Laura Devendorf

Being the Machine: Reconfiguring Agency and Control in Hybrid Fabrication

This paper details the design and evaluation of Being the Machine, a portable digital fabrication system that places digital fabrication activity outside of the traditional fab lab environment. Being the Machine invites people to (re)consider materials found in their everyday and personal environment as part of the fabrication activity. We expand the design space involving hybrid (physical-digital) fabrication by describing how our system draws from art to support critical and reflective modes of making. In interaction with our system, participants distributed control between human and machine actors to support their preferred mode of making. These patterns reveal new opportunities and challenges for future hybrid fabrication systems, and suggest that designing for qualities of experience, like meditation and reflection, could support meaningful making experiences for many different kinds of makers.

I don't Want to Wear a Screen: Probing Perceptions of and Possibilities for Dynamic Displays on Clothing

This paper explores the role dynamic textile displays play in relation to personal style: What does it mean to wear computationally responsive clothing and why would one be motivated to do so? We developed a novel textile display technology, called Ebb, and created several woven and crochet fabric swatches that explored clothing-specific design possibilities. We engaged fashion designers and non-designers in imagining how Ebb would integrate into their design practice or personal style of dressing. Participants evaluated the appeal and utility of clothing-based displays according to a very different set of criteria than traditional screen-based computational displays. Specifically, the slowness, low-resolution, and volatility of Ebb tended to be seen as assets as opposed to technical limitations in the context of personal style. Additionally, participants envisioned various ways that ambiguous, ambient, and abstract displays of information could prompt new experiences in their everyday lives. Our paper details the complex relationships between display and personal style and offers a new design metaphor and extension of Gaver et al.s original descriptions of ambiguity in order to guide the design of clothing-based displays for everyday life.

Biosignals as Social Cues: Ambiguity and Emotional Interpretation in Social Displays of Skin Conductance

This paper explores the social meaning of clothing-based displays of biosignals. How do friends make sense of their own and each others skin conductance display in the context of a conversation? We developed Hint, a dynamic thermochromic t-shirt whose ambiguous pattern changes color when its wearers skin conductance increases, an indication of sudden arousal. We investigated how pairs of friends each wearing the shirt conversed and interpreted the display. Participants shared a broad range of interpretations; e.g., joy and embarrassment were associated with an increase in skin conductance. Additionally, participants expressed desires for their skin conductance display to help validate their feelings and show emotional engagement with others. We explore ambiguity in the context of clothing-based information displays and discuss how skin conductance display became part of social performance in our study. From there, we suggest framing biosignals as social cues along with facial expression, gestures, etc., and begin to question what design territories this might uncover.

Reimagining Digital Fabrication as Performance Art

Within the HCI literature to date, digital fabrication systems are often oriented towards pre-determined goals and discussed in terms of the meaning of objects produced rather than the meanings of actions from which those object emerged. This paper draws from contemporary performance art to inform fabrication system designs that frame meaningful actions as the primary product of fabrication activity. In doing so, we open up new generative ideas for HCI theory and practice, specifically in relation to posthumanist and research through design agendas.

AnyType: provoking reflection and exploration with aesthetic interaction

AnyType is a mobile application that generates unique typefaces from photographs of shapes that people find in their environment. In keeping with the principles of aesthetic interaction, the design of AnyType supports opportunities for surprise, storytelling, and expression. This paper presents data collected from two observational studies of AnyType. In both studies, we found that people appropriated the application to create highly personalized messages. They found inspiration in unexpected locations, created memories from nuanced details in their lives, and creatively explored the design space provided by the system. Drawing from our observations, we discuss possible roles mobile devices could play in peoples personal meaning making, creative process, and discovery, in interaction with elements of their physical environment.

CrossFAB: Bridging the Gap between Personal Fabrication Research in HCI, Computer Graphics, Robotics, Art, Architecture, and Material Science.

Since 2012, personal fabrication has emerged as a new topic in the HCI community with an increasing number of publications every year. While within HCI, fabrication researchers have already built a strong community; almost no collaboration with other related disciplines, such as computer graphics, robotics, art, architecture, and material science, exists. We believe that especially in the context of HCI, collaboration with other fields can provide valuable input and create new perspectives on HCI challenges. This one-day workshop aims at bridging the gap between related disciplines in the area of personal fabrication by bringing together researchers from different fields. The focus of this workshop is to form connections across disciplines that can give rise to ongoing collaborations and to inspire HCI researchers to reach out into other topic areas for future research.

Being the machine: exploring new modes of making

As making with digital fabricators becomes pervasive it is important to consider how the design of these technologies can suit the desires of diverse audiences. This paper presents two interactive craft activities where the actions of the user mimic the actions of algorithms that underlie digital fabrication technologies. Users are invited to perform the part of the making machine as they construct objects using everyday materials. In addition to suggesting new modes of making, interacting in this way may also provide closer and personally relevant understandings of the technologies and processes of digital fabrication.

Redeform: Participatory 3D Printing in Public Spaces

Redeform presents an alternative vision of 3D printing that complicates common divisions between human/machine, abstract/concrete, and high/low tech. It invites people to perform the functions of a 3D printer in order to collaboratively construct digital models from everyday materials in everyday spaces. At TEI, Redeform will serve as a site for discussion about values in digital fabrication design.

String Figuring: A Story of Reflection, Material Inquiry, and a Novel Sensor

We describe a process of materials inquiry that gave rise to a new kind of sensor: a string figure sensor that correlates resistance changes with the topology of a closed loop of string. We describe the critical and reflective process from which our string figure sensor emerged, how the sensor works, and the future applications we envision our sensor supporting.

Design for Collaborative Survival: An Inquiry into Human-Fungi Relationships

In response to recent calls for HCI to address ongoing environmental crises and existential threats, this paper introduces the concept of collaborative survival and examines how it shapes the design of interactive artifacts. Collaborative survival describes how our (human) ability to persist as a species is deeply entangled with and dependent upon the health of a multitude of other species. We explore collaborative survival within the context of designing tools for mushroom foraging and reflect on how interactive products can open new pathways for noticing and joining-with these entanglements towards preferable futures. In addition to highlighting three tactics-engagement, attunement and expansion-that can guide designs towards multispecies flourishing, our prototypes illustrate the potential for wearable technology to extend the body into the environment.