Call for Participation: Design and Dislocation Workshop at DIS 2018

This workshop focuses on the material qualities of dislocation between people, things, places, and data. The process of becoming separated from humans or things is likely to have diverse consequences; from shifting frequency, modes, or routines of interaction and communication, to alternate meanings of connectedness. In this workshop, we aim to discuss a broad range of material manifestations and implications of (designing for) dislocation. While engaging with material qualities of dislocation, we will explore how design can create opportunities for (re)connection in response to dislocation.

Key questions guiding the workshop:

• Which physical / material practices do exist, whether technologically mediated or not, to reconnect in case of dislocation?
• Which materials or which interactive qualities are promising to be used for reconnecting?
• How can material qualities account for the (often invisible) networked digital apparatus surrounding dislocated interactions?
• How to study the way material qualities in dislocation are actively adopted in everyday practices and how people give meaning to them?
• Which strong concepts and intermediate-level knowledge forms [Höök and Löwgren, 2012] are meaningful to serve the material engagement with and interaction design research on dislocation?

We invite design researchers, who have dealt with dislocation of different kinds, to the workshop; either having:

• (anecdotal or empirical) experience with dislocation;
• design ideas or designed systems that facilitate (material) reconnecting with humans, things, data, places, or environments; or
• knowledge or speculations about materials that would provide promising qualities for re-connecting.

In order to express interest in participation, a position paper is required that covers:

• an essayistic, empirical, or theoretical discussion of dislocation and materiality; among others, it may either introduce theories that would be useful in outlining the landscape of dislocation or metaphors to guide future designs for dislocation; it could describe an artwork or personal experience of dislocation and reconnection that provides resources to inspire new ideas; or it may present an existing reconnecting design (concept or implemented artifact) including a reflection on where location became present in the project and how it was responded to through design, interaction, and materials. (4 page max.)
• the proposal of a material or artefact for exploration that the participants commit to bring to the workshop. (1/2 page max.)
• Personal bio (1/2 page max.)

The position paper (in SIGCHI extended abstracts format) should be sent via email to verena.fuchsberger@sbg.ac.at.