Meet our staff

Dr Emilie Giles

Senior LecturerPhD, MA
Email me: egiles@aub.ac.uk

Overview

I am a Senior Lecturer on the BA Graphic Design course at AUB, specialising in creative technology and maker culture, with a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction.

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Contact:

Name: Dr Emilie Giles She/Her
Email: egiles@aub.ac.uk

Qualifications

Qualifications

  • PhD Human-Computer Interaction (The Open University)
  • MA Interactive Media: Critical Theory and Practice (Goldsmiths College)
  • BA (Hons) Contemporary Media Practice

Teaching

Specialising in Human-Computer Interaction merged with craft practice and textile making, my teaching focuses on interaction design, participatory design and physical computing. From making soft, e-textile interfaces to how to create impact and empowerment using printed or sewn circuits, I take a scaffolded approach to learning where students are encouraged to start using practical skills almost instantly - learning how to bring digital skills into tangible making.

As a Senior Lecturer at AUB I have worked as a tutor for MA Graphic Design Students, and more recently supporting modules for level 4 and level 5 students on BA Graphic Design, leading workshops on:

  • Methods for design research with audiences;
  • Physical computing with Arduino;
  • Digital toolkits;
  • Weaving and computational history;

My role at AUB also involves student assessments and being part of student interview panels.

Courses

Research

Research Interests and Projects

I defended my PhD thesis entitled E-textiles for Self-Expression: Participatory Making with Blind and Visually Impaired People at The Open University in the Summer of 2020.

Coming from a background of maker culture and previously running co-running Codasign (a creative technology education company based in Hackney, East London) my research explores how people who are at risk of being excluded from this area can be empowered and be the creators or their own technology, rather than just having things made for them.

My PhD work focused on working with groups of visually impaired people to make interactive, e-textile art pieces - primarily in the form of fabric wall-hangings, created through a host of crafting techniques and embedded with hacked sound devices which told their stories. The work took a participatory making approach whereby the makers were very much the artists of the pieces, designing, weaving, stitching and connecting everything together before exhibiting them to the public.

I am also interested in how e-textile sensors can be used for performative purposes such as storytelling, as a way to enrich and make interactive, traditional narrative mediums.

Before my PhD I also explored gaming - particularly pervasive gaming, the use of technology in psychogeographic journeys and gender representation in games - both my BA and MA work focusing across these areas.

Publications can be read here.

My Research Gallery

Media Coverage