The Cadaver in the Machine: The Social Practices of Measurement and Validation in Motion Capture Technology
Emma Harvey, Hauke Sandhaus, Abigail Z. Jacobs, Emanuel Moss, Mona Sloane
ACM CHI 2024
Motion capture systems, used across various domains, make body representations concrete through technical processes. This paper argues that the measurement of bodies and the validation of measurements for motion capture systems can be understood as social practices. By analyzing the findings of a systematic literature review (N=278) through the lens of social practice theory, the paper shows how these practices, and their varying attention to errors, become ingrained in motion capture design and innovation over time. Moreover, contemporary motion capture systems perpetuate assumptions about human bodies and their movements. Social practices of measurement and validation are ubiquitous in the development of data- and sensor-driven systems more broadly, and provide this work as a basis for investigating hidden design assumptions and their potential negative consequences in human-computer interaction.