2023
Speculating Futures in an Age of Nostalgia
This paper will present an exploration of the relationship between the past and the present and how that interaction influences design thinking when speculating about possible futures. Smyth, M., 2023. Speculating futures in an age of nostalgia. CONNECTIVITY, p.250.
2023
Connectivity and Creativity In Times Of Conflict
The DISTANCE project (digital immersive technologies and craft engagement) took place during the UK COVID-19 lockdown of 2021 and is a novel practice-led experiment in the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to enable physically dispersed craft practitioners to apply their haptic skills and material knowledge in a digital immersive space, learning from peers through remote collaboration. Here we consider craft practice as both a skill and process (Adamson, 2007, p. 3), as a way of doing things, rooted in a tactile interpretation of materials expressed through tacit, haptic processes (Ray, 2009) and embodied in both manual and mental skills (Pye, 1968). Panneels, I., Helgason, I., Smyth, M., Darzentas, D., Hocking, L. and Shillito, A.M., 2023. Chapter Distance: Digital immersive technologies and craft engagement. 043.pdf (oapen.org). https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/85836/1/043.pdf
2023
Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity
This one-day workshop brought together participants from the HCI, creative and educational communities to discuss and share knowledge of technology learning and skills acquisition for working creatives. Helgason, I., Smyth, M., Panneels, I., Lechelt, S., Frich, J., Rawn, E. and Mccarthy, B., 2023, April. Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity. In Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-5). https://doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3573825
2023
Speculative Designs in Educational Settings: Tension-Patterns From A (Mostly) European Perspective
The study of speculative designs (such as futures, critical design alternatives, or catalysts for reflection) is well documented in the design research community but the literature lacks attention to speculative designs in the service of a pedagogical practice. This paper reports on a two-year cross European research project investigating speculative designs in higher education contexts. Encinas, E., Helgason, I., Auger, J., Mitrović, I. and Hanna, J., 2023. Speculative designs in educational settings: Tension-patterns from a (mostly) European perspective. https://doi.org./10.21606/nordes.2023.98
2023
In Space, Nobody Can Copyright Your Scream
This book chapter in The Institutions of Extraterrestrial Liberty explores the role of intellectual property law for the question of space liberty. Schafer, B., 2023. In space, nobody can copyright your scream. In The Institutions of Extraterrestrial Liberty (pp. 384-410). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org./10.1093/oso/9780192897985.003.0023
2022
Elevate Your Event: A toolkit for digital events
In August 2020, Creative Informatics wrote an informal and practical guide to our experiences pivoting to online events in light of the restrictions of Covid-19 and numerous lockdowns. This toolkit offers a more structured journey on planning and delivering an online event. We offer more technical know-how, top tips and questions you should ask yourself whether you are new to hosting events or are a more seasoned pro. Elsden, C., Chan, K., Erskine, P., Helgason, I., Lechelt, S., Osborne, N., Panneels, I., Smyth, M., Warren, K., Terras, M. and Speed, C., 2020. Creative Informatics Guide for Online Events. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3980961
2022
A Hefty Dose of Lemons: The Importance Of Rituals For Audiences and Performers At The Online Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020
When the pandemic began to affect the performance world, both festival artists and producers started to adopt creative approaches to moving their work online. In the study presented here, we focus on the 2020 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which offered a unique opportunity to understand how performers coped with the enforced switch to digital. Underpinning the Fringe Festival ethos is the attitude of experimentation, and we propose that there is much to learn from the response of performers and producers to this unprecedented situation. Piccio, B., Helgason, I., Elsden, C. and Terras, M., 2022. A hefty dose of lemons: the importance of rituals for audiences and performers at the online Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 18(1), pp.154-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/14794713.2022.2036489
2022
Creative Informatics Creative Horizon 3: FestForward Magazine
FestForward is a fictional, local, cultural magazine, set in 2030, designed to stimulate conversations about equitable and sustainable digital futures in performing arts festivals. This extensive design fiction was developed through a series of participatory workshops, where creative and cultural practitioners responded to various ‘provotypes’ suggesting narrative content for the magazine. Elsden, C., Jones, V., Helgason, I., Abernethy, L. and Brown, W., 2023, July. FestForward: Participatory Design Futuring and World-Building for Equitable Digital Futures in Performing Arts Festivals. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (pp. 1424-1437). https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563657.3596033
2022
Designing new money: Creative transactions on Twitch
There is a wealth of contemporary scholarship pointing to ways in which money and payment media are being rapidly reconfigured through data and technology platforms, towards what Swartz terms ‘New Money’. In this article, we look at these developments through the lens of design research and ask: how might we approach the design of new money? Elsden, C., and Speed, C. (2022) Designing new money: Creative transactions on Twitch, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.574
2022
Designing transformative futures
What makes the design of futures sufficiently transformative? Worldwide, people are aware of the need to change and keep changing to address eco-social challenges and their fall-out in an age of crises and transitions in climate, biodiversity, and health. Calls for climate justice and the development of eco-social sensibilities speak to the need for dynamic and provisional engagements. Such concerns raise age-old issues of inequality and colonialist destruction. Our designs carry the imprint of this current politics, wittingly or unwittingly, into worlds to come. This conversation asked how might we respond fluidly to coming uncertainties, questioning our own practices to sow the seeds of more radical transformation, while recognizing the structural forces that can limit or temper opportunities for design activism. Light, A., Gray, C.M., Lindström, K., Forlano, L., Lockton, D. and Speed, C., 2022, November. Designing transformative futures. In DRS2022: Bilbao (Design Research Society). Design Research Society. https://doi.org./10.21606/drs.2022.896
