Jeroen Peeters

Confabulation in the time of transdisciplinarity: reflection on HCI education and a call for conversation

As HCI becomes ever-increasingly more transdisciplinary it encounters increasingly complex problems practical, methodological, and pedagogical in natures. This paper is an introductory exploration of the influence HCI education has in bridging academia and industry as students become practitioners. We examined how design pedagogy materializes and takes shape in both work and student process/attitudes as they become professionals, suggesting there is an area of importance to the community that is overlooked. Education shapes designers, designers shape the world, which prompts the need for a dialogue on how education pedagogy shapes practitioners that embody methods, values, skills, goals, and practices. As practitioners embody their knowledge into designs there arises a discussion that ought to be had.

No Man is an Island. Situated Design Research and Wicked Impact

Abstract In this paper, we describe the research-through-design process that led to the realization of the interactive exhibition Charged Utopia that took place in August 2016 at the Norrbyskärs Museum. The design leveraged embodiment and active perception: visitors could activate the content by physically engaging with the space. These interactions were intended to trigger personal reflections on social coexistence, its paradoxes and challenges. The paper guides through the research-through-design process, from initial design direction and their theoretical grounding, to the design process and final event. The paper contributes with a reflection on the “wicked impact” of the event, suggesting that it is of relevance for design researchers that deal with societal issues, to discuss and expose the effects of their practice beyond immediate results.

MoCap Tango: Traces of Complexity

In this paper, we report on an ongoing design research project MoCap Tango. Tango is a form of partner dancing in which two bodies sense each other in a dynamic, physical dialogue that is known for its subtle complexities, beauty and intimate experience. In MoCap Tango, we explore how we can use our skills as designers to highlight and unravel these embedded qualities and use them as inspiration in designing interactions. Using an optical Motion Capture System and custom-made passive markers, the movements of two world-class tango dancers are visualized in realtime. We present our motivation for this project, describe the first prototype and conclude with reflections on what this prototype revealed in terms of design opportunities and its relevance for the TEI community.

Understanding Transformations through Design: Can Resilience Thinking Help?

The interaction design community increasingly addresses how digital technologies may contribute to societal transformations. This paper aims at understanding transformation ignited by a particular constructive design research project. This transformation will be discussed and analysed using resilience thinking, an established approach within sustainability science. By creating a common language between these two disciplines, we start to identify what kind of transformation took place, what factors played a role in the transformation, and which transformative qualities played a role in creating these factors. Our intention is to set out how the notion of resilience might provide a new perspective to understand how constructive design research may produce results that have a sustainable social impact. The findings point towards ways in which these two different perspectives on transformation the analytical perspective of resilience thinking and the generative perspective of constructive design research - may become complementary in both igniting and understanding transformations.

Exploring Active Perception in Disseminating Design Research

The pictorial track exemplifies how the field of interaction design research explores more designerly ways of communicating knowledge in an academic context. In this pictorial, we present the Interactive Dissertation project that explores how the design of a Ph.D. dissertation may embody the experiential qualities of interactive systems that are presented in its (textual) content by leveraging active perception. We report on the research-through-design process and present results from the projects first iteration. We conclude with a visual reflection on the potential of active perception in communicating interactive experiences in print as well as wider implications for the field.

Charged Utopia VR: Exploring Embodied Sense-making in the Virtual Space

This paper reports on preliminary results of a design research project that explores how spaces in virtual reality may be designed to build on qualities of embodied sensemaking. The project forms a basis for the exploration of an ethical dimension to interactions in virtual reality. This publication focuses on identifying qualities of embodied sense-making in an existing physical space, the interactive exhibition Charged Utopia. These qualities are transposed into a virtual interactive space. The translation of the qualities is done through the three main themes: Physical Movement, Resistance and Ambiguity. We present the design research process to describe how these themes were identified and transposed. We conclude with reflections that sketch ways in which we might capitalise on the opportunities offered by a virtual space, while respecting human skills in embodied sensemaking.

Designing Expressions of Movement Qualities

Tango is a form of partner dancing in which two bodies sense one another, and move accordingly, in a dynamic, physical dialogue that is known for its subtle complexities, beauty and intimate experience. In MoCap Tango, we explore how we can build on our skills as designers to highlight and unravel these embedded qualities and use them as inspiration in designing interactions. In this pictorial, we invite the reader to actively participate in the designerly engagement that turns objective data into subjective expressions; highlighting the qualities embedded in the movements of professional dancers.

MoCap Tango: Materialising Movement Qualities

This video shows the ongoing design research project MoCap Tango. The project highlights the subtle qualities embedded in the physical dialogue between two tango dancers from a design perspective. Using custom-made wearables fitted with passive markers, in an optical Motion Capture System, the movements of two world-class tango dancers are captured. This data is used to experiment with real-time visualisations and 3D printed materialisations of the movements. The video presents the current state of the project, showing public performances in which the system was used as well as current work to use the data to create animations and 3D printed sculptures. Interviews with part of the design team highlight motivations for the project and discuss its relevance for embodied interaction design.