Stimulation Sleeve is a low-frequency electrical device that foregrounds and concentrates the role of self-stimulation in human body. This challenges the definition of stimulation and raises speculative discussion about its characteristics, based on Gayle Rubin's theory of "benign sexual variation". Stimulation Sleeve is a concentrated expression of people's self-stimulation compulsion, a generative, seductive, electric experience.

Stimulation Sleeve is a project about the "ghost zone" between being in and out of control of one's self. It begins with an exploration of the relationship between body and mind and culminates with a wearable device that triggers and visualizes the uncontrolled state. The project aims to challenge the stereotypical categorization of uncontrolled state and pain and shine light on a subtle yet nuanced gray area, "benign harm", by using Gayle Rubin's theory of Benign Sexual Variation.

The Stimulation Sleeve | Wearable device

The physical device of this project is a wearable device and a piece of garment designed with the purpose of triggering the "uncontrolled state" of the human body, and to visualize and amplify the bodily reaction to such state.

At the center of the wearable is a retrofitted low-frequency therapy device combined with a computerized control unit. A set of 4 electrodes is connected from the device to a sleeve that wraps around the wearer's neck, shoulder and arm, which attaches the electrodes to the forearm and hand. The sleeve has multiple sets of "scales" hand-sewed onto the fabric. These scales will expand and collapse in response to the muscle movement, visually enhancing the movements to be easily perceived.

The wearable's function begins from the control unit. With a set of programmed instructions, it sends an electrical signal to the low-frequency therapy device, turning the device on and beginning to emit safe electric stimulation current to the electrodes. Upon turning on, the intensity of the current is quickly dialed up, sustained for 10 seconds, and then dialed down, followed by the therapy device turning off. This sequence is repeated infinitely as long as the control unit is activated. Alongside the stimulation current is a sharp, crisp ticking sound emitted whenever the control unit sends a signal. As a result, the ticking sound occurs simultaneously with the stimulation and is repeated periodically.

Origin | The control between body and mind

There are various theories regarding the relationship between the body and mind. In Dualism, a philosophical school of thought, the mind is perceived as distinct from the body and possesses an ontological entity status: Both entities can exist independently, with the mind capable of existing without a physical form; and the body capable of existing with a mind. Furthermore, there is no inherent correspondence between one's physical body and their mental state. The essence of the mind lies in cognitive processes and other spiritual activities, while that of the body lies in spatial extension and occupying physical space. On the opposite side of Dualism is Monism, in which a genre called Physicalism believes that substances alone exist within our world, and another one, Idealism argues for minds and ideas as being solely constitutive elements of reality and material objects being merely constructs of the mind.

This project began with a curious exploration of body and mind, and the control between the two. The inherent synergy between the human body and mind exemplifies a remarkable faculty of human beings. However, in certain specific contexts, an unstable equilibrium can manifest as a human's uncontrolled state, the "ghost zone" between people's mind and body.

It is almost impossible to argue that the mind itself can be out of control, but under the dualist setting, the body can go adrift from the mind, and become out of control. This state can be sensed by the mind, however, the process of losing control can never be internal - self-induced, without any external influence. With this in mind, I moved away from the hypothesis of self-induced out-of-control and turned to explore the experience and implications of external factors causing the loss of control.

My research led me to Gayle Rubin's theory of "benign sexual variation", and I realized that an important phenomenon around being out of control is that people stereotypically have a negative perception of it. I want to challenge and overthrow that perception, hence I finally arrived at the concept of "benign harm", and the thesis that "there may be another positive possibility for the definition of uncontrolled state".

Development | Triggering and experiencing "the ghost zone"

The physical design of the wearable device focused on how to induce an experience that closely resembles being out of control, and how to identify the out-of-control state. I leveraged the unique electric stimulation treatment function of a low-frequency therapy device. The uncontrolled state is visible by observing human muscle activity and using wearable devices and garments to amplify the muscle reaction of the human body. After many experiments, I found that the hands and arms are most responsive to stimulation, and produce a relatively strong muscle response. So the final device is a dynamic amplification device that targets muscle reflexes in the arm and palm, aiming to maximize the visualization of this uncontrollable state. The current was transmitted through electrodes attached to the skin, resulting in a needle-like sensation that covered the entire arm because of the placement of the electrodes.

While in user testing, most subjects were reluctant to experience the device, expressing a negative perception of the feeling even though not have experienced anything similar. However, all subjects who eventually used the device turned out to be enjoying the sensation, and some subjects wished to continue the experience, their views toward the stimulation were becoming positive, despite the fact that most subjects often had previously established a negative perception of said sensation out of only imagination.

Therefore benign harm is manifested because people's first reaction to pain is to avoid it, but benign harm has a state that people think they will avoid but may not, that is, "sober uncontrollable". In fact, pain and harm are related, the result of harm is pain, and people will avoid both of them, but the pain caused by benign harm will keep people awake and also find themselves in a state of uncontrollable.

Observation | The transfer of control, and "benign harm"

When harm and pain are invisible, it's hard to understand. If such pain were not figurative and visual, but an "invisible presence," people would not expect it. As Heidegger's phenomenology said, pain is also a kind of emotion. When people associate pain with negative things (because of their own experiences), the pain will naturally become an existence that people want to escape. In my project, when I mentioned "uncontrollable state", I did not present a very vivid scene to convince people at the beginning, but among my interviewees, all of them unconsciously associated "uncontrollable" with negative behaviors, and even the potential adjective of "uncontrollable" was "dangerous". So I started thinking about how to challenge and break people's definition and connection of harm and pain.

In Gayle Rubin's "Benign Sexual Variation", the word sex also has different natural definitions in different historical situations, and it cannot be completely confined in a definition. I bring part of it to my conclusion that the uncontrollable state cannot be easily defined, it is an intermediate state, good or bad. Benign harm is a subtle intermediate state and a "ghost zone" in the controlling relationship of body and mind. Through practical experiments, I make people aware of the existence of this intermediate state, and challenge people's inherent understanding of harm and pain - they can be defined in both directions.