Design & Semantics of Form & Movement (DeSForM) Conference, Cambridge, USA

DeSForM has traditionally dealt with the design of new, dynamic and interactive artifacts supported by the rise of intelligent systems (sensors, processors, algorithms, actuators, smart materials, etc.). Such systems are becoming more and more complex and sophisticated, giving birth to new forms of digital-physical hybridizations, i.e. dynamic ecosystems where advanced materials, sensing technologies, artificial intelligences, data, and humans are deeply interconnected and mutually shaped. These emerging hybrid ecosystems have already reached a point where their understanding, design, and evaluation ask for the development of new approaches and tools, as the experiences they create are far more complex to foresee and assess.

In this edition, we challenge scholars in this field to start thinking beyond designing for and with intelligence embedded into single artifacts, to broaden their focus and start addressing designing for distributed, hyperconnected, and complex intelligent ecosystems, and how their meaning, experience, and ethics can be approached in this new landscape.

This evolving context of design calls for new design skills and ways of thinking that go beyond the traditional field of design, as well as the creation of multi-disciplinary and adaptable teams able to envision new interactive, interconnected and even unpredictable systems.

The emergence of AI, robotic solutions, and big data connected with the spaces, objects and people we interact with everyday, will create new landscapes for future generations of designers. This will require designers to adopt new lenses in the design and evaluation of emerging technology, and it will necessitate that designers equip themselves with new ethical paradigms.

This conference will face the need to explore new frontiers for design, where emerging forms of distributed intelligence become design material. This material should be fully investigated in terms of tangible manifestations, implications and impact on the design process, user experience, and social consequences. The conference will be structured around four main topics: Experiencing Complexity, Interacting with New Intelligences, Societal Impacts & Design Ethics, and Future Roles of Designers.