061 // R.A.M accepted into CHI 2009 Workshop

Reflexive Architecture Machines, a series of projects by Omar Khan, Matt Hume, James Brucz, and myself, was accepted into the Programming Reality Workshop at CHI 2009 - held in Boston from April 4-9.

http://www.chi2009.org/
http://cva.ap.buffalo.edu/ReflexiveArchitectureMachines/

From the call for participation ...
Programming Reality:
From Transitive Materials to Organic User Interfaces

Over the past few years, a quiet revolution has been redefining our fundamental computing technologies. Flexible E-Ink and OLEDs displays, shape-changing and light-emitting materials, parametric design, e-textiles, sensor networks, and intelligent interfaces promise to spawn entirely new user experiences that will redefine our relation with technology. In one example, future flexible displays will allow us to design devices that are completely flexible, and that can curve around everyday objects or our bodies. These and other developments are opening up unprecedented opportunities for innovation and require us to re-examine and re-evaluate some of the most basic user interface design principles.

This workshop invites researchers and practitioners to imagine and debate this future, as well as prototype nextgeneration interfaces. We will explore two converging themes. Transitive Materials will focus on how emerging materials and computationally-driven behaviors can operate in unison blurring the boundaries between form and function, human body and environment, structures and membranes, while supporting the design of computational systems that are intrinsically capable of interactivity and personalization. Organic User Interfaces (OUI) will explore future interactive designs and applications as these materials become commonplace. The OUI vision is based on an understanding that in the future the physical shape of display devices will become non-flat, potentially arbitrary and even fluid or computationally controlled. This allows display devices and entire environments to take on shapes that are 3D, flexible, dynamic, modifiable by users or self-actuated.

In the future we will observe increasing integration of computation and physical environment, to the point where basic material properties will be computationally controlled. In this brave new world, we will be programming not only computers or devices, but the fabric of reality itself. We invite interested participants to join us in discussing, inventing and prototyping this exciting future.