Materiality for Participation

Workshop at NordiCHI 2012
Copenhagen, Sunday, October 14, 2012.

Deadline for position papers, 20 August 2012.

Web-page: http://www.cs.au.dk/~olavb/mat4par2012/

Abstract

We would like to discuss the relations between materiality, appropriation, and participation in a wide range of fields and applications, extending beyond the workplace. We suggest that ideas of digital materiality could be a fruitful starting point when discussing participation beyond the strategic level of work arrangements. This includes complex mediation and a strengthened analytical focus on participation in an aesthetic and cultural perspective.

The workshop seeks to attract interested or intrigued people working theoretically, practically, artistically, analytically, etceteratically in fields related to design and use of interactive technology, who would like to explore the intersection between materiality and participation.

Background and workshop theme

Complex mediation structures in new and evolving fields of IT-use, liquefy the distinction between tool and material. In both use and development of new forms of software, tools turn into materials, and objects of interest become instrumental mediators that reshape software itself. We believe, that by changing perspective from the triadic subject-instrument-object mediation to complex mediational structures, an analytical sensitivity for the material qualities of software in use is opened.

This materiality presents itself on many levels that can be addressed individually or in combination:

  • the physical materiality of software established through tangible interaction devices,
  • the simulated materiality of the graphical user interface,
  • a moldable materiality of software with changeable and reconfigurable functionality,
  • as materialized when software is interpreted and interacted with through use – from the low level of code and algorithms, over the interface, its metaphors and interaction, to the domain specific products resulting from use.

The processes and products of software have become sensuous forms with aesthetic meaning that enable appropriation and participation in a broader sense of cultural and aesthetic engagement beyond the pre-planned. By broadening the scope of participation to include cultural and aesthetic perspectives, the concept of participation can be re-actualized and move beyond the traditional understanding of participation in IT-development. This was coined in the early trade union cooperation projects of the seventies and eighties that focused on co-determination in technological change at the workplace. While, historically, the focus of design methods and intervention was on co-determination, theoretical and empirical work pointed out that use qualities are constituted in use, and that un-anticipated use occur in most situations of IT use. Subsequently, that led to work on tailoring and end-user programming, and to a theoretical interest for appropriation.

Still, we seem to miss frameworks for understanding and designing technical substrates that accommodate fluid appropriation and extend into the collectively moldable. Thus, in discussing participation beyond the strategic level of work arrangements we suggest that ideas of digital materiality - like those sketched above - could be a fruitful starting point.

Workshop goals

The Workshop will explore the relations between the materiality of computing technologies and participation in use and design.

The goal of the workshop is to inspire and further discussions and new perspectives in the intersection between understanding the materiality of computing technologies and appreciating participation in aesthetic and cultural perspectives in both use and design.

The day will be organised based on the submitted position papers, in a format promoting discussion and innovation.

Proceedings comprising accepted papers will be published in the organisers department publication series. We will also seek to sustain the discussions in more archival format.

Call for Position papers

We invite position papers from people interested in contributing to the ongoing discussion on materiality in relation to participation in use and design of interactive technologies.

Position papers can be formated freely formated but should be fitted on two pages A4 paper. Submission by email, in PDF format, to olavb@cs.au.dk no later than August 20, 2012.

Possible themes include, but are not restricted to:

  • Software creativity.
  • Digital materiality.
  • Appropriation and reception of software.
  • Participatory design.
  • Instrumentality.
  • Representational forms.
  • Code as material.
  • Tools vs. materials.
  • Infrastructures.
  • Concepts of interactivity.
  • Cultural computing.
  • Open soft-/hardware.
  • Symmetric and asymmetric power.
  • Co-determination and democracy.

Organisers

Olav W. Bertelsen, Aarhus University, Participatory IT Centre & Dept of Computer Science, Denmark, olavb@cs.au.dk

Lone Koefoed Hansen, Aarhus University, Participatory IT Centre & Dept of Aesthetics and Communication, koefoed@hum.au.dk

Last update: