Welcome to ACM TEI'18, the 12th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interactions, hosted at KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, Sweden, from the 18th to the 21st of March 2018. This is TEI's first visit to Scandinavia!
The TEI conference series is dedicated to issues of human-computer interaction, novel tools and technologies, interactive art, and user experience. This year's conference focuses on the concepts of physical and material interaction through the lens of Post-Digital Design. The digital has become mundane, inseparable from our everyday experiences. In post-digital design we see a turn to vintage materials and craftsmanship, but also to real world circumstances of human bodies on a global scale. Old media and natural materials have regained interest for interaction designers, and traditional practices are being cherished in new ways as part of digital experiences. Designing for the post-digital does not mean blindly embracing nostalgia or turning away from technology - it means embracing a process of design that equalizes the status of digital, analogue, electronic, mechanical and tactile, and that brings focus to form, meaning and function, rather than technicalities.
The intimate size of this single-track conference provides a unique forum for exchanging ideas and presenting innovative work through talks, interactive exhibits, demos, hands-on studios, posters, art installations and performances. TEI'18 hosts a four-day program, starting on Sunday March 18th with the Graduate Student Consortium and a series of Studios that engage participants in the concrete making of novel interfaces and interactions. The main program starts with an opening keynote on Monday March 19th, followed by a series of talks on shape changing materials, followed by a hands-on session showcasing Work in Progress demonstrations as well as exemplars from full papers accepted to the proceedings.
The Tuesday starts with the remainder of the demonstrations and the Student Design Challenge, this year with a theme of common place, mundane technologies from the future. Paper presentations on technology for children, and Virtual and Augmented reality precede a second session of demos from full paper submissions. The evening of the second day finds the conference in Kulturhuset, Stadsteatern, one of the largest cultural institutions in Northern Europe, for a curated exhibition of art installations and live performances exploring the post-digital. A total of 25 works will be presented over the evening, which is also open to the public. On Wednesday, March 21st, sessions present talks on evaluation and community, followed by a closing panel session.
