The workshop focuses on writing fictional stories about Smart City futures together with an AI tool and reflecting on the potential role of an AI as a citizen.
In the first workshop in the series we aim to outline the design challenges that should be addressed first, with the values of sustainability and inclusion as objectives for smart urban futures.
Smart cities are becoming an inevitable trend in the design of urban futures. With the speed of technological advancement, by the time that smart city visions come into life, the urban environment could already be seen as a co-living space of humans and technological entities, such as AI or robots. This raises the question whether these visions should get already co-created by people and technology, given AI is seen as a potential tool for decision-making processes in data-driven city visions. In this workshop, we aim to explore how visions of smart city futures can be co-speculated by people and AI through the collaborative process of co-writing fiction. Through writing short speculative stories, we want to encourage participants to critically reflect on their own expectations about smart city futures as well as what values these should preferably be based on, and to also reflect on the potential biases that AI might bring into the process of futuring.
Call for Participation
In this exploratory and creative workshop we will engage constructively with the concept of smart cities from a more-than-human perspective. We deliberately encourage participants with a wide variety of interests to take part in this workshop. Topics can include inclusion and exclusion, sustainability, feminist design, critical design, writing and storytelling in their relation to the design of smart cities. Within the workshop activities participants will examine their expectations and values regarding the future of smart cities. We will engage with these topics and expectations through the process of co-writing short speculative stories with AI. Through this process we will evaluate and discuss potential stereotypical visions, assumptions and biases that artificial intelligence might introduce into the narratives, as well as reflect on the challenges and opportunities of collaborating with AI, both as an active agent in creative processes and as a future citizen.
To register your interest, please send a short statement of interest to the first author in which you outline why you are interested in the workshop, how it relates to your work and what you would hope to get out of the workshop. We would additionally appreciate information about your background on cities and countries you lived in and are open to share your experience. This will help to ensure a diversity of perspectives on city life brought to the discussion during the workshop. Please further indicate your affiliation and whether you plan to attend the workshop in person or online.
For more details, please check https://urban-future-now.pubpub.org/mindtrek-24. For any questions, please contact [email protected].
Workshop Program
10:00 -10:30: Welcome and introduction 10:30 -11:00: Values brainstorm and voting 11:00 -11:15: Coffee break 11:15 -12:00: Writing Session 1. Setting up the story — without AI 12:00 -13:30: Lunch (+story development) 13:30 -14:15: AI tool introduction 14:15 -15:00: Writing Session 2. Developing the story — with AI as a co-author 15:00 -15:15: Coffee break 15:15 -16:30: Presentations 16:30 -17:30: Discussion and outlook
Inclusion and accessibility note. We are open for assisting participants with special needs and encourage all in the need of such to contact us prior to the workshop. All activities are designed with a potential to adapt them towards the requirements of participants. If you need special accommodations to participate, please, not it in the submissions form or write an email to [email protected].
Organisers
Margarita Osipova is a PhD student and a Teaching Assistant at the Human-Computer Interaction Group, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. She is a core researcher in the interdisciplinary project "Feminist Smart City" and focuses on Feminist HCI in research methods for designing urban futures.
Jordi Tost is an interaction design researcher and PhD candidate at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. His research focuses on fictional and non-deterministic practices at the intersection between HCI and critical design practice. His current research focuses on the potential of Generative AI as irritation in Human-AI collaborations.
Oğuz ‘Oz’ Buruk is an Assistant Professor of Gameful Experience at Tampere University, Finland. His research focuses on designing gameful environments for various contexts such as body-integrated technologies, computational fashion, posthumanism, urban spaces, extended reality and nature. He frequently emlpoys methods such as speculative design, design fiction and participatory design
Konstantina Marra is a Master’s student at the Human-Computer Interaction department of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. She is working as a student assistant for the "Feminist Smart City" project. As her thesis work, she is designing an interactive stand for public spaces exhibiting wildlife, aiming to bring citizens closer to nature.
Britta F. Schulte is a post-doctoral researcher. His work explores our relationships towards technologies for elderly care and the ageing body, with a strong focus on intimacy and sexuality. In his works, he often uses speculative and creative approaches such as storytelling and design fiction in many forms.
Jeffrey Bardzell is Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Penn State University College of Information Sciences and Technology. With a background in literature, he brings a critical and humanities-oriented perspective to human-computer interaction, design, and information science. His research focuses on creativity, criticality and design thinking; aesthetic interaction and experience design; social informatics and participatory design; and AI and more-than-human design
Eva Hornecker is a Professor of HCI at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Her work connects technology, design and a social science angle, with a focus on non-screen interfaces/devices and interactions, such as tangible and embodied interaction, UbiComp, wearables, and collaborative and situated action. Some of her prior research relates to Media Architecture and Urban HCI.
