Crafting an Embodied Speculation: An Account of Prototyping Methods

DOI

In this pictorial, we show and discuss the prototyping process we undertook to craft the High Water Pants, a mechatronic pair of pants that make climate change tangible for everyday cyclists. We position the pants as an example of embodied speculation and discuss how our prototyping methods helped us craft a speculative artifact that bridged the gap between the embodied experience of cycling and speculative futures with climate change. The pictorial contributes an accounting of our prototyping methods and how they strove to connect the dual contexts of (1) how the pants felt in the present, and (2) how that in-situ feeling reflected climate change data in order to create space for cyclists’ embodied speculation about possible futures with climate change.