Vasiliki Tsaknaki

Leather as a material for crafting interactive and physical artifacts

Leather is a material used for the making of artifacts ever since early human history, and which can be used also in contemporary design for various types of interactive and electronic products. In this paper, we present a series of small scale explorations of leather, first as skin close interfaces for physical engagement, and secondly in terms of crafting using hand tools and a laser cutter. We reflect on our experiences along these two strands and discuss future possibilities of leather as a rich material for providing new types of interactive experiences. By discussing emerging topics related to traditional crafting processes and contemporary rapid fabrication with this material, we find a great potential of merging such processes and tools for future interaction design settings.

Material Programming: A New Interaction Design Practice

We propose the notion of material programming as a new practice for designing future interactive artifacts. Material programming would be a way for the interaction designer to better explore the dynamics of the materials at hand and through that familiarity be able to compose more sophisticated and complex temporal forms in their designs. As such it would blur the boundaries between programming and crafting these new smart and computational materials. We envision a material programming practice developed around physical tools (e.g. Fig 1) that draw on bodily skills and experiences (Fig 2) while enabling actions performed directly on the material with immediate effects (no program vs. execution mode). Finally, the tools would enable one layer of abstraction and as such encompass the potential of the computational materials but not that of possibly adjacent computers, which could run more complex algorithms.

Handcrafting electronic accessories using 'raw' materials

In this studio we explore the design of interactive electronic accessories made from natural materials such as wood, copper, silver, wool and leather. A set of handcrafted sensor components along with easy to use sensor boards that connect with example smartphone software, will be utilized as a toolkit for the studio activities. Participants will, through hands-on activity, create with, learn about and discuss the role of natural materials in the design of wearable interactive designs.

Articulating Challenges of Hybrid Crafting for the Case of Interactive Silversmith Practice

As interactive objects get embedded into different cultural contexts and take on more varied material forms, the relationship between interaction design and crafting practices in the physical domain is becoming increasingly interwoven. In this paper, we present an explorative project that involved intense collaborations between the areas of interaction design and silversmith practice. A main focus of the investigation concerned ways of surfacing conductive metals in interactive artefacts through the making of small, three-dimensional, and close-to-skin sensors. We reflect on insights made during this process, focusing on the challenges of combining the two knowledge areas on a level of materials, tools and techniques. In particular, we discuss qualities that silversmith crafting brings forth that can inform future directions of interaction design in terms of interaction gestalts, design values and hybrid crafting practices, more broadly.

Nebula: An Interactive Garment Designed for Functional Aesthetics

In this paper we present Nebula, a prototype for examining the properties of textiles, fashion accessories, and digital technologies to arrive at a garment design that brings these elements together in a cohesive manner. Bridging the gap between everyday performativity and enactment, we aim at discussing aspects of the making process, interaction and functional aesthetics that emerged. Nebula is part of the Sound Clothes project that aims at exploring the expressive potential of wearable technologies creating sound from motion.

Material programming

3 6 I N T E R A C T I O N S M AY–J U N E 2 017 In the near future, smart materials will have computational power embedded in the form of graphene transistors or nanotubes [1]. These will be the ultimate computational composites: materials that hold classic material qualities, such as structural durability, flexibility, texture, weight, and color, but that are also capable of sensing, actuating, and computing [2]. Indeed, computers will not be things in and of themselves, but rather will be embedded into the materials that make up our surroundings. This also means that the way we interact with computers, and the way we program them, will change. Consequently, we ask what the practice of programming and giving form to such materials would be like. How would we be able to familiarize ourselves with the dynamics of these materials and their different combinations of cause and effect? Which tools would we need, and what would they look like? Would we program these computational composites through external computers and then transfer the code to them, or would the programming happen closer to the materials? In this article, we outline a new research program that floats between imagined futures and the development of a material programming practice [1].

Material Programming: a Design Practice for Computational Composites

In this paper we propose the notion of material programming as a future design practice for computational composites. Material programming would be a way for the interaction designer to better explore the dynamic potential of computational materials at hand and through that familiarity be able to compose more sophisticated and complex temporal forms in their designs. The contribution of the paper is an analysis of qualities that we find a material programming practice would and should support: designs grounded in material properties and experiences, embodied programming practice, real-time on-site explorations, and finally a reasonable level of complexity in couplings between input and output. We propose material programming knowing that the technology and materials are not entirely ready to support this practice yet, however, we are certain they will be and that the interaction design community will need to find new ways of relating to such computational materials.

Sociomateriality: Infrastructuring and Appropriation of Artifacts

This Studio offers researchers and designers an opportunity to investigate and discuss prototypes and in-process projects from a perspective that expands beyond material aspects, to also cover social and cultural ones. Participants will bring a project, device, or platform, which will be discussed as sociomaterials that actively participate across multiple social and cultural contexts. This perspective, as well as the prototypes and projects brought by the participants, forms the core of the Studio, where conversation will emerge over several phases: from the demonstration of the individual projects as things, to the generation of speculative fictions as to the role and use of these artifacts in the world. Finally, we end with a discussion of infrastructuring and appropriation of the artefacts and their social roles. The themes that will be examined in this Studio are agency, emerging behaviors, embeddedness and design strategies from a sociomaterial perspective of artifacts.

Time, Temporality, and Slowness: Future Directions for Design Research

A diverse set of research and design initiatives related to time, temporality, and slowness has emerged in the DIS and HCI communities. The goals of this workshop are to: 1. bring together researchers to reflect on conceptual, methodological, and practice-based outcomes and issues and 2. to develop an agenda for future research in this growing area.