Entanglement theories are well established in HCI discourse. These involve a commitment to view human experience in encounters with technology as relational and contingent, and research apparatuses as co-producers rather than passive observers of phenomena. In this paper, we argue that sound is the sensory modality best suited to the investigation of entanglements. Materialist theories of sound and listening guide both the design of a novel interactive sound installation and the methodological approach of a participant study exploring the experience of listening. We present a diffractive analysis whereby micro-phenomenological interview data is read with sonic theories, generating accounts that might otherwise remain mute: the temporal fluctuation and physical feeling of proximity in listener entanglements with sound, somatic intention setting, and plural interpretations of interactivity. Finally, we offer a series of provocations for HCI to embrace qualities of the sonic and consider epistemological positions grounded in other sense modalities.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642616
This paper examines prevailing understandings of creativity within creative computing research through the lens of feminist epistemology. We analyze creativity support as a construct that encodes different definitions of creative work. Drawing on existing literature and practices, the paper surfaces four views about creative work that underpin current creative technologies and HCI research: problem-solving, cognitive emergence, embodied action, and tool-mediate expert activity. Each view makes different claims about the role of computing in creative work and the creative subject assumed. We articulate the attendant politics of each view and illustrate how critical feminist epistemology can serve as an analytical tool to reason about the trade-offs of various creativity definitions. The paper concludes with suggestions on integrating feminist values into creativity-oriented HCI research.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642854
People are increasingly able to receive customized options. Despite this abundance of options, people may not view products as customized to their wants and needs. Across five experiments, we provide evidence for a possible solution. We find evidence for the Illusion of increased customization: Framing choices as a creative process increases a chosen option’s perceived customization. Even with a constant choice set, choosing by (creative) attributes rather than choosing from all available options produces the Illusion of increased customization. The Illusion of increased customization arises in part because people feel a greater sense of co-creation when choosing via a seemingly creative process. Consequently, the Illusion of increased customization extends to choices that express preferences (e.g., liking blue over red) but is significantly diminished with choices that describe objective needs (e.g., needing a small versus large T-shirt). Additionally, heightened perceived customization from the Illusion of increased customization results in greater willingness-to-pay for the chosen option.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642655
Biometric data plays a multifaceted role in innovative artistic endeavours. As artists continue to break new ground by integrating performers’ biometric data into live performances, others collect biometric data from audiences to measure engagement. Given the sensitive and personal nature of biometric data, particularly in relation to immersive technology, it is imperative to ethically consider how this data should be handled in performative contexts. To clarify these ethical considerations, we conducted a scoping review of sources related to immersive biometric performance in HCI, Performing Arts, and Social Sciences published over the past 30+ years. We detail how and why biometric data is being used in immersive artistic performance, identify associated ethical questions and concerns, and develop a framework of ethical considerations for artists and researchers in this space. In doing so, we emphasise an ‘ethics by design’ approach that considers values such as privacy and autonomy alongside artistic merit.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642309
If, as several recent papers claim, we have entered a new wave of “Entanglement HCI,” then we are still at a liminal stage prior to consensus around which sources underpin this paradigm shift or how they might inform actionable approaches to design practice. Now is the time to interpret technosocial mediation from a range of disciplinary perspectives, rather than settling on a narrow canon of literature. To this end, our paper enacts a diractive dialogue between researchers from dierent disciplines, focusing on digital musical instruments to examine how technical knowledge from design and engineering can be read against the grain of critical theories from music, media, and cultural studies. Drawing on two object lessons—keyboards and step sequencers, plus their remediations in recent musical interaction research—we highlight interdependencies of theory, design, and practice, and we show how the idea of entanglement is itself entangled in a cross-disciplinary web.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642171
Materiality of artefacts holds the potential to intricately and dynamically shape our daily practices. We posit this capacity can be harnessed in fostering creative unfolding of everyday care practices towards living artefacts. To explore this premise, we designed a cyanobacterial living artefact with air purifying capacity, and invited eight participants to live with and care for it for two weeks. The artefact can be situated in diverse locations within domestic spaces, wherever the participant would consider air purification necessary and certain lighting conditions beneficial for the artefact’s vitality. This versatility is supported by the artefact’s colour-changing, pliable, adhesive, and suspendable nature. We analysed visual documentation and semi-structured interviews of participants’ experiences of the artefact. Our findings suggest distinct roles of materiality for care regarding labour, knowledge, and exploration. We further highlight the intricate design space encompassing openness, temporalities and semantic fitness towards nurturing mutualistic care in human-microbe interactions.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642039
Due to the availability of increasingly large amounts of visual data, there is a growing need for tools that can help users find relevant images. While existing tools can perform image retrieval based on similarity or metadata, they fall short in scenarios that necessitate semantic reasoning about the content of the image. This paper explores a new multi-modal image search approach that allows users to conveniently specify and perform semantic image search tasks. With our tool, PhotoScout, the user interactively provides natural language descriptions, positive and negative examples, and object tags to specify their search tasks. Under the hood, PhotoScout is powered by a program synthesis engine that generates visual queries in a domain-specific language and executes the synthesized program to retrieve the desired images. In a study with 25 participants, we observed that PhotoScout allows users to perform image retrieval tasks more accurately and with less manual effort.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642319
As robots become integral to public services, addressing harmful user behaviors like bullying is crucial. Existing research often overlooks the gradual nature of human bullying. This study fills this gap by exploring how robots can counter bullying through optimized responses. Using a simulated human-robot interaction study, we manipulated robot response behaviors and styles across escalating bullying severity. Results show that empathetic verbal responses promptly reduce users' bullying tendencies by eliciting remorse and redirecting attention to social awareness. However, users' underlying dispositions may override these reflexive reactions, emphasizing the need for a holistic understanding. In conclusion, a comprehensive approach is essential, involving immediate reaction optimization, emotional state assessment, and ongoing behavioral adjustment through empathetic dialogue. By implementing such strategies, we can transform human-robot relationships from potential bullying situations to harmonious interactions. This study provides an empirical foundation for response protocols that discourage bullying and enhance mutual understanding.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642290
The pleasure that often comes with eating can be further enhanced with intelligent technology, as the field of human-food interaction suggests. However, knowledge on how to design such pleasure-supporting eating systems is limited. To begin filling this knowledge gap, we designed “GustosonicSense”, a novel gustosonic eating system that utilizes wireless earbuds for sensing different eating and drinking actions with a machine learning algorithm and trigger playful sounds as a way to facilitate pleasurable eating experiences. We present the findings from our design and a study that revealed how we can support the "stimulation", "hedonism", and "reflexivity" for playful human-food interactions. Ultimately, with our work, we aim to support interaction designers in facilitating playful experiences with food.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642182
Ingestible sensors have become smaller and more powerful and allow us to envisage new human-computer interactions and bodily play experiences inside our bodies. Users can swallow ingestible sensors, which facilitate interior body sensing functions that provide data on which play experiences can be built. We call bodily play that uses ingestible sensors as play technologies "ingestible play", and we have adopted a research-through-design (RtD) approach to investigate three prototypes. For each prototype, we conducted a field study to understand the player experiences. Based upon these results and practical design experiences, we have developed a design framework for ingestible play. We hope this work can guide the future design of ingestible play; inspire the design of play technologies inside the human body to expand the current bodily play design space; and ultimately extend our understanding of how to design for the human body by considering the bodily experience of one's interior body.
This Research through Design paper explores how object detection may be applied to a large digital art museum collection to facilitate new ways of encountering and experiencing art. We present the design and evaluation of an interactive application called SMKExplore, which allows users to explore a museum's digital collection of paintings by browsing through objects detected in the images, as a novel form of open-ended exploration. We provide three contributions. First, we show how an object detection pipeline can be integrated into a design process for visual exploration. Second, we present the design and development of an app that enables exploration of an art museum's collection. Third, we offer reflections on future possibilities for museums and HCI researchers to incorporate object detection techniques into the digitalization of museums.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642157