Workshop
Extended Abstract

Description
Objectives
Intended Audience

Paper Abstracts
Piotr Adamczyk
Amitava Biswas, et al.
Kathering Moriwaki & Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Nick Bryan-Kinns, et al.
Erik Conrad
Eric Cook
Nina Czegledy
Xianghua Ding
Marcelo Guimaraes, et al.
Tiffany Holmes
Anthony Hornof
Linda Kaastra & Brian Fisher
Carmin Karasic
Maria Lantin & Greg Judelman
Myriel Milicevic
Simon Penny
Dan Perkel, et al.

Theoretical Frameworks for Concepts of Creative Engagement
Piotr Adamczyk
School of Library and Information Science, Division of Human Factors
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

We believe that new media could have a central role in expanding HCI practice by providing a rhetoric for deeper and more varied analysis of under-explored features in interface and experience design. Waterworth argues that much of HCI’s focus on
cognitivist approaches and the resulting “cognitive artifacts” fail to support “much of real human cognition which embraces non-computational phenomena such as sensation, imagination, emotion and fantasy”. [8] We believe that these hard to capture phenomena can be made more accessible if the language of new media
practice were made more accessible to HCI practitioners. That said, there is considerable resistance in some quarters to work in HCI that is suggestive rather than empirically sound. What we propose is that the inclusion of new media practices in HCI need not reduce the empiricism of the research, but can lead to a better understanding of the aesthetic experience, and interfaces that can lead to meaning without sacrificing usability, learnability or real world use and applicability. A similar position has been expressed in the user experience community, in particular when approaching issues of presence. Marsh points to how elements of film making and film criticism can aid in the design and evaluation of mediated computer environments. [6]
Our work focuses on examining features of interest to HCI researchers that can’t be quantified easily or formulated within existing experimental frameworks. We explore whether an approach from the arts – new media in particular – would provide a method for classification of drawbacks, flaws, and potential errors in usability, and how such an approach may point to methods for remediation. We present two projects exploring the boundaries of new media and HCI, and suggest how our experiences may contribute to the workshop objectives.

Multi-Disciplinary Collaborations in New Media: Experiences in MDCN
Amitava Biswas, Tom Donaldson, Kim Sawchuk, Michael Longford, Barbara Crow, Sara Diamond, David Gauthier
Hexagram Institute, Banff New Media Institute, Concordia University, York University, Ontario College of Art and Design, Canada

New media is an exploratory artistic investigation which creates new forms of engagements between users, technological artifacts and their environments. Usage of technology is the intersecting point between new media and HCI where enriching collaborations can happen. To manage creative collaborations, existing paradigms
within each domain have to be adapted as well as new collaborative processes and software tools needs to be forged. This paper exposes some useful collaborative
practices within new media, which can be reused to further the partnership between new media and HCI.

Hacking Creativity: Scrapyard Challenge Workshops
Katherine Moriwaki & Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

This paper presents the authors’ interests as they relate to the intersection between Media Arts practice and HCI. Specifically we discuss the Scrapyard Spectrum of
Workshops as an example of how these interests have been integrated into practice.

Our interest in the topic of New Media Arts and HCI is as practicing artists and designers who utilize creative engagement in our artistic projects as well as in
workshops we lead. Specifically we intend to discuss a spectrum of workshops which we have developed which demonstrate an overlap between media arts practice
and interaction design. The Scrapyard Spectrum of workshops we have developed use cast-off inexpensive materials and human imagination to transform everyday materials into interactive objects. Within the context of media arts practice the Scrapyard challenge taps into popular culture, hacking, and the do-ityourself (DIY) community. In regards to HCI, the Scrapyard challenge is informed by burgeoning literature surrounding speculative methodologies and the exploration of material affordances. The end result is an experience and produced artifacts which speak to both artistic expression as well as novel interface design.

Mutual Engagement in Collaboration
Nick Bryan-Kinns, P.G.T. Healey, J. Leach, A. Brooker
IMC Group, Department of Computer Science
Queen Mary, University of London, U.K.

Our position is that creative collaboration is characterized by points of mutual engagement between participants. In this paper we outline our concept of mutual engagement, propose design features to support it, and describe a novel interface designed to support mutually engaging remote group music interaction.

Our view on the workshop theme is that in order to design artifacts to support creative engagement we need to understand the points at which collaborators mutually engage with each other. We propose that these are the points at which people spark together, lose themselves in their joint action, and arrive together at a point of co-action ‘where you are when
you don't know where you are’ [5]. It is our position that in order to identify these points we need to examine the communication between participants rather than constructing cognitive models of their intentions. The key question we are interested in is how mutual engagement can be supported when collaborators are not located in the same physical space. We explore this question by examining behavior in group music interaction; a key exemplar of an activity which relies on mutual engagement to succeed.

Towards Embodied Spatial Interaction
Erik Conrad
Topological Media Lab, Concordia University
Montreal, Quebec Canada

As we enter the age of ubiquitous computing, where computers are worn, carried or embedded into the environment, we must be careful that the ideology the technology embodies is not blindly incorporated into the environment as well. As disciplines, engineering and computer science make implicit assumptions about the world that conflict with traditional modes of cultural production. Space is commonly understood to be the void left behind when no objects are present. Unfortunately, once we see space in this way, we are unable to understand the role it plays in our everyday experience. Space is never merely a neutral background for human activity; culture is built into its forms. The social nature of the interface allows us to
situate it within Henrí Lefebvre’s notions of space as a social product and provides new tools for thinking about how computing practice engages space and opens avenues to rematerialize the environment through embodied interaction.

Socio-technical Factors of PracticeTransmission in an Online Creative Community
Eric Cook
School of Information, University of Michigan, U.S.A.

Digital artists using modular visual production environments can now create highly customized creative tools such as virtual musical instruments, as well as readily sharing and reusing such tools online. Aspects of this process both impede and support creative practice learning. This position paper describes an ongoing case study analyzing the sociotechnical factors influencing the development and transmission of practice within one example online community, the users of Native Instrument’s Reaktor™ software.

AURORA FEAST/AURORA LIVE
Nina Czegledy
KMDI, University of Toronto, Canada

The Aurora Feast Public Art Project presents an interdisciplinary collaboration for research, development and presentation AuroraLive is an integral yet independent part of the project, presenting an interactive, real-time and web-based visualization of personal and cross-cultural interpretations of The Northern Lights (Aurora) phenomenon.

The Aurora Feast project was built by a continuous process of research and development in a non-hierarchical collaboration. The project is submitted to the workshop because it eminently illustrates the blurring of boundaries between data visualization and design professionals as well graphic designers, sound engineers, astronomers, artists and communication engineers in total over twenty professionals in four countries.

Creative Engagement: From
Instrumentality to Expressivity
Xianghua Ding
Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
University of California, Irvine, U.S.A.

Recently, the energy accumulated from the technological advancement such as ever smaller portable devices, pervasive networking and sensors has pushed computers out from the desktop and workplace into our everyday lives. Driven by this energy, it is crucial to explore new design spaces, so the power of computation can be transformed into humane and constructive elements, rather than invasive and
destructive ones. In my view, new media art, where information and communication technologies are employed as new media for artistic purposes, provides unique opportunities to usher this energy. In particular, the proposal of Creative Engagement, with its emphasis on engagement for creativity, sociability and sensemaking,
reflects this line of pursuit. It seems there is natural need to incorporate this effort into the current HCI research agenda. But, where and how? In this position paper, I explore two general themes from socio-psychology – expressive and instrumental
oriented actions – to articulate its position in the general HCI agenda, and draw attention to the significant role expressive activity, or “acting out” plays
towards the end of Creative Engagement. I suggest studying the everyday expressive activities, and exploring how to turn technologies into means and media to support them.

Sapiens Circus: Transforming the present and constructiong a better future
Marcelo Guimaraes, Ricardo Henrique Teixeira,Ivan Linhares Martins, Carlos Eduardo Somaggio, Luiz D M de Lima, Francisco E. G. Silveira, Deborah Bernett
Sapiens Circus, Brazil

Sapiens Circus was created by exploring the so-called Experience Economy and the new Human-Centered- Technologies. The purpose of the project is to generate memorable experiences through the use of games, stories and technology in an engaging and interactive environment. In this way, materialized by a modular, flexible physical structure and a playful language. Sapiens Circus becomes a platform for technology, fun, and learning, based on both art and science that focuses on ourselves, with a basis in concrete studies about our very existence. By means of technological devices such as tables, carpets, cell phones and other elements.
More than a technology challenge, we link social systems (Politics, Traditions And Aesthetics In The Modern Social Order). Human Centered Technology
broadens concepts and actions and recalls a transdisciplinarity. These concepts and actions, lead us to a transdisciplinarity that Manuel Castell among other
social scientists have indicated includes processes of construction of a new cycle of realimentation of the flows and networks of current society.

Environmental Awareness Though Eco-visualization: Combining Art And Technology To Promote Sustainability
Tiffany Holmes
Department of Art and Technology Studies
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, U.S.A.

Eco-visualization technology made by media artists offers a new way to dynamically visualize invisible environmental data. Eco-visualization can take many forms. My own practice of eco-visualization involves animating information typically concealed in building monitoring systems, such as kilowatts or gallons of water used. A public display with real time visual feedback promotes awareness of resource consumption
and offers a practical alternative to remote meters concealed in utility closets. The long-term goal of most eco-visualization practitioners is to encourage good
environmental stewardship through hybrid practices of art and design. My role as a contributor to the workshop will be to provide a critical survey of this emerging field and demonstrate proof-of-concept through a new eco-visualization project to be installed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in September of 2006. In the extended introduction presented here, I will contextualize the field of ecovisualization and its interdisciplinary trajectories.

Creativity in User Interface Design
Anthony Hornof
Computer and Information Science, University of Oregon, U.S.A.

Creativity and issues of creativity pervade the field HCI and UI design. In my teaching and research UO, my collaborators on campus tend to be in music and the arts, not in computer science or psychology. This position paper will discuss a number of projects which I am involved. These projects are specifically designed to promote, engender, foster, and exercise
creativity. The projects include making music with movements, drawing pictures with eye movements, supporting creativity in children with severe physical disabilities, and a variety of collaborative activities faculty in our digital arts program.

Affording Virtuosity: HCI in the Lifeworld of Collaboration
Linda Kaastra & Brian Fisher
University of British Columbia & Simon Fraser University
School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Canada.

This paper describes an approach to HCI that is taken from the performance analysis of musical ensembles. Both the subject of the research and the research methods
emphasize the process of creation and interpretation of sound.

Much of CHI focuses on ability of users to quickly and efficiently access features of an application in the performance of a task, situation of use and (possibly) in
collaboration with others. The success or failure of the task is typically defined a-priori, thus enabling researchers to establish how quickly and efficiently the users were able to achieve their task-defined goals. In this model the computer acts as a tool whose evolution is mediated by increased intelligence and has as its goal a "partnership" with the user in the sense of J. C. R. Licklider's "Man- Computer Symbiosis".

Handheld Histories
Carmin Karasic
Boston Cyberarts, Inc. & The Art Institute of Boston, U.S.A.

This paper describes my interest in the workshop theme and some of my mltimedia artworks that address social implications of communiction techologies. Emerging communicatio technology and network access will eventually enable wireless connectivity anywhere and anytime. Public desire for instant gratification and acceptance of pervasive digital devices generates demand for digital services. I use emerging technologies in my art to increse social awareness. My artworks consciously examine the hyperreal, because representation has become more important than personal opinion, observation, or even reality itself. I am specivically interested in modes of interaction with pervasive computing.

FlowerGarden: An Interactive Visualization of Concept-Sharing
Maria Lantin & Greg Judelman
The Banff Centre Visualization Lab & CBC New Media, Canada

In this paper we describe flowerGarden, a real-time interactive social network and concept-sharing visualization created in a rapid prototyping session between a designer and a computer scientist. We describe the visualization itself and the context in which it was deployed, including a description of emergent participant engagement and behaviour. We continue with a reflection on the interdisciplinary creation process of this visualization and lessons learned from this and other art/science collaborations at the Banff Centre Visualization Lab.

Facing = Doing: How can we have fun saving the earth?
Developing strategies for engaging people
Myriel Milicevic
Interaction Design Institute of Ivrea, Italy

This proposal for the workshop “About Face: Interface Creative Engagement in New Media Arts and HCI” reflects on how we can engage people to participate in
questions concerning their environments and communities. How can we use here the opportunities that communication technology provides us with, and find design solutions for products and services that are vital for our future?

The way we learn today about our world often happens through a range of mediated sources, rather than through our direct experience and own observations.
This creates a divide between the world we conceptually know about, and the world we live in every day. When confronted with social or environmental problems, we tend to feel distanced from the source and powerless concerning solutions. What can we as practitioners of different fields do to create enjoyable and exciting experiences for people so they participate more in communal and environmental matters, to motivate a more reflective behaviour and make "saving the earth" an engaging, and integral part of our everyday activities? How can communication technologies help to make our role in the complex whole of communal or environmental processes more tangible, interesting to explore and invite us to take action? For the workshop, I want to present some of my projects that relate to the questions above to initiate a dialogue, and hope that these discussions will be stimulating and beneficial for the participants.
Personally in my work, I aim for a friendly visual language, using elements of story telling, playfulness, and interactions that invite for participation. With the experimental approach, I believe we can find design solutions for products and services that will have an imminent value.

Productivity, criticality and pleasure
Simon Penny
Arts Computation Engineering, University of California, Irvine, U.S.A.

A study of the so-called New Media Arts and in HCI is a fascinating microcosmic case of the problem of the two cultures. HCI and Digital Media Arts are approximately the same age and utilize similar technologies, yet the intellectual, philosophical and theoretical traditions from which they arise are starkly different and belie radically different motivations, commitments, approaches and solutions. This paper takes an historical and theoretical overview of the differences and similarities in HCI and Media Arts.

I have spent much of the last fifteen years doing technical research for artistic ends. I have also spent much time asserting the value of art methodologies in technical research. It is an easy case to makei, there is an undeniable record of technological invention in the arts preceding similar invention in the academic/technical/commercial world. Yet it must also be asserted that the arts have value in and of themselves, whether or not they can be applied to advance or augment technical research. What I hope to do here is to coolly assess the nature of the venn diagram concerning HCI and the media arts – where they cross and have common interests and goals, and where they must remain separate, not necessarily opposed but simply pursuing different goals.

Dan Perkel, Ryan Shaw, Greg Niemeyer
School of Information & Center for New Media
University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.

In this paper we discuss the relationship between new media art practice and human computer interaction design by considering activities of collaboration and boundary crossing in the design and use of Organum, an interactive art installation and collaborative multiplayer, voice-driven game.

Over the past two years, an interdisciplinary group has been developing Organum, a work of new media art and a multiplayer, collaborative, voice-driven game.
While we have created Organum to facilitate creative, collaborative, and social experiences between friends and strangers, its development required us to cross
disciplinary boundaries and engage with one another in new ways. Here, we first introduce Organum and briefly discuss how it attempts to push various boundaries of individual and group engagement through the use of a particular interaction mode –the use of the voice with others in public space. Then, we shift away from the work itself and discuss lessons that we have learned together and from each other by combining methods from social science, user-centered design, and art practice. Similar to the players in Organum, we also have had to cross boundaries and create links between us, finding commonalities between artistic and design practices that have seemed, at times, in opposition.