Colour data becomes a changing haptic pattern along the arm.
Wearable haptic artefact · 2016–2023
I am feeling blue… and red
A denim glove that senses colour and translates RGB values into vibration, making colour available as a tactile and bodily composition.
Read the project ↓
Project typeResearch · Tool / prototype · Fashiontech · Collaboration
ThemesEmbodied & haptic interaction · Wearables & e-textiles · Materials & making
FormWearable haptic artefact
Developed2016–2023
InputFingertip RGB colour sensor
OutputForearm vibration patterns
01 · Proposition
Colour can be felt differently
I am feeling blue… and red unsettles the assumption that colour belongs only to vision by translating sampled RGB values into patterns of vibration on the arm.
A colour sensor positioned at the fingertip reads surfaces encountered through a deliberately constrained hand gesture. Embroidered conductive-thread circuits carry the signal through the denim glove to vibration motors placed along the forearm.
The translation is not presented as a substitute for sight or as a universal code. It is a designed sensory proposition: an invitation to notice how colour, touch, posture and expectation are reorganised through the wearable.
Video documentation
Colour translated into vibration
02 · Experience
Sample, translate, feel
- 01
Encounter
The wearer approaches a coloured surface through the glove’s extended fingertip.
- 02
Translate
The sensor reads RGB values and maps them to a programmed haptic pattern.
- 03
Attend
Vibrations distributed along the forearm become a tactile experience of colour.
03 · Reflection
Translation creates a new sense relation
The artefact does not reproduce colour in touch; it composes a situation in which the senses can be reconsidered together.
The glove makes sensory translation tangible while also foregrounding the body’s role in interpretation. Its unusual hand posture, denim structure and moving vibration patterns contribute to the experience as much as the colour data itself. The project therefore treats multisensory design as a situated encounter rather than a simple conversion between channels.
Conductive thread integrates sensing and actuation into the glove.
The wearable supports research into colour, touch and embodied interpretation.
Credits & archive
Project record
- Concept and research
- Ricardo O’Nascimento
- Development
- Ricardo O’Nascimento, Ronaldo Martins da Costa and Gustavo Laureano
- Commissioning context
- Media Lab UFG
