While studying at UC Berkeley I participated as a paid subject in numerous studies, across fields as varied as cognitive psychology to computer science. As my practice deals specifically with the experience of being a settler on stolen land, the experience of having my subjectivity rendered clearly and methodologically by different fields of study felt informative, cathartic, and at times deeply problematic. 

While being a subject in a study of exoskeletons run by the UC industrial ergonomics program, I became interested in their approach to human centered design. My interest led me to become the first official Artist-in-Residence of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Lab (part of the UC Center for Occupational and Environmental Health) and facilitated by Alan Barr, a Senior Engineer at the lab, conceived of two studies: a study of nap positions and a study of hugs. For the hug study, we sampled four hug styles and measured the exposure of each to determine what style of hug could be performed most frequently over the longest period of time. The hug study was prompted by an observation: Industrial ergonomics is often funded by industry, it is tautological in nature. What happens when you apply an ergonomics methodology and technology to physical labor that exists outside the workplace? Can these technologies be used to extend one’s ability to properly perform the soft labor needed to care for self, family, and community?  The study shows an avatar of my body performing different hugs over and over again. In the footage the object being hugged is invisible and the avatar appears to be embracing, and momentarily resting on, air. The visual effect is that the avatar appears to be making something (as generally ergonomic technologies monitor laboring bodies in the process of making), or giving form to something by hugging. An ergonomicist would be looking at the physical risks associated with this movement. However, as an artist, I find myself asking what kind of unseen, ephemeral forms and environments might a hug produce? And, further, what technologies do we have for envisioning these world shaping gestures?

The nap study stemmed from a simple observation, ergonomics is only needed when a body is overtaxed. Technically the most ergonomic solution to workplace dangers, would simply be adequate rest. But because of the demand for high production and capitalist culture’s reliance on extraction and exploitation, less time consuming solutions are sought that result, literally, in the construction of inhumane work conditions. The tools in the ergonomics lab are largely calibrated for measuring risk associated with certain movements. When bodies are static the sensors used for measure have a difficult time calibrating location. While examining the exposure levels of various sleeping positions the subject in the study would frequently disappear, submerge, or read as being below ground level. In this particular instance the tools in the ergonomics lab render the most human-centric solution—a nap—invisible. The metrics lead away from the best and most obvious solution to fatigue and injury in the workplace. 

In summation, the hug study took a research methodology that is often tautological and intended to increase productivity in the workplace, and reoriented it towards performances of affection in social spheres. The nap study visualized technical blindspots in the field of ergonomics. Moving forward, I’d like to see what happens when an ergonomics methodology is brought to more-than-human subjects. Is it possible to center other beings within the framework of ergonomics? And further, what might it look like to create objects that allow more-than-human forms to survive in inhospitable conditions?  One provisional example of this might be the foil applied to giant sequoias during the 2021 fire season in Northern California.