Michael Heidt

Diverse Ecologies – Interdisciplinary Development for Cultural Education

We present a case study outlining development efforts towards an interface ecology to be deployed in museums. We argue that the problem at hand calls for a highly interdisciplinary design process. Furthermore, system design in the domain of cultural education poses a unique set of challenges. At the same time few existing design methodologies are suitable for addressing this special environment of system design. We outline a set of tentative methodological elements aimed at informing adequate interdisciplinary development processes. The discussion is embedded into a critique of existing methodologies while being orientated towards inviting critique itself. The guiding insight steering our methodological developments is that fundamental differences between project participants and other stakeholders should be construed as assets. Rather than trying to integrate them or covering them up, the dynamic friction between differing viewpoints can be rendered productive by means of poietic practices.

Examining interdisciplinary prototyping in the context of cultural communication

Designers typically have to operate in the environment of highly interdisciplinary teams. However, at the same time mindsets of project participants frequently remain framed within disciplinary and professional boundaries. We argue that interdisciplinary communication processes can be improved upon by further theorising the differences between disciplinary cultures. Prototyping offers unique opportunities concerning these situational configurations. It allows to make differences productive on the level of practice whose incommensurabilities often preclude integration within the realm of theory and conviction. We thus provide a tentative set of communicative and methodological tools aimed at improving the communicative process in these scenarios. Instead of trying to establish a common language or common toolset, we try to render the dynamic friction between disparate perspectives productive. Our positions are illustrated by discussing them in the context of a case study in the domain of cultural education.

Conduplicated Symmetries: Renegotiating the Material Basis of Prototype Research

The role of materiality within prototyping recently received a high degree of attention from HCI and design communities. Existing approaches have solely focussed on the materiality of artifacts produced during prototyping. This focus largely has left the materiality of designers and users unaccounted for. The text illustrates how the Somatic-Marker-Hypothesis and Actor-Network-Theory can be employed in order to illustrate these forgotten dimensions of materiality during prototyping: Not only is material shaped during construction of artefacts. Material modifications also comprise alterations within the material of designers’ and users’ bodies themselves. In order to facilitate these descriptions, a novel approach towards symmetry had to be developed.

Beyond Presentation - Employing Proactive Intelligent Agents as Social Catalysts

Despite long standing attention from research communities, the technology of intelligent agents still harbours a large amount of unrealised potential. In this text, we argue that agent technology can benefit from a shift in focus from presentation to possible functionalities. In doing this, our focus is on the provision of pro-activity: The ability of agents not to merely react but to predictively shape their environments. In order to illustrate our arguments, we present an instance of interactive technology, showing how pro-active intelligent agents can be employed in exhibition contexts.

Fukushima Audio Census

Fukushima Audio Census (2017) is an interactive artwork designed for the CHI 2017 art program. Live audio is transmitted from strategically placed microphones in the exclusion zone of a contaminated forest located 10 kilometers from the Daichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. The artwork invites conference attendees to listen to forest sounds, retrieve past recordings, and talk with experts in the field of ecological neutrality. It thus creates a community among listeners at the conference, researchers, and creatures within the exclusion zone.

Towards a Vocabulary of Prototypes in Interaction Design – A Criticism of Current Practice

A methodological framework and a constructivist meta theory for formulating a vocabulary of prototype characteristics in interaction design are presented. Motivation for this research approach is drawn from cognitive psychology which hypothesizes that the aesthetic cognition of artifacts lies outside the scope of verbal appreciation. First, the shortcomings of the related design research literature are discussed in an attempt to frame a suitable methodology for overcoming these issues. It is also shown how the analysis of existing literature, protocols and observations will fit into this research scheme. Second, an accompanying meta theory building on Latours [15, 16] account of artifact–subject relations within the actor network theory, is described.

Tangible Disparity - Different Notions of the Material as Catalyst of Interdisciplinary Communication

Communicating tangible technology designs hinges on an adequate notion of materiality. However, academic disciplines involved employ wildly differing notions of the material. This issue effects communicative boundaries within interdisciplinary teams tasked with development of tangible digital artefacts. In order to address this problem, we provide an analysis of differing disciplinary modes of conceptualisation and theorisation. Following these considerations, we discuss theoretical artefacts able to serve as communicative interfaces between the disciplines in question.

Proactive Functions of a Pedagogical Agent – Steps for Implementing a Social Catalyst Function

The development of pedagogical agents has been focused on the empirical relevance of outward appearance and the voiced conveyance of information. Rather than following these steps of analysing agents’ looks, the following paper is focused on having pedagogical agents function proactively in regard to the environment the learner is situated in. This means agents are able to listen and react to noise disturbances or obvious attention diversion by the learner. Furthermore, the agent is enhanced by a social catalyst routine, enabling the system to facilitate cooperative learning through the use of narrative techniques for the retention of information.

The Aesthetics of Activism

For this demonstration the authors intend to present the Aesthetics of Activism as a work-in-progress. The artwork is designed to aggregate visual material from social networks to form themed compositions that can be explored jointly within a shared interactive space. Visual elements are programmatically arranged according to formal aesthetic criteria, while motion within the exhibition space is detected via optical sensors. Artistry built into the algorithms used for creating the visual compositions and those used to present, filter and rank content within the social web are exposed for people interested in the relationships between the cultural and computer layers inherent to the system design.

Deconstructivist Design within HCI

Every HCI artefact reproduces a specific stance towards its users. Influential within the academic sphere is the notion of a User-Centered-Design process. However, observing actual design practice renders the assumption of the centrality of users problematic. To this end, the text conducts an exploration of the relationship between discourse within the fields of HCI and architecture. A special focus are the formal expressions of deconstructivism within architecture and their potential counterparts within HCI design.