In case anyone is interested in attending! Maureen

From the Margin to the Center: Exploring "Artsy" Human Centered Computing

Abstract: Although HCI has traditionally anchored itself epistemologically between the twin rocks of engineering/computer science and cognitive/laboratory behavioral science, contemporary HCI practice has been additionally enriched by a diverse array of disciplinary ways of knowing, from qualitative social science to product design to network analysis. Recently, we have seen an upswell in interest in the arts, which offers new opportunities for conceiving of and designing for interaction, but simultaneously provides challenges for our traditional conceptualizations of what it means to do and to know in HCI. Given that intellectual issues in the contemporary arts are relatively unknown in our field, the status of arts-based work as research can be unclear to HCI researchers. When work in the field is labelled "artsy," this can often imply that it is pretty but not practical, creative but not generalizable, provocative but not a fundamental knowledge contribution, interesting but not valid until recast as science. The result is a missed opportunity, a marginalization of the insights the arts could offer us. In this talk, I will explore what it might mean to take the arts seriously as a way of knowing and as an intellectual resource for HCI practictioners. I will describe a design experiment through which my group realized both the value of an aesthetic approach to affective computing and the deep-seated consequences of an aesthetic orientation for design and evaluation. I will argue that the arts provide a unique lens into design for the political, social, and personal dimensions of computing. Through analyses my group has conducted of the uptake of cultural probes and Situationism in HCI, I will explore the challenges and opportunities that the arts offer HCI. Bio: Phoebe Sengers is an assistant professor in Information Science and Science & Technology Studies at Cornell, where she leads the Culturally Embedded Computing group. She works at the intersection of HCI with cultural studies of technology, developing applications that respond to and encourage critical reflection on the place of technology in culture. She uses insights from cultural analysis of IT to identify and rethink the assumptions underlying technologies, to build systems to support critical reflection on emotional and social experiences, and to develop new techniques for designing systems, including the use of self-experiment in design and new forms of evaluation for open-ended systems. Before coming to Cornell, she worked as a research scientist in the Media Arts Research Studies group at the German National Computer Science Research Center (GMD) and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany. In August 1998, she graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a self-defined interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence and Cultural Theory. Lunch will be rolled sandwiches (hovan-style) from St Charles Deli. Lunch wil be ready by 11:30; the talk begins at 12:00. Thank you. Don Don Schoner Assistant to Director of GVU Georgia Institute of Technology Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 85 5th Street, NW Atlanta, GA 30308-1030 Phone: 404-894-4488 Direct Line: 404-894-0075 Fax: 404-385-2386 Fax: 404-894-0673 schoner@cc.gatech.edu <mailto:schoner@cc.gatech.edu> "One thing about trains: it doesn't matter where you're going. What matters is that you decided to get on." --The Polar Express _______________________________________________ Gvu-bag mailing list Gvu-bag@mailman.cc.gatech.edu https://mailman.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/gvu-bag