Liam Bannon to deliver keynote at INTERACT 2009

The Director of the IDC, Prof. Liam Bannon will be one of the invited keynote speakers at INTERACT 2009, the IFIP conference on Human-Computer Interaction, to be held in Uppsala (Sweden) at the end of August. Liam will deliver the conference's closing keynote presentation on August 28th.

New IDC Website is launched

The new IDC website is finally live! After over a year of design, development and implementation, the IDC has a new showcase for current research, teaching and publication activities! Thanks to Nora, Anders, Conor, Colm, Gabriela, Paul and everyone else who has helped with the many tasks surrounding the creation of the website.

Liam Bannon at Frontiers of Interaction 2009

Successful NWL Seminar

The Nomadic Work/Life Project (jointly run by IDC and the Dept. of Sociology and supported by ISKS - The Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society at UL) hosted a successful international Seminar this week on the topic of "Mobility and Nomadicity:
Methodological Challenges and Innovations". Mobility is a key feature of globalization, interrelated with emerging technologies, socialities and labour forms. Although a wealth of studies have been addressing this reality, little has been said about the methodological dimension of mobilities research. By bringing together an international group of scholars, the goal of this seminar was to identify some of the main methodological innovations and challenges in the field of mobilities research. The seminar proceedings will be published as a special journal issue. Invited speakers were: Justin Spinney (Uinversity of Surrey), Elaine Moriarty (Trinity College Dublin), Michaela Benson (Keele University), Jo Vergunst (University of Aberdeen) and Misha Myers (University College Falmouth).

IDC seminar series: Brian Coates on Deconstruction

Brian Coates has given a talk within the IDC workshop series on the notion of Deconstruction on the 5th of May. Brian has offered a wide overview of the notion by largely drawing on the work by Derrida, Lacan, Foucault and Kristeva and some of their followers. According to Derrida, Deconstruction is '…is neither a philosophy, nor a doctrine, nor a knowledge, nor a method, nor a discipline, not even a determinate concept, only what happens if it happens –'. A quotation by Barbara Johnson has further framed the notion of deconstruction within the practice of 'teasing out of warring forces of signification within (any given) the text itself'.
"The de-construction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself. If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another".

Instances of decostruction and of warring forces have been provided through very interesting text analysis of Derrida’s dialogues with Plato, Rousseau, Husserl and Levi-Strauss; an analysis of the binary systems in Western culture and the need to deconstruct it was also presented; poems by Yeats, Eliot and Pound evidenced the crisis of modernity; Nietszche and Barthes were quoted to point up the way in which deconstruction works. Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage, Kristeva’s chora and Foucault’s panopticon provided examples of deconstruction at work. The group worked together on a practical exercise – to deconstruct a passage from J.M. Synge’s Journey to the Western Isles and a poem by Tom Leonard, ‘Yon Night’.

A debate has followed where IDCers has tried to make connection with their experiences and interests. Mikael Fernstrom showed how the very principles of deconstruction often guide his artistic practice especially when this is driven by hijacking intended design and tinkering with possibilities (he provided the link www.softday.ie). Cristiano Storni has tried to show the warring forces related with his actual domain of investigation (Health Care) by discussing (and possibly deconstructing) the notion of Compliance. Compliance is in fact a concept developed from the point of view of the doctor and of biomedicine and it has the specific function of showing what people should do and of rendering non-compliant behavior as a form of deviation in need of an explanation and of control. His point was to show that - for instance - when designing for patient empowerment certain notion can be misleading and bring not so much to an emancipation of patient but rather to further and even more subtle forms of dependencies.
Luigina Ciolfi has found interesting connections with Philosophy of science and asked about the relationship between the work of Derrida and the critical studies of science and scientific knowledge (e.g. as in Feyerabend). Further connection where found in the work of semioticians Kristeva.

Attempt to link the notion of deconstruction with the practice of design has been sketched and we are looking forward to follow up on this matter. Just as a hint, Brian told that the notion of deconstruction has found space within certain movements in architecture such as in the work of Gehry.

Slides are available for whom might be interested. The seminar has been also recorded.

"Bridging Interaction Clouds" at ECSCW 2009

**********************CALL FOR PAPERS**********************
Workshop "Bridging “Interaction Clouds”: Exploring collaborative interaction across assemblies of mobile and embedded technology"

To be held at ECSCW 2009, Vienna, Austria 7-8 September.
http://bridgingclouds.blogspot.com
ECSCW09
***************************************************************

Overview
Portable technology, particularly in the shape of mobile phones and personal digital assistants, has become a ubiquitous force in everyday life. Advances in communication technologies have also meant that we are rapidly moving towards the convergence of mobile and stationary systems: this has allowed people to use mobile technology to engage with systems embedded in the environments they inhabit, offering a greater range of interaction possibilities and patterns that we have labeled “Interaction Clouds”. By “Interaction Clouds” we mean the complex patterns of interaction, sharing and exchange that unfold around assemblies of mobile and embedded technologies.
This workshop aims at exploring such issues in greater detail, with a specific focus on the design of a coherent social and collaborative experience for people as the transverse an “assembly” of technologies. The notion of Interaction Clouds also resonates with the emergence of the internet as a resource free of device and location constraints has brought about the concept of “cloud computing”, where technology is emerging that allows people to shift between multiple contexts (mobile/embedded), facilitated by a connection to remote computing resources (clouds). This devolving of traditional interaction paradigms brings with it new challenges to support meaningful user social and collaborative experiences, specifically how such hybrid systems can facilitate salient aspects of user experiences such as collaboration and participation.
Topics of Interest
• Studies of social and collaborative activity around interaction clouds
• Design for the support of collaboration and participation across interaction clouds
• New interaction modalities in interaction clouds that support social interaction
• Theoretical issues of how to define and study interaction clouds (merging mobility-oriented and space-oriented frameworks, new conceptual approaches, development of existing frameworks, etc.)
• Explorations of settings where interaction clouds can be meaningfully deployed: e.g. public spaces (museums, urbans areas), workplaces, domestic spaces, etc.

Dates and Deadlines
Submissions are due: June 20th, 2009
Notification of Authors: 6th July, 2009
Workshop at ECSCW 2009: September 7th - 8th, 2009

Submissions
Interested participants are invited to submit position papers in PDF format with a word limit of 5000 words. Papers should be formatted according to the ECSCW template see the instructions for authors.
The .pdf files should be sent to: marc.mcloughlin@ul.ie

Workshop outline
The Workshop will run over 1 day. The Workshop call requests the submission of short position papers. However, during the workshop, we will foster debate moving away from traditional presentations, and by facilitating discussions on shared artifacts. We will invite the participants to contribute to the workshop with either posters, or demos/prototypes, or video data documenting an experience, and these materials will be the main subject of the discussion. In the afternoon session, we will lead more focused small-group discussions and brainstorming, and practical design exercises.

Publication & dissemination
Accepted papers will be included in the Workshop Webpage. During the workshop participants will be asked to prepare posters for display during the conference. During the workshop, opportunties for future publications (such as a journal special issue) will be discussed.

Organizers
Marc McLoughlin, Interaction Design Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland
Luigina Ciolfi, Interaction Design Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland
Mike Fraser, University of Bristol, UK
Eva Hornecker, University of Strathclyde, UK
John Bowers, Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Contact Details
Workshop Webpage: www.bridgingclouds.blogspot.com
Please Contact the workshop chairs at: marc.mcloughlin@ul.ie

Softday at INFECTIOUS in the Science Gallery

Softday (a.k.a. Mikael Fernström of IDC and Sean Taylor of LSAD) is showing their work Nobody Leaves Until the Daphnia Sing in the Science Gallery at TCD in Dublin.



The project was developed in collaboration with the National Water Toxicity Laboratory in Shannon, Co. Clare.
We built the prototype in the IDC laboratory at UL and finally installed the full works in the Science Gallery in Dublin.


The exhibit has four stations (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) each with a Petri-dish with Daphnia Magna whose movements are detected by a web-cam and converted into visuals and sound with a custom-designed PD/GEM-patch.


Saturday the 18th of April 2009, the Daphnia will sing together with a human ensemble of musicians recruited from the 3rd year students in Music, Media and Performance Technology in CSIS at UL.


The exhibition runs until the 17th of July 2009.


Also, thanks to Apple for some really great support

IDC Showcase at Irish Museums Association Conference 2009

The 2009 Conference of the Irish Museums Association was held at the City Hotel in Derry (Northern Ireland)from the 27th of February to the 1st of March. The theme of the conference was "The Museum: a Dialogue in Shared Histories and Common Heritage". Thanks to the support of IMA Chair Dr. Marie Bourke, IDC projects on the theme of museums and public exhibitions were showcased during the Conference to a number of delegates.



Lui and Liam jointly delivered a talk "The potential of new technology to encourage visitors to interact with the history and heritage of museum collections", while Marc looked after the exhibition area where demos and archive material documenting a number of IDC projects were displayed.




Highlights of the conference included keynote presentations by Professor Nigel Roulfe (Royal College of Art, London), Fintan O'Toole and Dr. Elaine Heumann Gurian.

Highlights from Tweak

john bowers + ryan jordan @ tweak 2008 from tweak on Vimeo.

UL CSIS joins iPhone Developer University Program

iPhone Developer University Program
Originally uploaded by bluepelican

The Computer Science department, thanks to Mikael's efforts has officially joined the iPhone Developer University program. It is a free program designed for third level education institutions who are introducing development courses for iPhone or iPod touch applications. It will allow up to 200 students, provide group management, and allow publication of the applications to the AppStore. This has also been done in collaboration with the Technology Transfer Office in UL so thanks are also due to Paul D for his help.

As they say, keep watching - there is more in the pipeline but you'll have to wait and see.

Failte Ireland Thematic Grant successfully concluded

The Failte Ireland Thematic Grant Project, which the IDC had been involved in for the past two years, was successfully concluded this week with the handing over of the report to Failte Ireland, the funding agency, and an open seminar to representatives from the tourism industry in Ireland. The report, titled "Enhancing the Visitor Experience at Visitor Attractions through the Adoption of Information and Communication Technology". was presented by the team: Prof. Jim Deegan, Director of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies, Kemmy Business School, Martin Hayes, Wireless Access Research Centre, Dept. of ECE, and IDC's Luigina Ciolfi and Marc McLoughlin, who together with Prof. Liam Bannon, worked on the project case study at Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. UL's Vice President Research, Prof. Brian Fitzgerald opened the seminar.



Pictured above are (front): Prof. Jim Deegan, Prof. Brian Fitzgerald, Kevin Moriarty (Failte Ireland); (back) John Ruddle (Shannon Heritage), Martin Hayes, Marc McLoughlin and Luigina Ciolfi.

Visit by Jaana Parviainen, in Collaboration with Daghdha Dance Company

The IDC has co-hosted with Daghdha Dance Company a public lecture by Dr. Jaana Parviainen, University of Tampere (Finland), on “The Crisis of Knowledge: How We Know In and Through the Moving Body”. Jaana talked about her inter-disciplinary excursions into the worlds of philosophy, phenomenology and most recently the world of business management and organizational relations.
Jaana, together with Steve Valk and a group of Daghdha Artists in Residence also visited the IDC studio space, discussing possible future collaborations.

IDC workshop on the empirical value of the concept of practice

The second workshop focusing on the concept of practice - organised by Dr. Cristiano Storni-took place today in the IDC . During the first one - back in July- we focused more on the theoretical aspects (some resources are listed here).



Guided by a list of questions formulated by Cristiano, Anders Sigfridson and Parag Deshpande presented their own perspectives on the concept and the way they each use it in his PhD work.

Here are Cristiano's questions:

• What are straight forward illustrations of a "practice" in my data, research, field notes?
• What does the concept add to my understanding of my empirical problem?
• What do I gain using this concept/lens in my case study/research?
• What are the limits of the concept and how do my data and case study challenge its aspects?
• What it would mean to design for a practice?
• What it would mean to design a practice?

Anders' perspective is connected to his previous participation in the socGSD project that studied globally distributed software development (GSD) projects, and looked at it as a social activity in an environment mediated by information technology and computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools. The aim was to unveil and explain the non-canonical work practices (as compared to espoused practices) through which people actually achieve GSD. Within this frame, Anders' thesis work investigates the locally situated practices through which members of software development teams in global projects build up and apply knowledge.

On the other side, Parag's perspective has its foundations in his own practice in architecture for over 15 years, following what it is known as the self-conscious (Alexander, 1964) view on design which relies on the architect/designer to guide him during the activity of design. Looking at interaction design as a design discipline, his PhD thesis is aimed to critique how design and the activity of design are understood in interaction design research.

The nine participants had a very interesting debate trying to unveil the intricacies of the concept.

Visit to Interaction Research Studio

Lui and Nora have paid a visit to the Interaction Research Studio at Goldsmiths College in London, where IDC projects and activities were presented informally to the group led by Professor Bill Gaver. Thanks to John Bowers for making the visit possible!

Congratulations to Erik

Erik Lovquist was named best "Clinical Research Associate" at the Irish Healthcare Awards 2008. Congratulations to Erik on this great honour!

"Imagining Space" conference at UCD

Lui presented a paper at the multidisciplinary conference "Imagining Space: Negotiating Cross Discipline Terrains" organised by the School of Languages and Literatures at Dublin City University.
The conference featured a keynote presentation by Professor Edward Casey.

TWEAK 2008

Here are some really bad mobile phone video clips from tonight's performance:

Tweak 2008

Tweak is a new interactive digital art festival happening here in Limerick from the 22nd to the 27th of September. WE (here at the University of Limerick) are hosting a number of free workshops (topics include hacking, circuit bending, digital art, prototyping, vj-ing and robotics) and there are still some spaces left. These workshops are taking place in the Limerick School of Art and Design Monday to Friday 9-5. They feature workshops by speakers such as France Cadet, Digital Slaves, Area10Media Lab and John Bowers to name a few.
There is also a digital art exhibition taking place in Istrabraq Hall in the Limerick City Hall from Tuesday to Friday. This exhibit features work by artists such as Dan Miller (USA), Gregory Shakar (USA) Nigel Power (UK) and Peggy Sylopp (Berlin).

In addition to this we have a number of live electronic performances including a live circuit bending night and a performance by renowned digital composer Trevor Wishart (In association with Soundings - www.soundings.ie)
There is additional information available and full program listings at the website at www.tweak.ie.
Tweak is created and run by IDC's own Nora O'Murchu, and sponsored by the University of Limerick

iHCI 2008

These coming Friday and Saturday, 19-20 of September, University College Cork will play host to iHCI 2008 Cultures of Interaction, the second Irish Human-Computer Interaction Conference. UL IDC proudly hosted the first meeting last year, so it's great to see the Irish HCI community growing stronger!
The conference is jointly organised by Dr. John McCarthy and Dr. Jurek Kirakowski (Dept. of Applied Psychology) and Dr. Ian Pitt (Dept. of Computer Science).
The updated programme is now available on line and features a fine selection of UL contributions.

FutureComm meets in Maynooth

The FutureComm project have had a two day meeting at the Hamilton Institute in Maynooth. Good and intense discussions and interesting scenarios emerging.