Kai Kunze

Abstraction Beats Realism

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cross-temporal physiological synchrony in VR concert recreation. Left: abstract symbolic visualization of audience EDA data. Center: a VR participant wearing a headset during the recreated concert. Right: the original live concert audience.

Can a VR recreation of a concert make you feel like you were actually there? We explore this question in our latest paper, presented at the Augmented Humans conference 2026 in Okinawa, and the answer surprised us: less realism actually works better.

Embodied Responses to Posthuman Performance

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Audience members wearing physiological sensors during the posthuman performance. © 2024 Hiroyasu Daido, used with permission.

What happens when the line between a human performer and a machine blurs on stage? We are presenting this work at the Augmented Humans conference 2026 in Okinawa, and it is one of those projects that keeps surprising us.

The setup: an artist wears sensors and controls a robotic arm, turning their own body into a live audio-visual mixer. Their movements, their physiological signals, all of it feeds into the sound and visuals in real time. The performer becomes something in between – not quite human soloist, not quite machine, but a hybrid that makes you question who or what is actually creating the art.

Placebo Concert

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 14:08:46 +0900

Visualizing Physiological Data of A Concert in VR.

Virtual reality promises to transport us to events we could never attend in person. Concert recreations in VR have become increasingly sophisticated, aiming to capture not just the sights and sounds of a performance, but the atmosphere created by a live audience. But what happens when we try to recreate that collective energy using physiological data from the original audience? And does it matter if that data is real or fake?

Cuddle Fish

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 14:08:46 +0900

A picture of the robot prototype Cuddle Fish

Flying robots are becoming more and more common. Yet, they also come with safety concerns. Quadrocopter drones, the most popular type, have fast-spinning propellers. Their rigid structures and loud noise levels make them unsuitable for close-range human interaction. Yet, can we design flying robots that people can safely touch and interact with?

Our recent work, lead by Mingyang Xu, introduces Cuddle-Fish, a soft floating robot that takes a different approach to aerial robotics. Instead of using propellers, the robot combines a helium-filled soft body with low-frequency flapping wings inspired by animal movement. It’s also the first of its kind that fits in normal indoor environments (like appartments and homes). Its design eliminates the danger of spinning blades while maintaining the ability to move through indoor spaces.

HCI Deep Dive

Sun, 20 Oct 2024 14:08:46 +0900

I’ve been experimenting with the Audio Overview of Google’s NotebookLM to create a podcast about Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and I have to say, it’s surprisingly useful! Using their Audio Overview feature, I’ve uploaded several HCI publications, and NotebookLM has turned them into conversations.

Additionally, I also summarized most of my publications. Have a listen.

Google just announced that they allow to customize the Audio Overviews. I’m pretty excited about this feature, as the standard summarization is a bit too casual for me. Here is an example from the podcast without customization:

Eyewear Computing

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 19:42:36 +0100

A research concept from 2016 might be in the spotlight in the next years, as described and discussed in the Dagstuhl Seminar “Eyewear Computing – Augmenting the Human with Head-mounted Wearable Assistants”.

Frisson Waves

Mon, 27 Dec 2021 19:42:36 +0100

A picture from the performance.

Frisson is a feeling as well as an experience of physical reactions such as shivers, tingling skin, and goosebumps. In this work, we propose Frisson Waves, an exploratory real-time system to detect, trigger and share frisson in a wave-like pattern over audience members during music performances. The system consists of a physiological sensing wristband for detecting frisson and a thermo-haptic neckband for inducing frisson.

Augmenting Humans @ Neurolive

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Augmenting Humans

Very happy to be invited as one of the panelists presenting in a three-day online symposium on Liveness organised by the Neurolive EU Project. The symposium brings together artists, humanities scholars and cognitive neuroscientists to explore how liveness is conceptualised, measured and practiced across the arts and the sciences.

I’m speaking on the 24th, here’s the abstract of my talk and my slides (carefull ~17 Mb pdf)

Abstract: In my research, I combine design and technology to augment human senses, looking for novel interaction paradigms. Engineering and computing have often been used to mimic or surpass some human abilities (for example autonomous driving, playing Go). Such efforts appear to put humans and computers in a competitive relationship, as emphasized in AI vs. Human game competitions. Once fantastic fear of AIs “replacing” human workers is now taken much more seriously and discussed in the public sphere. My research proposes a different approach to the human-computer relationship by applying a cooperative and empowering framework, using wearable computing to actively augment human capabilities.

rc3 Talk Boiling Mind

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A picture from the perfromance.

The role of the audience in stage performances is changing from passive spectators to contributors making the performance interactive by using different techniques. In this talk, we investigate the connection of audience physiological data to the experienced performance in three performance events with a total of 98 participants. We identified memorable performance moments by assessing, Electrodermal Activity (EDA) showing that the audience’s responses match the choreographer’s intention. Through Heart Rate Variability (HRV) features related to parasympathetic activity, we identified dramatic shifts that are connected to the choreographic development of the performance. Our results show how the audience’s physiological responses are linked to the choreographic development of the performance. Based on the findings, we contribute a discussion of the registered physiological phenomena and implications of the audience’s responses analysis to performance and choreography design in general. Furthermore, we walk through the dataset collected from the performance events.

Augmented Humans 2020

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 09:50:05 +0900

Stelarc presenting his work to the Online attendees.

On 16-17 March 2020, we co-organized the Augmented Humans conference in Kaiserslautern.. Due to the circumstances related to COVID-19, we moved to a fully virtual event and cancelled the physical event on 13th March. The whole team was struggling and especially thanks to all of the chairs it came together quite well.

On Sunday, just we met (only 2 people, disinfection materials, social distancing and mask wearing in place) to pre-record Stelarc’s Keynote

ACM Publications

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 12:07:18 +0900

research-article
OpenEarable ExG: Open-Source Hardware for Ear-Based Biopotential Sensing Applications
- Philipp Lepold
  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
  ,
- Tobias Röddiger
  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
  ,
- Tobias King
  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
  ,
- Kai Kunze
  Keio Media Design, Yokohama, Japan

Publications

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 12:07:18 +0900

Abstraction Beats Realism: Physiological Visualizations Enhance Arousal Synchrony in VR Concert Recreations. Meng, Xiaru and Ju, Yulan and Hoppe, Matthias and Han, Jiawen and He, Yan and Minamizawa, Kouta and Kunze, Kai. The Augmented Humans International Conference 2026 (AHs 2026), March 16–19, 2026, Okinawa, Japan. 2026. Bibtex.

Embodied Responses to Posthuman Performance: A Mixed-Methods Study of Physiological and Emotional Audience Reactions. Kunze, Kai and Xu, Mingyang and Peng, Danyang and Ogasawara de Oliveira, Lucas and Shao, Rose and Meng, Xiaru and Hoppe, Matthias and Barbareschi, Giulia. The Augmented Humans International Conference 2026 (AHs 2026), March 16–19, 2026, Okinawa, Japan. 2026. Bibtex.

Apps

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A collection of iOS apps I’ve developed over the years.

Numeriqo

Number puzzle game with math cages. Fill grids so each row and column has unique numbers while solving arithmetic constraints. Sizes from 3x3 to 5x5.

Landing Page · View on the App Store

Numeriqo Pro

Advanced number puzzle game with grids up to 9x9 and additional features.

Projects

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My overall goal: I want to give people tools to foster inert talent and empower new skills.

You can find up-to-date works on my publication list

Eyewear Computing

Smart Eyewear is the major enabling technology for application cases to enhance human senses.

Augmented Humans

My goal is to use technical systems to augment existing human abilities and to create new capabilities.

Selected Publications

Evaluation of Facial Expression Recognition by A Smart Eyewear for Facial Direction Changes, Repeatability and Positional Drift. Masai, Katsutoshi and Kunze, Kai and Sugiura, Yuta and Ogata, Masa and Suzuki, Katsuhiro and Nakamura, Fumihiko and Shimamura, Sho and Inami, Masahiko and Sugimoto, Maki. To be published in ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (TiiS). 2017. Bibtex.

About Kai

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:12:31 +0900

Kai Kunze is a pioneer researcher in the HCI field, augmenting humans using technology. His most significant research contributions are in Eyewear Computing and Placement Robust Activity Recognition. His current research includes also Digitalizing Human Emotions and Amplifying Human Senses. Kai Kunze published over 254 papers at high profile conferences and journals (e.g. CHI, TOCHI, UIST, IEEE Computer)1. His publications are well-cited, with a total citation count of 4868 (H-index of 40), according to Google Scholar. He is actively involved in the research community, most notably as PC Co-Chair for TEI 2017, and Local Co-Chair of CHI 2021.

blanks

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:12:31 +0900

about

‘Blanks’ is a simple application helping you to learn new English words. It shows you word definition and gives 4 choices as answer. Select one of the choices by dragging it on the hole in the paper. If you are correct, a green hock is displayed. If the selected word does not fit to the definition, you will see a red cross.

The word definitions are from Wordnet. The application developer is not associated in any way with Wordnet.

Kai @ Miraikan Science Quest

Sun, 20 Aug 2017 16:20:01 +0900

On the 9th August I had the opportunity to take part in a Miraikan Science Quest. It’s an open event at Miraikan, the Science Museum in Tokyo, to encourage a dialog between the public and researchers. This Science Quest was a premier, as it was the first ever held in English ;)

Kai @ Siggraph

Sun, 20 Aug 2017 16:19:37 +0900

My second Siggraph was pretty amazing again. Unfortunately, we had another emerging technology exhibit, so my time joining the main conference was limited.

JST Presto Project on Open Eyewear

Mon, 26 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m excited and happy to be one of few non-Japanese researchers to receive a JST Presto (Sakigake) project grant, on the Topic Open Collective Eyewear.

ISWC and UbiComp in Heidelberg

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a strange feeling to have UbiComp and ISWC so close to my home. Amazing organization and impressive research and meeting old friends.

Kai at CHI 2016

Sun, 08 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

back @ this year’s CHI 2016. We just have 3 Late Breaking Work submissions accepted and it seems they are currently for free download at the ACM website

Lessons from the Dagstuhl Seminar on Eyewear Computing

Sat, 07 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We took a risk in organizing the Eyewear Computing Seminar as we deviated largely from the standard model, yet I believe it payed off.

Looking back on UbiComp/ISWC in Osaka

Mon, 28 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It felt nice to be back in Kansai for the biggest conferences in my field.

Overall very pleasant and inspiring event, nice to see some old friends and meet new ones.

After my first SIGGRAPH

Mon, 14 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I'm impressed mostly by the Hacking/Making Studios and the interactivity/demo exhibits. Siggraph is my new favorite research conference.

Affective Wear- Recognizing facial expressions

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Katsutoshi Masai, one of my Master students had the idea to track facial expressions using low cost sensors in glasses. Quite nice work ;)

Super Human Sports: Augmenting Blind Soccer

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m getting more and more fascinated by augmenting Blind Soccer. After 3 blind soccer trainings, we had now a couple of meetings to discuss how to extend and enhance the play experience.

31C3 Talk Slides: Eye Wear Computing

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Here are the video and slides from my talk. Hope you like it. Please if you have some critique write me a mail.

31C3 Aftermath

Sat, 17 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, I have a little time to write about the congress. As the last couple of years, I attended the 31st Chaos Communication Congress between Christmas and New Year.

Eye-Wear Computing

Sun, 30 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Smart glasses and, in general, eyewear are a fairly novel device class with a lot of possibilities for unobtrusive activity tracking. That’s why I’m very excited to be working in the Team of Masahiko Inami Sensei at Keio Media Design to do research on J!NS MEME.

Google Glass for Older Adults

Sun, 24 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

As the first article about my grandparents using Google Glass received a lot of interest, I decided to delve a little bit more into the topic.

Looking forward to ISWC/Ubicomp 2014

Sun, 10 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

With roughly around 1 month to go, we are busy with demo preparations etc.

Augmented Human 2014

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Innovative research, that makes you first laugh and then think. The conference develops into one of my favorite venues.

Beyond FuturICT

Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Attending the International Symposium on Service Systems Science in Tokyo, I got a glimpse on how the progress and the next steps of FuturICT …

Glass Talk at Hacker News Kansai

Thu, 13 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Introducing Google Glass to Hacker News Kansai Community was a lot of fun.

Looking back at 30C3

Tue, 28 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Impressions and Talk Recommendations. Finally, a couple of days with normal people …

30C3 Toward a Cognitive Quantified Self

Sat, 28 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Discussing activity recognition for the Mind and its potential applications.

Hacking Glass

Sun, 22 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

So I got my hands on another Glass device and can now play with it a bit longer.

Bits and Bytes instead of a Bookshelf

Fri, 29 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

An interview made me wonder about how reading habits are changing and how we will narrate stories in the future.

Amazing Okinawa - Attending the ASVAI Workshop

Tue, 05 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Cool research discussions at a nice location. The workshop was perfect fit to my research interests.

A Week with Glass

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

How my grandparents interact with GLASS, showed me that Google seems to be onto something.

Ubicomp ISWC Impressions

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Usually, I’m not such a big fan of conference openings, …

Excited about Ubicomp and ISWC

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This year I’m really looking forward to Ubicomp and ISWC, it’s the first time that …

ICDAR 2013 Talk Slides Online

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The slides for my two talks today are now online.

Recognizing Reading Activities

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Just finished my keynote talk at CBDAR, a Workshop at ICDAR

Wordometer and Document Analysis using Pervasive Sensing

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In the last couple of months, I got more and more interested in learning, especially reading.

Kai @ CHI

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s my first time at CHI. Pretty amazing so far …

Activity Recognition Dagstuhl Report Online

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

If you wonder, …

Some of my favorites from the 29c3 recordings

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last weeks, I finally got around to watch some of the …

ACM Multimedia 2012 Main Conference Notes

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Here are some notes about ACM Multimedia, in random order.

ACM Multimedia 2012 Tutorials and Workshops

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I attended the following Tutorials …

Laughing Faces App in the AppStore

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last couple of weeks, I was getting settled in my new job.

AAAI activity context workshop notes

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The keynote How to make Face Recognition work (pdf) by Ashis Kapoor …

Towards Dynamically Configurable Context Recognition Systems

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a draft version of my publication for the AAI workshop …

Some of my publications are online

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’m slowly uploading a couple of references and the pdf draft versions of them.

Compensating for On-body Placement Effects in Activity Recognition

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’m pleased to announce the completion of my Ph.D. from the University of Passau under the guidance of my advisors:

Principal Advisor: Prof. Dr. Paul Lukowicz Secondary Advisor: Prof. Dr. Hans Gellersen

My doctoral thesis has been published and is available atOpus Bayern. The pdf is open access, so feel free to read it (careful it’s a 19 MB pdf): Compensating for On-Body Placement Effects in Activity Recognition as pdf

However, the sources were not available. Finally, I got around to push the latex sources of my dissertation up to github.

Device Motion in Html/Javascript

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This project demonstrates real-time accelerometer data streaming from mobile devices using WebSocket technology. The system combines a Node.js web server with a Processing.org visualization interface. When a mobile device connects to the server through its browser, the visualization displays a distinctive red cube among randomly positioned background cubes. The cube features a dynamic transparent aura that responds to the intensity of the device’s movement - the more vigorously you shake your phone, the more pronounced the visual effect becomes.

Kai Kunze

Abstraction Beats Realism

Cross-temporal physiological synchrony in VR concert recreation. Left: abstract symbolic visualization of audience EDA data. Center: a VR participant wearing a headset during the recreated concert. Right: the original live concert audience.

Embodied Responses to Posthuman Performance

Audience members wearing physiological sensors during the posthuman performance. © 2024 Hiroyasu Daido, used with permission.

Placebo Concert

Visualizing Physiological Data of A Concert in VR.

Cuddle Fish

A picture of the robot prototype Cuddle Fish

HCI Deep Dive

Eyewear Computing

Frisson Waves

A picture from the performance.

Augmenting Humans @ Neurolive

Augmenting Humans

rc3 Talk Boiling Mind

A picture from the perfromance.

Augmented Humans 2020

Stelarc presenting his work to the Online attendees.

ACM Publications

OpenEarable ExG: Open-Source Hardware for Ear-Based Biopotential Sensing Applications

Publications

Apps

Numeriqo

Numeriqo Pro

Projects

Eyewear Computing

Augmented Humans

Selected Publications

About Kai

blanks

about

Kai @ Miraikan Science Quest

Kai @ Siggraph

JST Presto Project on Open Eyewear

ISWC and UbiComp in Heidelberg

Kai at CHI 2016

Lessons from the Dagstuhl Seminar on Eyewear Computing

Looking back on UbiComp/ISWC in Osaka

After my first SIGGRAPH

Affective Wear- Recognizing facial expressions

Super Human Sports: Augmenting Blind Soccer

31C3 Talk Slides: Eye Wear Computing

31C3 Aftermath

Eye-Wear Computing

Google Glass for Older Adults

Looking forward to ISWC/Ubicomp 2014

Augmented Human 2014

Beyond FuturICT

Glass Talk at Hacker News Kansai

Looking back at 30C3

30C3 Toward a Cognitive Quantified Self

Hacking Glass

Bits and Bytes instead of a Bookshelf

Amazing Okinawa - Attending the ASVAI Workshop

A Week with Glass

Ubicomp ISWC Impressions

Excited about Ubicomp and ISWC

ICDAR 2013 Talk Slides Online

Recognizing Reading Activities

Wordometer and Document Analysis using Pervasive Sensing

Kai @ CHI

Activity Recognition Dagstuhl Report Online

Some of my favorites from the 29c3 recordings

ACM Multimedia 2012 Main Conference Notes

ACM Multimedia 2012 Tutorials and Workshops

Laughing Faces App in the AppStore

AAAI activity context workshop notes

Towards Dynamically Configurable Context Recognition Systems

Some of my publications are online

Compensating for On-body Placement Effects in Activity Recognition

Device Motion in Html/Javascript