This one-day workshop aims to take a critical stance towards designs for connecting or un-connecting individuals, who are geographically separated, ranging from family members and friends to work colleagues. We would like to discuss and materialise various aspects of remote relations (such as spatial conditions or the evanescence of being connected and respective ephemeral designs), a topic that became more than significant in the past few weeks during the COVID-19 crisis.
We invite interested participants to share and discuss their experiences with us and to engage with the workshop topic hands-on through conceptualizing and (remotely) prototyping material artifacts as manifestations of distance, ephemerality, etc. We will also explicitly thematize the COVID-19 crisis through reflecting on current experiences of (un-)connecting and through a practical design exercise over distance during the workshop.
Key dimensions guiding the workshop:
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Temporal dimensions of (un-)connectedness: The evanescence of relationships that affects individuals’ daily life, social interactions, process of ageing, etc.
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Spatial dimensions of (un-)connectedness: Physical spaces that are not shared remotely or remain unknown to the other, etc.
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Material dimensions of (un-)connectedness: Lacking shared material qualities in form of physical, tangible objects, or in form of the other human body (e.g., while hugging), etc.
Please submit your expression of interest for participation here, by briefly telling us about an experience, an anecdote or a design that relates to the workshop themes. It may be based on a personal encounter, an empirical fact, a (critical) design, a successful or failed technology, or something else. The deadline for the expression of interest is June 30th.
- Deadline for Expression of Interest from Participants: June 30, 2020
- Online Workshop in the context of DIS 2020: July 7, 2020 — 10:00-16:00
Morning session
10:00-12:00: More details coming soon!
Afternoon session:
14:00-16:00: More details coming soon!
Verena Fuchsberger is a Postdoc at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. She focuses on the agency of human and non-human actors in HCI and interaction design – in particular, she is interested in the materiality of interactions. Verena has published on interaction Design, the future of work, the ageing society, grandparents-grandchildren relationships, materiality in HCI and interaction design and more.
Janne Mascha Beuthel is a PhD student at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. Her research builds on combining practices from the making of clothes and textile crafts with wearable technologies. The people she is designing for, and their individual needs, are involved in different stages of design processes, for example, in ideation, but also in the making and iteration of prototypes.
Dorothé Smit is a PhD student at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. Her research focuses on embodied sensemaking, especially in situations that are out of the ordinary, such as in virtual reality. She is driven to bring different perspectives – both literally and figuratively – together into effective cooperation between people, as well as the environment they are in and the things they use in their day-to-day life.
Philippe Bentegeac is a PhD student at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. Having a background in computer science and information technology, his work engages inquiries into Mixed Reality. His research interests lies in reinterpreting music, sounds, learning and teaching of instruments from an HCI perspective with the aim to make them available to a variety of users through building and prototyping.
Tanja Döring is a senior researcher (Postdoc) in the Digital Media Lab at the University of Bremen (Germany). Her research focuses on human-computer interaction and materiality, digital fabrication and novel interaction techniques including tangible, gestural, and mobile interaction.
Marije Nouwen is a PhD student at the Meaningful Interactions Lab (Mintlab), part of the Institute of Media Studies of KU Leuven (Belgium). Her work focuses on remote playful interactions between grandparents and grandchildren. Following an ethnographic approach, she is especially interested in the role of hybrid technologies in establishing/maintaining intergenerational relationships.
Bieke Zaman is assistant professor at the Meaningful Interactions Lab (Mintlab), part of the Institute of Media Studies of the KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research focuses on digital media (incl. games), children and interaction design from the perspective of communication sciences and Human-Computer Interaction research.
Manfred Tscheligi is Professor at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction the University of Salzburg, and head of the Center for Technology Experience at the Austrian Institute of Technology. Being a member of various national and international expert, advisory, and conference committees (e.g., CHI conference series, Mobile HCI conference series, Human-Robot Interaction conference series), his work is mainly based on the interdisciplinary combination of different areas of experience research in synergy with special and complex application contexts to enrich the interaction between humans and systems.
