Embodied Futures is a hands-on 2.5 day workshop, which will guide participants through the entire process of designing a novel application for use in public spaces. The workshop will combine Embodied interaction, an emerging paradigm for the design of interactive systems which emphasises action over representation and the “creation, manipulation and sharing of meaning through engaged interaction with artefacts with an accelerated Service Design approach. This involves a three stage project lifecycle including structured processes of discovery, synthesis and construction. This combination of methodologies is well suited to address issues emerging from the increasing incorporation of technology in people’s everyday lives.
In this workshop participants will learn how to apply a variety of creative, out-of-the-box style methods at all stages of the design process, from initial fieldwork, to design brainstorming, to prototyping and finally deployment. Professionals from all disciplines, including social science, computer science, interaction design and even management, will have a chance to engage in all parts of a mini-design process as it takes place over the course of 2.5 days, and have a chance to strengthen their skills of being part of an interdisciplinary team.
This workshop, at heart, is collaborative, encouraging participants to engage with one another to create and realize novel ideas as a team. Consequently, it is not necessary for participants to be expert anthropologists or professional programmers. Rather, they should have a willingness to explore and communicate, to work together to generate cutting-edge design ideas and prototypes.
Workshop Instructors:

Valentina Nisi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Madeira where she teaches Service Design as part of the Carnegie Mellon|Portugal Program. Her research interests focus on bringing digital stories out into real space, merging architecture, environment and landscape with multimedia narrative experience. She holds a Phd from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and worked for 4 years in MIT MediaLabEurope’s Story Networks research group investigating the potential of wireless mobile technologies in cinematic non-linear narratives.

Ian Oakley is an assistant professor at the University of Madeira and an adjunct assistant professor at the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on the design, development and evaluation of multi-modal and embodied interfaces. He holds a PhD from the University of Glasgow, UK and has spent three years doing post-doctoral research at MIT MediaLabEurope’s Palpable Machines group. He has also spent two enlightening years working in industrial R&D in South Korea.