Call For Papers / Call For Participation (CfP)
The UrbanIxD Summer School will be grounded in the emerging discipline of urban interaction design. The Summer School will address the domain of technologically augmented, data-rich urban environments, with a particular emphasis on human activities, experiences and behaviours.
Theme of the Summer School
Explosive innovation and adoption of computing, mobile devices, and rich sources of data are changing the cities in which we live, work, and play. It’s about us, and how computing in the context of our cities is changing how we live. The urban spaces of the future will be saturated with both visible and hidden media that gather and transmit information. How we as physical beings connect with, interpret and shape the increase of data residing in our environment will be a significant challenge.
The UrbanIxD Summer School will explore our relationship with data in the Networked City of the near future. The approach will focus on human interactions and how these might change and develop and thereby impact on the development of cities. The output of the Summer School will provide the opportunity to rethink what intelligent connected communities of the future might actually look like.
Format of the Summer School
The Summer School will be an 8-day interdisciplinary, workshop-style event hosted by the Department of Visual Communications Design, Arts Academy, University of Split. Croatia.
International speakers will address the theme of Human Interactions in the Networked City, from different perspectives. However the focus of the Summer School is on activity, and participants will spend most of their time working in Atelier groups. These groups will be led by experienced practitioners and researchers and will consider the theme of the Summer School from different viewpoints.
The Summer School will conclude with a public showcase of the outputs of the Atelier groups and this work will contribute to the future research of the UrbanIxD project.
Participation in the Summer School
Participants will be selected through an Open Call, and anyone is welcome to apply – all applications will be considered on their individual merits. Participants will be selected to achieve a good balance within the atelier groups, so that everyone has the best possible experience of interdisciplinary work. The School is particularly aimed at three main groups of participants:
- Students, particularly postgraduate or research student
- Researchers and academics with up to five years working experience
- Working practitioners with up to five years working experience
In the domains of Design, Interaction Design, Architecture, Urban Design & Planning, New Media Art, Technology, Sociology, Anthropology and other related disciplines.
Participants who successfully complete the school will be awarded 1.5 ECTS credits (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System)
Costs and Practicalities
Registration for successful applicants will be €100.00. This subsidised fee includes 9 nights accommodation in Split and most meals, as well as the Summer School. Participants must make their own travel arrangements to Split.
Application Details
Application deadline :: Monday 15 April, 2013 and Notification by Monday 29 April, 2013.
To apply complete the online application form from the UrbanIxD website: http://urbanixd.eu/summer-school
Background to Urban Interaction Design
Cites have always raised particular issues for technologists and researchers. But today, more so than ever, a transformation is taking place in how our cities work. Cities are being laced with sensors, which in turn generate urban informatics experiences, imbuing physical space with real-time behavioural data. A digital landscape overlays our physical world and is expanding to offer ever-richer experiences. In the cities of the future, computing isn’t just with us; it surrounds us, and it uses the context of our environment to empower us in more natural, yet powerful ways.
The vision of Ubicomp is currently being manifest in Pervasive Computing, and the Internet of Things, but rather than casting the human at the centre of this vision, today’s citizens appear to be engaged either as consumers or nodes in the vast network that comprises the city. What is clear is that the urban fabric itself is becoming increasingly reflexive and responsive, and this in turn has numerous implications for the design and experience of cities as a result.
UrbanIxD: Designing Human Interactions in the Networked City
A Coordination Action project funded by the European Commission under FP7 Future and Emerging Technologies (FET Open). 2013 – 2014 Project Number: 323687