Playing with Yourself: How Electrical Muscle Stimulation Can Turn Your Body Into A Playful Interface

Imagine a game where your body is both the controller and the game. Our work explores how body-actuating technologies, such as Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS), transform the body into a playful interface, bridging physical and virtual worlds. While digital bodily games typically rely on external displays – creating a disconnect between the player’s body and the virtual experience – we introduce the “Body as a Play Material” approach, where players loan control of their body to a computer via EMS. Building on the idea of self-competition, we designed three games in which players face off against their own EMS-actuated hand. In a seven-day study (n=12), players embraced loaning bodily control, enjoyed the ambiguity of computer-controlled movements, and were captivated by their hand’s involuntary motions. By turning the body into a playful interface, this work opens new possibilities for interactive play that blurs boundaries between physical embodiment and virtual engagement.