Crafting Bodies and Auras: Speculative Designs for Transhuman Communication

Bodies exhibit communicative qualities, including gestures, facial expressions, body odors, and changes in proximity, like tattoos, clothing, and accessories. However, a transformative shift in human bodies looms ahead, propelled by transhumanism’s proposition of integrating machines with humans to enhance physical, sensorial, cognitive, and emotional capacities. This poster explores communication opportunities and potential consequences around transhuman technologies for the temporal alterations on the body through speculative designs. These speculations are formed based on four cospeculation workshops with the attendance of participants (N=35) with varying experiences in fiction creation and technology development. By envisioning flexible bodies, transforming into objects, detachable body parts, chameleon skin, and multimodal auras, our work contributes design speculations to spark discussions on the transformative impact of transhuman technologies on communication, prompting innovative investigations into this uncharted territory.