Call for Participation
DANCING WITH TECHNOLOGY: Towards a Choreography of Blended Experiences
A Full-day Hybrid Workshop at the ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX) 2023
Nantes, France
June 12, 2023
Workshop: http://blendedexperiences.com/
IMX 2023: https://imx.acm.org/2023/
Submission deadline: March 20, 2023
Interaction between, across, and through digital technologies integrated into everyday activities can be stilted, clumsy, awkward, and hard to navigate, much like a complicated dance performance. What does it take to choreograph these experiences so that they seamfully blend digital and physical space to make complex interactions as easy and graceful as dancing with an experienced ballroom dancer? When designing complex interactions in these environments, there is a tendency to lean toward a linear causal understanding of experience. This workshop urges us to consider experience as a dance with technology.
This workshop explores the notion of Cognitive Integration or Blending Theory and its application in Benyon’s conceptualization of Blended Space as a means for working across the physical/digital divide. A blended space is where a digital space is carefully designed to commingle with a physical space, thus creating a new type of space with its own emergent structure whose properties and affordances create a novel sense of presence that supports new behaviors and experiences. Subsequent work has incorporated the notion of trajectories and paths into the blended space framework and reframed it as Blended Experience (BX), a core element in the conceptualization of Experience Ecosystems.
Confusion still persists in how designing with blends relates to themes in Ubiquitous Computing (UBICOMP) or experience design (XD): this workshop intends to clarify these relationships and position blends, blending theory, and the blended space framework as the applied tools of choice for designing successful BXs. Participants in the workshop will explore, sketch, script, architect, and evaluate the importance of this approach to design, how it differs from other mixed reality (MR), UBICOMP, and XD approaches, and how models and methods can be communicated, applied and taught between institutions. The goals of this workshop are to:
- Highlight sketching and storytelling and its importance to designing BX as a model for working across the physical/digital divide.
- Critique the importance of blending theory as a generative model for XD, UBICOMP, and BXs.
- Anchor the application of blending theory to the ongoing socio-technical and generational shifts (postdigital, post-postmodernist, biotic/embodied computing).
- Discuss and debate similarities and differences in designing physical/digital spaces in XD, UBICOMP, and BX.
- Critique examples from UBICOMP and XD to establish BX best practices.
- Gather an active community of researchers who work with BX and establish a forum for formalizing and consolidating language and approaches to design, and evaluate BXs.
- Continue to celebrate David Benyon’s legacy and expand on his work.
To achieve this the workshop centers on a series of hands-on activities centered on critiquing, sketching, evaluating, architecting, and choreographing BXs. Participants will be required to submit a position paper illustrating their views or previous work on BX, UBICOMP, or XR environments. They will then present their position at the workshop to introduce their perspectives.
We have also defined a number of follow-up initiatives meant to facilitate post-workshop conversations, including the creation of a BX Working Group and the publication of selected contributions in a journal, conference, or book. A summary of workshop outcomes will be included as well to illustrate the most recent developments.
We invite researchers from both academia and industry to submit a short position paper on the theme of Blended Experiences. Submissions will be evaluated based on fit, ability to stimulate discussion, and contribution to ongoing developments.
Papers should be a maximum of 4 pages and submitted in the IMX ACM format as PDFs. Authors should ensure that all images have AltText and that “Enable Accessibility and Reflow with tagged Adobe PDF” is checked when creating the PDF.
Submissions will be required to adhere to the IMX 2023 accessibility guidelines. As more accessibility requirements may emerge once participation is confirmed, the website will offer a way to make the organizers aware of such situations as early in the process as possible.
Papers should be submitted before end-of-day March 20th 2023 to papers at blendedexperiences dot com.
At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the workshop and all participants must register for at least one day of the conference. We will host accepted papers on the workshop website for participants and others to review. The workshop will combine presentations, hands-on practical experiences (on-site and remote), and group discussions.
IMPORTANT DATES
Submissions open: January 31st, 2023
Submission deadline: March 20th, 2023
Notifications to authors: April 24th, 2023
Workshop date and time: June 13th, 2023
Deadlines are specified as Anywhere on Earth time.
SCHEDULE
See the detailed schedule at http://blendedexperiences.com/
ORGANIZERS
Brian O’Keefe, State University of New York, USA
Tom Flint, Edinburgh Napier University, UK
Miriam Sturdee, University of Andrews, UK
Andrea Resmini, Halmstad University, Sweden
Anna Carter, Swansea University, UK
Mike Mastermaker, State University of New York, USA
Andrea Chirico, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
CONTACT
Dr. Tom Flint
Associate Professor
Creative Technology
School of Arts and Creative Industries
Edinburgh Napier University
Merchiston Campus