Haptic Narratives | Textural exploration in film (London, UK)

Dates: 14th, 21st and 28th May 2015 (over 3 weeks on Thursday evenings)
Location: University of Greenwich, UK
Website: http://timadi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/haptic_narratives_call.pdf
Deadline for submission of abstracts/descriptions: 17 April 2015

‘In haptic seeing, all our self rushes up to the surface to interact with another surface…’ L. U. Marks, Haptic Visuality: Touching with the Eyes

Call for Participation
films / short papers / view & talk sessions
This series of events will focus on exploring and engaging with haptic sensations through tactile cues on film and the environments associated with moving images. What the eye sees in a frame can encourage the viewer to feel sensations on the skin through filmic texture, contour, angle, lighting, saturation, sound, vibrations etc. In some cases, an image can urge the viewer to touch a surface through their mind’s eye or allow an embodied reaction to characters or actions seen on screen.

We are interested in submissions around the areas of:

• sensations that can be felt on/via skin, other body parts and mind as part of filmic experiences.
• other representations of the tactual, where vision becomes touch / touch becomes vision.
• how senses are manipulated in various genres and styles of film through material engagement.
• the body in motion; eating, sex, sweating, violence etc.
• materiality and texture of sound / sound-image relationships
• a multisensory approach to synesthesia and kinesthesia
• material fetishism
• real, unreal and the surreal

In the first instance, we would like to receive 300 word abstracts or descriptions, attaching any visual material necessary by Friday 17th April 2015. Please don’t attach files over 10 MB; instead include links to online material, or use file transfer websites.

Submissions should be sent to: calls@timadi.org with ‘Haptic Narratives’ in the subject line.

Accepted submissions will be divided into separate themes that will be explored over the three events.

This event series is sponsored by the ‘Time, Materiality and the Digital’ (TiMaDi) research group at the University of Greenwich, and organised by Matilda Mroz, Isil Onol, Stacey Pitsillides, and Rosamund Davies.

Spatial Storyworlds Panel at the 4th Intl Visual Methods Conf (Sep 2015, Brighton UK)

Dates: 16-18 September 2015
Location: University of Brighton, UK
Website: http://goo.gl/riKlO5
Deadline for submission of summaries: 15 April 2015

While immersed in watching the screen or reading a book, you are, in many senses, always ‘outside’ the story. By contrast, you can walk right into a narrative environment, becoming physically, emotionally and intellectually immersed in narrative space. It seems bodily immersion in spatialised stories heightens the sensory dimensions of narrative and simultaneously reduces other aspects of narrative experience. The majority of narrative environments e.g. exhibitions, cultural and heritage sites, brand and retail environments or crafted public realm, are not strictly determined, linear spatial experiences. They offer a different kind of immersion. Visitors/audiences/inhabitants/users tend to go where they like and construct their own narrative threads. Fixed linear sequence from a single viewpoint is one dimension that is often loosened. However, it is argued that this kind of sequence is not the primary or sole key to narrativity. Narrative spaces have authors, narrators, dramatic conflicts, content, ways of telling, events, characters, voice, shifts over time from one state to another, in other words, a plethora of narrative dimensions.

17th Intl Summer School on Engineering Design Research for PhD Candidates (Jul/Aug 2015, Germany/Luxembourg)

Dates: 28 June – 3 July 2015 / 2-8 August 2015
Locations: Gut Schöneworth, Freiburg/Elbe, Germany / Franciscan Mother House, Luxembourg
Website: http://www.ssedr.org
Deadline for application: 10 April 2015

The aims of the Summer School on Engineering Design Research are to make PhD students who are working on topics related to Design Science better qualified and equipped for their research by (i) helping them select a theoretical foundation and develop a research approach, and (ii) encouraging discussion and collaboration.

Off the Lip: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Cognitive Innovation (Sep 2015, Plymouth UK)

Dates: 7-11 September 2015
Location: University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK
Contacts: martha.blassnigg@plymouth.ac.uk (for papers), michael.punt@plymouth.ac.uk (for workshops)
Deadline for submissions: 15 May 2015 (for papers), 28 February 2015 (for workshops)

The promise of cognitive innovation as a collaborative project in the sciences, arts and humanities is that we can approach creativity as a bootstrapping cognitive process in which the energies that shape the poem are necessarily indistinguishable from those that shape the poet. For the purposes of this conference the exploration of the idea of cognitive innovation concerns an understanding of creativity that is not exclusively concerned with conscious human thought and action but also as intrinsic to our cognitive development. As a consequence, we see the possibility for cognitive innovation to provide a theoretical and practical platform from which to address disciplinary differences in ways that offer new topics and concerns for research in the sciences and the humanities.

2015 PhD Summer School on Integrated Product Development (May & Sept 2015, Malta and Germany)

Dates: 4-8 May 2015, 21-25 September 2015
Location: University of Malta and University of Magdeburg
Website: http://www.eng.um.edu.mt/~dme/jcb/ipdss/
Deadline for application: 28 February 2015

The University of Magdeburg (DE) and the University of Malta (MT) will be jointly running the *2015 PhD Summer School  on Integrated Product Development.  This Summer School is aimed at researchers interested in both understanding and researching the various interrelations between design, manufacturing and business aspects, as well as further aspects from the whole life cycle of a products/services.

iConference 2015 Workshop: ICT for Sustainability (March 2015, California USA)

Dates: 24 March 2015
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA
Website: http://iconf2015ict4s.120cell.org/
Deadline for submission of abstracts (1-2 pages): 15 February 2015

This workshop aims at establishing a community and potential research collaborations within the iSchools network to link efforts around ICT for sustainability. ICT can be a threat but also an enabler for environmental and social sustainability, in the form of systems that support the protection of natural resources, that foster communities and participation. Supporting systems build on many intellectual traditions within the information field (e.g., requirements engineering, software quality, life cycle analysis, value-based design, sustainable HCI). As information scholars, we have a responsibility to work on the survival and thriving of all life on this planet, as well as to think about related issues of long-term perspectives. Sustainability is thus a critical value for ICT researchers to embrace and strive toward.

Mudd Design Workshop IX: Design Thinking in Design Education (May 2015, Claremont California USA)

Dates: 28-30 MAY 2015
Location: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California, USA
Contact: Sydney_Torrey@hmc.edu and Gordon_Krauss@hmc.edu
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31 January 2015

THE VISION To bring together 50-75 engineers, designers, and educators to explore the role of design thinking in the design education process and how design thinking education may be better addressed through different pedagogies.

CHI 2015 Workshop: Ecological perspectives in HCI: Promise, Problems, and Potential (April 2015, Seoul Korea)

Dates: 18-19 April 2015
Location: Seoul, Korea
Website: http://rizzo.media.unisi.it/EPCHI2015
Deadline for submissions: EXTENDED 19 January 2015

Given the important, and ever increasing, role played by “ecology” and related terms in HCI, there is a need for the field to reflect on the history and state of the art in employing ecological concepts and perspectives, and outline directions for future development. This one-day workshop will contribute to addressing this need by providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss the promise, problems, and potential of ecological perspectives in HCI.

The aim of the workshop is to reflect on interpretations and uses of ecology and related concepts in HCI research and explore the future of ecological perspectives in HCI.  In particular, the participants will discuss the potential of ecological perspectives for supporting rich and meaningful analysis, as well as innovative design, of interactive technologies in real-life contexts.

CHI2015 Workshop: Supporting Children to Engage in Play for Wellbeing (April 2015, Seoul Korea)

Dates: 18-23 April 2015
Location: Seoul, Korea
Website: http://di.ncl.ac.uk/playwellbeing/
Deadline for submissions: 5 January 2015

Contact: playwellbeing.chi@gmail.com

Engaging children and young people in play for wellbeing is coming to prominence in HCI and interaction design research. This includes the creation of play to support therapy, organized play with children with additional needs and also exploring how to facilitate opportunities for spontaneous play that have the potential to enhance wellbeing. This workshop aims to develop an understanding of how we can engage children in playful activities, explore challenges in designing for play and identify strategies to support it.

Teaching the History of Modern Design: The Canon and Beyond (July 2015, Philadelphia USA)

Dates: 6-31 July 2015
Location: Drexel University, Philadelphia USA
Website: http://drexel.edu/westphal/undergraduate/ARTH/historyofmoderndesign/
Deadline for application: 2 March 2015

This exciting four–week NEH summer teaching institute will prepare twenty-five college faculty from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to meet the increasing demand for as well as interest in courses on modern design history. In-depth seminars will focus upon three interdependent thematic units:

• taste and popular culture
• political and global interpretations of design after world war II
• women as consumers and producers of design

The director’s and visiting scholars’ complementary approaches to “The Canon and Beyond” will build upon and reinforce participants’ familiarity with standard material, while simultaneously introducing new material and critical perspectives. Field trips to regional museums and collections such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Hagley Museum in Delaware will provide participants direct experience with objects, and suggest ways to use local collections in their own teaching. Group presentations by our participants will take place during the final week of the Institute.

Content is in development, for more information please contact nehmoderndesign@drexel.edu.