RSVP Required: https://material-speculation-workshop.eventbrite.ca

Presenter
Ron Wakkary, Professor, Simon Fraser University and Eindhoven University of Technology

Abstract
This workshop explores the design research method of material speculations. In this workshop, participants will create and discuss counterfactual artifacts they will “make”. Their counterfactual artifacts will modify existing everyday objects in ways that counter their existing functionality or logic, like a book you cannot read, but through the modifications embody a research question, research proposition, or alternative that is engaging and critical to our understanding of technological artifacts and the role they play in our lives. This countering of norms or speculations opens the possibilities to empirically investigate multiple alternative existences (or what-ifs) as lived-with realities of the counterfactual artifacts.

Materials to bring:

To get the most from this workshop, it is suggested participants bring: 3-4 everyday things from their homes that they do not mind altering of changing, plus making materials to alter the artifacts of their choice (e.g. paint, cardboard, tape, glue, drawing tools, stapler – anything they are comfortable crafting or making with).

Biography
Ron Wakkary is a Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University in Canada where he is the founder of the Everyday Design Studio (eds.siat.sfu.ca). In addition, he is a Professor in Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Future Everyday cluster. He is interested in design-oriented human-computer interaction (HCI), tangible computing and the philosophies of technologies through design. His research investigates the changing nature of interaction design and HCI in response to new understandings of human-technology relations. He aims to reflectively create new interaction design exemplars, concepts, and emergent practices of design that help to shape both design and its relations to technologies. He is currently a member of the Tangible Embedded/Embodied Interaction (TEI) and Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) steering committees. He is also a member of various editorial boards including International Journal of Design (IJD). He was co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM interactions from 2010 to 2016.