UPDATE: Program & Invited Experts announced (see below)

Topic

This one-day workshop, to be held on May 8, 2016, seeks to advance the discussion around making and fabrication in HCI, ranging from notions of hobbyist making, industrial production, and fabrication in research. The workshop aims to elaborate on the mutual implications between changing fabrication cultures and HCI research and practice. We particularly aim to discuss critical alternatives that move us beyond the binary between hobbyist and industrial fabrication, focusing on the intersections, transitions, and fusions of diverse perspectives.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together different perspectives to discuss their inherent fabrication cultures, motivations, challenges, and, especially, intersections. Finally, we envision contouring a landscape of fabrication, aiming to critically examine implications for HCI research: What research agendas are related to fabrication? Which challenges do we face when researching fabrication? What economic / democratic visions do we need to take into account? Where are the blind spots in the landscape of fabrication research? How does fabrication practice relate to research? What happens if we fabricate in research?

The workshop is a continuation of two preceding events that addressed intersections of different fabrication strands:

(a) Workshop on The Future of Making: Where Industrial and Personal Fabrication Meet at Critical Alternatives 2015 (5th Decennial Aarhus Conference)

(b) Rethinking Technology Innovation: Factories, Fabrication & Design Research, a three-day expert summit in Salzburg, Austria

Participation

Researchers and practitioners are invited to contribute to one or more of the following topics:
• Understanding fabrication as specific contexts of research and reflection
• Individual, cross-cultural, societal conditions and changes in fabrication
• Technologies and practices apparent or employed in making and production
• Workplaces of production (industrial and entrepreneurial fabrication)
• Intersections of fabrication cultures
• Fabrication as a means for / the subject of constructive design research
• Emerging fabrication practices that disclose highlighting alternative pathways to social, economic and/or cultural impact

We expect participants to critically reflect on fabrication and its relation to HCI (research) and share how they envision the future of fabrication.

Submission

Please submit either a position paper (max. 4 page ACM extended abstract) or a link to a video contribution (5 min max.) to .

Deadlines

The deadline for submitting a contribution is January 4, January 11 (extended), 2016.
Notifications will be sent out by January 15th, 2016.

Selection Process

Contributions will be selected based on their specific, unique, or controversial notion of fabrication in order to contour the landscape of fabrication broadly. The organizers will review the submissions und decide upon acceptance.

Additional Information

Please note that at least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the workshop and that all workshop participants must register for both the workshop and for at least one day of the conference.

Full call for participation: cfp_CHI2016_fabrication_WS

Workshop Format

Final position papers or videos should be submitted by February 12th, 2016, as all accepted contributions (position papers and links to videos) will be made available on this website to allow participants to prepare for the workshop.

Furthermore, we would like you to consider artifacts that relate to or characterize your work and which you can bring along to the workshop. For instance, you could bring an object resulting from a maker, hacker, or DIY project, goods produced in a factory you study, etc. You do not need to specify this in your position paper or video, but are expected to bring an object along that will foster discussion and reflection during the workshop.

The workshop will begin by a very brief introduction of participants and their positions, followed by intense discussions in sub-groups and the plenum. Furthermore, key stakeholders of the Silicon Valley area (e.g., start-ups, makers, industrial producers) will be invited to participate to facilitate not only interdisciplinary, but also cross-domain discussions.

Position Papers

Marcela Borge, Todd Shimoda, Shulong Yan, Dhvani Toprani
Moving Beyond Making: Towards the Development of ThinkerSpaces

Piyum Fernando, Sha Xin Wei
Crafting Human

Karim Jabbar, Pernille Bjørn
Understanding Bitcoin Entrepreneurship

Anamary Leal, Steve Harrison
Practical Meaning Construction of Fabric Materials in Maker Situations

Christian McKay
Design Moves of “Maker” Teachers: Design and Fabrication Culture in the Classroom

Terrance Mok, Lora Oehlberg, Andreas Bastian
Collaboratively Testing in Open-Source Hardware Communities

Daniela K. Rosner, Morgan Ames, Sarah E. Fox
What Happened to Craft:? Surfacing Alternate Histories of Digital Fabrication and Community in the Maker Movement

Nick Taylor, Philip Connolly, Joe MacLeod-Iredale, Ursula Hurley
Breadth, Depth and Height: Early Findings on Engaging Disabled People with Digital Fabrication

Austin Toombs
Co-nerds or Co-workers?: Intersecting cultures of maker communities

Anne Weibert, Konstantin Aal, Andrea Marshall, Thomas von Rekowski, Volker Wulf
Inclusive Making in the Neighborhood

Program

We are happy to announce that we have three local experts coming to our workshop:

  • An Xiao Mina is an American artist, designer, writer and technologist. In her research and practice, she explores the intersection of networked, creative communities and civic life. She looks at the growing role of internet culture and humor in addressing social and political issues in countries like China, Uganda and the United States.
  • Meg Escudé is the Director of Tinkering Youth Programs, has been working with youth in After School programs for years. She is interested in the issues of equity and representation for makers.
  • Jean Ryoo is an ethnographically trained researcher at the Tinkering Studio currently doing work with the California Tinkering Afterschool Network.

And this is how our workshop day will look like:

09.00 – 10.30
Welcome & Introduction

10.30 – 11.00
Coffee break

11.00 – 12.30
Interactive Keynote Sessions with the experts

12.30 – 14.00
Lunch Break

14.00 – 15.00
Break-out session: positions on frabrication

15.00 – 15.30
Coffee break

15.30 – 16.30
Conclusions discussion

16.30 – 17.00
Wrap-up and closing

 

 

Organizers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact

Questions, comments, position papers or links to video submissions should be sent to .