Montreal for CHI

This is my second time at CHI conference and the first time to attend CHI workshop. While yesterday's struggling is still vividly in my mind, now I have already had the first day of workshop in Montreal. A whole day's introductions and presentations and meeting new people is really a lot, but so far I really enjoy it. It is a creative engagement workshop, and I really appreciate that I could have this opportunity to interact with these creative people. Some of the issues we as computer scientists have been debating, and struggling, have already been naturally incorporated in there artistic and design practices.

The small games played during the workshop are worth a few words. At the beginning, through picking jelly beans of different colors, we were asked to answer different questions telling about our working and collaborative experiences. Through such a way, we got to learn about each other. At the end, we were seperated into different groups, and asked to design human machines with each individual as a component in the machine. They also provided kitchen appliances as props. So people play with pans, with rubber, balls, strings, hammer, etc, as materials showing how a human machine work. Our group got up to the desk late, so we can only took the left over. But our group has really creative people, Greg, Palema, Nick. They came up with a lot of good ideas, making the components of our people machine very collaborative, and the playing with the material very interactive. I had such an enjoyable experience with this group of people.

We had lunch at China town. I think the organizer picked a very good restaurant, because the food was great. However, the end of day, I heard some people saying "NO China town anymore". I don't know how I should interpret it, but I guess it reminds me how easily we impose our own judgement and experiences on others.

I didn't take notes about the talks in the workshop. I tried my best to recall, so to hold them before they disappear.

One amazing thing I found from this group is, in their practices, meaning and structure coming out from interactions and actions, rather then determining interactions is very deeply seated, and taken for granted, which is in stark contrast with computer science and HCI, where we are still taking pains to argue for that, and fighting for the position of phenomenology against the domination of positivism. Here, practices are so much stressed, and participation is their common language, where in HCI, we just started to pay attention to it.

"not restriction" is very much emphasized in new media design, and they are proud of saying that they always put no restriction on students to design and try. It seems that is the way for creativity. But is it enough?

It is also funny to see that there are a couple of cognitive psychologists interested in new media art and have done very interesting work.

Many works are about music making, and they have offerred all these inspiring approaches for interaction: walking to make musics, eye tracking to make musics, collectively clicking on a visual interface to produce music collaborative (I love that music)...

This group is very much concerned with social relationship, awareness of environment whether it is social or ecological, community building, multidisciplinary collaboration and of course creativity.

Leave it here...
Will add the dramatic trip to montreal later..