Design prompt
Inspired by religious and spiritual practices centered on the use of tangible artifacts (e.g., prayer beads, candles, altars, relics, etc.) in engaging with the intangible (e.g., god, the divine, the transcendent, etc.), this workshop explores the creation of tangible interactive artifacts for religious and spiritual purposes. We invite participants to imagine and design novel tangible interactive artifacts for religious/spiritual purposes (e.g., beliefs, practices, and rituals) while considering the following themes:
centering the everyday and reframing design beyond formal religious/spiritual spaces and practices, and
embracing openness, uncertainty, and ambiguity in design in religious/spiritual contexts.
[Please refer to the Inspiration page for some examples of this kind of work.]
Presentation
The presentation of the artifacts (1-3 pages) may take the form of (among other things) pictorials, annotated portfolios, sketched visions, or written descriptions and should state what religious/spiritual purpose their artifact engages with and how.
Design goals
In the artifact's design, participants can pursue goals such as support, exploration, reflection, or provocation. For example, participants could design an artifact that fosters the development of a specific quality in daily life (e.g., patience in the Christian tradition or generosity (dāna) in the Buddhist tradition). We particularly welcome artifacts exploring novel methods of engagement with religious/spiritual purposes.
Participants
We invite participants from all backgrounds to submit artifacts drawing on their own religious/spiritual experiences and purposes, those addressed in their research, or those encountered in everyday life.
For the workshop
For the workshop, participants may create their artifact and bring it with them for exhibition and demonstration or may demonstrate the potential practice around the artifact via role-play, paper prototype, wizard of Oz prototype, functional prototype, etc.
Future opportunities
The workshop co-organizers plan to collaborate on a pictorial submission for the 2024 ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI), and all participants will have the opportunity to participate and contribute to that future submission.
Submission process
To submit the presentation of your artifact, please follow the instructions on the Submissions page.