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It explores how wellness technology can move beyond tracking and control to joyful vitality and self-awareness. Inspired by Chinese healing rituals, it reimagines everyday movement as embodied reflection—turning stillness into energising motion and reconnecting people with the subtle flow of Qi.
Reimagining Vitality Promotions through Cultural Wellness Games
This project rethinks the relationship between technology-based health interventions and human vitality. Rather than treating health as perfect data or a controllable object, it explores how design can activate human awareness, movement, and connection through cultural wisdom.
Developed as part of Ritual of Qi, a personal design research project by Xiangyu, design researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology, in collaboration with the Game Design Research Group led by Tengjia Zuo at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (GZ), the project draws inspiration from the traditional Chinese body-tapping therapy “Pai-Ba-Xu”. It transforms ancient self-care rituals into interactive prototypes that integrate rhythmic guidance, sensory feedback, and playful experience.
It raises new questions: Can gamified technology empower people to listen to their own bodies? How might design translate the invisible notion of Qi into a joyful, co-creative experience? By integrating behavioural science, embodied interaction, and cultural insight, The Vitality Hammer invites people to rediscover balance between body and mind in our sedentary modern world.
