my prototypes may (and has, as I will write about in the next blog post) introduce a second kind of complexity in the fact that users have to externalize their internal tacit knowledge. 

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Sources: 

[1] D. Godin and M. Zahedi, “Aspects of Research through Design: A Literature Review,” Design’s Big Debates – DRS International Conference, 2014, doi:10.21606/drs.2014.85. 

[2] W. Gaver, “What should we expect from research through design?,” Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings, pp. 937 – 946, doi:10.1145/2207676.2208538. 

[3] P. Stappers. and E. Giaccardi, “Research through Design” IxDF – Interaction Design Foundation. https://ixdf.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/research-through-design (accessed Mar. 19, 2026). 

[4] R. A. Khot, J. Ng, and D. Aggarwal, “Crafting Tangible Interfaces for Human Digestion: Unpacking the Research through Design Prototyping Journey”, Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, pp. 1 – 15, doi:10.1145/3490149.3502252. 

The following is a representation of the accessibility requirements and barriers of my prototype. 

Own image. 

The most interesting insight to come out of this exercise was the question: “does it have to be for aerial?” When thinking about this for the first time, my answer was “yes of course, that’s what my topic is about and the limit of the scope.” However, after thinking about the question a second time, and narrowing down my product from “any tool” to specifically “the third prototype (named ‘little guy’) I made”, I realized that while yes, my tool couldn’t be used for running or swimming or the like, but why not make additional attachments (instead of the external mini-silks) to represent other apparatuses, like floor pole, aerial pole, aerial hoop, trapeze, rope, hammock, straps, or similar apparatus. 

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Source: 

Own ideation 

The following is a representation of the change and impact of my prototype. 

Own image. 

As mentioned before, my tool is designed to help in the understanding of figures, but it also has the added benefit of increasing the visibility of how small changes in body position can lead to different outcomes, for example (but hopefully not) falling.  

A specifically interesting part of this diagram is the 4th “before” statement, which is a direct quote from one of my aerial classmates who was a beginner in silks (but has the physical strength because of pole dance and acrobatics). “I understand it when I see it but not when I feel it,” she said once. I will know my tool succeeded if this statement is uttered less (or hopefully not at all) by students learning new tricks on the silk. 

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Source: 

Own ideation 

The following is a representation of the system map of my prototype. 

Own image. 

My tool is specifically designed to help in the teaching of proprioception in the area of aerial silks, and as such the directly impacted people are the aerial silks students (who want to make sure a figure is safe, who don’t understand immediately the new figures, and who don’t know their left from their right) and the teacher (who are not able to stay all day on top of the silk, and who would like to make the teaching process easier). The main communication happens between these 2 actors, as depicted on the lower part of the diagram, where the teacher explains and then subsequently answers any questions the student might have. 

Another aspect to this diagram can be seen in the safety aspect, as parents of students would feel better knowing their children are safe in class and being taken care of, and as such insurance companies or hospitals would not have to be called for any injuries (as I had to do just 2 months ago because of a miscommunication between the aerial teacher and me, the student).  

Plus, a third aspect can be seen in the fact that after learning a figure, aerialists can also figure out how to communicate artistic value to an audience through their performance. This aspect is furthered explored in the next post. 

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Source: 

Own ideation 

This article presented a novel approach to sound integration in the aerial arts through SALTO (Sonic Aerialist eLecTrOacoustic system), a MaxMSP-based system that translates movement data from the Myo Armband sent via Bluetooth and OSC [1]. Christiana Rose, the author of the paper, worked with Katharine Geber, an aerial artist and choreographer, and together they created a hybrid visual and sound piece called “Splinter” as a proof of concept of SALTO [1]. 

Rose uses the MAX objects of click~ (an impulse generator), a resonant filter, and a spectral delay to translate emg signals into short percussion sounds. She also uses the accelerometer values to control the MAX grainstretch~ object’s grain size, speed, and pitch. Furthermore, she uses iosc~ and cascade~ MAX objects to sonify the gyroscope data, which controls the frequency and gain of recordings loaded into the oscillator bank. 

What’s interesting about this article, in the technical sense, is that both the aerialist and the author worked together in mapping each arm movement (medial or lateral rotation; flextion, extension, and abduction; circumduction; and grasping or holding on) into a different sonic idea, as shown in the table below [1]. 

What’s interesting about this article, in the conceptual sense and relating to my own topic of investigation, is how they were able to translate internal bodily sensations into sound, so that the audience could get a modicum of understanding what it feels like to be up on the apparatus (in the paper’s case, trapeze) [1]. 

Rose even states that “An aerialist’s perception of sound during performance is unique in the way it is filtered by the body. (…) Often viewers have limited, if any, embodied idea of this kinesonic experience. Geber and I aimed to blend movement and music using the internal kinesonic experience of the performer to sonify those elements.” [1]. 

My specific area of research aims to do just that, figure out how to communicate the tacit knowledge of a performer’s physical bodily experience on the aerial silk. However, the SALTO tool proposed by Rose is limited in its scope as it was specifically designed for the trapeze and, not only that, but for this specific performance with this specific aerialist. SALTO might be a useful tool for capturing the audience’s interest, but I believe that, rather than being a potential solution to my research question, it is a valuable proof of concept showing how to implement an auditory interface into aerial dance. 

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Source: 

[1] C. Rose, “SALTO: A System for Musical Expression in the Aerial Arts,” Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, pp. 302-306, 2017, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1176260 

Last semester, I concluded the blog posts with some insights about what ideas could work for beginners and advanced students. Following up on that, I created my 3 prototypes. 

1. Hanger silk 

Some aerial knots are easier to explain time and time again when the teacher doesn’t have to continually do them in the air. In my class observations, I’ve noticed that teachers often mimic the movement of legs or feet with their hands, like so: 

Own video. 

In order to improve this communication, I designed a prototype using 2 simple materials I already had at home: a hanger and a scarf. 

Own image. 

Own video. 

With this, I would be able to more clearly explain base knots, by using the smaller silk with my hands. The following is an explanatory video showing how this would work, specifically for demonstrating the difference between a  basic footlock and a dancer’s footlock.  

Own video. 

2. Neon sleeves 

One of my findings of the past semester’s interviews was that a lot of people weren’t able to very clearly differentiate their right from their left. To solve this problem, I created a prototype using scissors and a 5€ thrifted sport jacket (since all of my old sports clothes are in Mexico, and I didn’t want to cut up one of my newer garments). 

Own image. 

Own video. 

With the sleeves, I would be able to quickly and efficiently demonstrate the core idea that needs to be communicated with figures. This is because, while it is possible to explain figures with left and right, what is actually important in aerial silks figures is if you’re using the same leg and arm or the opposing leg and arm. The following is a use suggestion in order to be able to differentiate sleeved side and normal side. 

Own image. 

3. Little guy 

Last semester I also talked about having a 3D model of a person as a potential aid in teaching complex figures. A possible solution for a 3D model prototype is using a ready-made doll; however, the options available in thrift stores don’t satisfy the need that they should be articulated and able to bend both arms and legs; plus, new options would be too expensive. As such, I decided to prototype this using wood sticks, UHU Patafix, and some ribbon, all of which I already had in my house. 

Own image. 

Own video. 

Using this model, it’s possible to convey the physical movements needed for a specific figure, without needing to expense so much physical energy. Plus, students are able to see the same knot in different spatial perspective variations, improving their knowledge of the theory behind the knots and making observational learning in the future easier. An added advantage is that it’s easier to convey what effect that small bodily position changes will have on the outcome of a figure, especially as it pertains to safety. In the following example, I demonstrate how bending towards your knees while doing a hip key is the safety lock you need in order to stay in place, while if you stay straight you will fall, just like the little guy. 

Own video. 

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Sources: 

Own data.