Multiplicity in Practice: Glitching the Human In/Through Personal Sensing

Paper Title

Multiplicity in Practice: Glitching the Human In/Through Personal Sensing

Publication Info

• Topic area: Ontological multiplicity and relational design in personal sensing systems.
• Keywords: Ontological multiplicity, personal sensing, Electrodermal Activity (EDA), biofeedback, relational ontology, glitch, algorithmic politics, human-centered design, feminist HCI, pluriverse.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Personal sensing systems typically enact the human as a bounded, measurable individual, overlooking relational and ontological multiplicity. This universal framing excludes alternative enactments of the human and forecloses possibilities for reimagining human-technology relations.
• Significance: Addressing this limitation enables the design of systems that recognize and support the multiplicity of human experiences, fostering more inclusive and relational approaches to personal sensing.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work in feminist and decolonial technoscience has called for ontological multiplicity and relationality in design. However, practical methods for enabling these principles in personal sensing remain underexplored. This paper builds on critical HCI and sensing literature to investigate how sensing systems might create conditions for multiplicity.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The authors introduce the concept of the "purple zone," an ontologically ambiguous space emerging from crossing boundaries previously deemed fixed, instantiated through an Electrodermal Activity (EDA) biofeedback system.
• Novelty:
  1. Articulation of the "purple zone" as a threshold for experiencing ontological multiplicity.
  2. Development of the EDA purple zone algorithm and real-time biofeedback system.
  3. Empirical insights from a two-week study with 24 participants on lived experiences of multiplicity.
  4. Introduction of glitchy attunements as a method for ontological design.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  1. Initial encounter with an ontological glitch (EDA in/visibility) through a nine-month autoethnography.
  2. A 10-day study with 30 participants to explore EDA purple zone across diverse bodies.
  3. Iterative development of an algorithm to approximate purple zone, emphasizing relational and contextual factors.
  4. Design and deployment of a real-time biofeedback system using the Empatica E4 sensor and Apple Watch.
  5. A two-week study with 24 participants to examine encounters with purple zone, analyzed using diffractive reading and glitchy attunements.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Participants experienced purple zone as a relational phenomenon, surfacing new assemblages involving social contexts, bodily states, and temporal rhythms.
  • The algorithm successfully approximated purple zone, enabling participants to notice relationality and question the boundaries of self.
  • Participants reported diverse interpretations of purple zone, ranging from social validation to physiological awareness.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Unlike traditional sensing systems that focus on measurable properties of bounded individuals, the purple zone system foregrounded relationality and multiplicity, enabling participants to notice and reflect on their own assemblages.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • A two-week study with 24 participants (ages 18–44, diverse in gender and racial backgrounds) using the EDA purple zone biofeedback system.
  • Data sources included EDA sensor logs, in-app surveys, nightly reflections, and semi-structured interviews.
  • Analytical methods included diffractive reading and glitchy attunements to surface patterns of relationality and multiplicity.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Technical challenges with the EDA sensor (e.g., wrist-detection issues on darker skin tones) and system usability limited some participants’ experiences.
  • The study relied on a small, localized participant sample, limiting generalizability.
  • Future work could explore broader applications of purple zone in other sensing contexts and investigate long-term impacts of relational sensing systems.

Summary

This paper introduces the concept of the "purple zone," an ontologically ambiguous space that challenges the universal framing of the human in personal sensing systems. Through the development of an EDA biofeedback system and a two-week study with 24 participants, the authors demonstrate how sensing systems can enable ontological multiplicity by surfacing relational assemblages and disrupting fixed boundaries. The study highlights the potential of glitchy attunements and algorithmic precision as methods for fostering relational awareness and multiplicity. While technical and contextual limitations remain, this work offers a pathway for reimagining personal sensing systems to support diverse and relational enactments of the human.