ARCADIAN VIRTUALITY:
a one day i3 Workshop
on Ecological Information Spaces
http://www.sics.se/arcadia
IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE I3 SPRING DAYS '99
March 7-10 1999
Sitges, (near Barcelona) Spain
http://www.dfki.de/imedia/workshops/i3-spring99/
PRELIMINARY CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Organisers:
Alan Munro, Persona project
Napier University, Edinburgh,
Scotland
Andrew McGrath,
BT Labs, Suffolk,
England
THEME
We are entering the biological age. Our leading technologies are
biochemical, our sympathies are moving towards products and technologies
more in balance with 'nature', and our relationship with nature is becoming
more complex; one of custodian rather than exploiter, part of the system
rather than detached from it. We are beginning to understand that when we
tamper with ecologies, our actions can have widespread and unforseen
concequences far beyond what we might think.
This profound change in our perception of the world and our place in it is
beginning to be reflected in some of the information systems we are
building, to make sense of our information rich society and aid the work we
do, and how we connect with others. It may be that in the future our
information spaces, whether virtual or somehow embodied, will become more
like landscapes or gardens, where we interact with other people, as well as
autonomous and semi autonomous entities, as part of a complex ecology which
grows and changes, perhaps with a physics and biology of its own.
The garden ("Arcadia") has for a long time been a powerful image in eastern
and western culture; maybe it is time for its revival as a guiding analogy
in our construction of information worlds. We can start to take note of the
concepts of nature and apply them to the virtual and embodied spaces in
which we might work in the future. However, some questions we might raise
are:-
- what are the affordances and concepts that Nature can give us to build
these Arcadian Interfaces?.
- What happens to our views of work and organisations and new technologies
when we think of them in this way?
- What if we imagined the ecology of the space was governed by laws of
balance? Nature is an ecology of competing entities, however,
there is an equilibrium inherent in these laws that create places and
spaces that are robustly balanced.
- What if the our ability to deal with information was similarly balanced
against that of the agents that bring the information to us?
WHO CAN ATTEND
The workshop is open to:- computer scientists, artists, designers,
cyberneticists, philosophers, sociologists, biologists, architects whether
of the built environment or landscape, and of course those who work with
gardens and other types of arcadian space. It is open to all in the i3
community and outwith it. The workshop will probably number 20 but not more
than 30.
PUBLICATION
Papers generated by discussion and work in the workshop will be published
as a technical report in the first instance. We are exploring opportunities
for further substantial publication.
SUBMISSION DETAILS
Entry will be by
o position paper (2-3 page abstract)
o software demo (2-3 page abstract or video tape describing software)
o portfolio
o example of work
IMPORTANT DATES
- Indication of interest in participation: PLEASE SEND ASAP!
- Submission of Abstracts: February 2nd 1999
- Notification of authors: February 15th 1999
- Workshop: March 9th or 10th 1999; exact date to be determined
ADDRESS FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND SUBMISSIONS:
Please email submissions/ early indications of interest to:-
Alan Munro,
Napier University
a.munro@dcs.napier.ac.uk
and
Andrew McGrath
BT Labs
andy.mcgrath@bt-sys.bt.co.uk
Participants will be selected from these materials by the organisers and a
programme committee. We will announce the members of this shortly.
SERVER:- NAPIER MAILHOST BACK UP: mail to a.munro@dcs.napier.ac.uk
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Alan J Munro Mobile +44 (0)973 42 69 32
HCI Group, Dept of Computing, Office +44 (0)131 455 5340
Napier University, Canal Court, Fax +44 (0)131 455 5394
42 Craiglockhart Ave, Edinburgh EH14 1LT, Scotland
Persona Pages:- http://www.sics.se/humle/projects/persona/web/index.html
***Your ad here***
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Chris Hand cph@bcs.org.uk http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~cph/ cph@dcs.napier.ac.uk Edinburgh, Scotland ICQ: 16674813