GENERAL INFORMATION
The Arts Track at TEI 2019 invites submissions of art installations and live performances exploring the theme of hybrid materiality. Over the past few years, TEI has increasingly embraced hybridity, whether through material explorations of composites such as bioelectronic, on-body, or active materials, or theoretical inquiries into socio-technical systems as hybrid assemblies. Visionary technologies are merging textiles with electronics, mechanical actuators with organic materials, and digital sensors with the human body. These hybrid, materially-oriented approaches are radically changing our understanding of what tangible interaction looks and feels like. At the same time, experiential media has provided a forum that shifts focus from utility to aesthetics. What are the new experiential opportunities presented by hybrid, (inter)active materials? How might these materials and the tangible interactive systems they comprise challenge our ideas about boundaries between living and nonliving, intimate and remote, public and private, scientific and quotidian?
We invite interactive artworks, live performances, installations, video prototypes, speculative fiction films, or mockumentaries, and any other type of artworks that explore the intersection of digital, physical, biological, and sociotechnical systems. We especially welcome projects aiming for more provocative and critical reflection on the role of materiality in our life, as well as projects exploring the social, political, environmental, aesthetic, and ethical implications of hybrid materials.
We seek submissions that articulate viewpoints and facilitate dialogue around the TEI conference themes as well as topics including but not limited to:
- Hybrid assemblies that combine digital, physical, biological, and/or social systems
- Artistic explorations of shape-, weight-, color- and size changing materials (biosensors and bioactuators, shape memory alloys, thermo and photochromic dyes, etc.)
- Wearable, on-body, and in-body computing
- Novel interactions realized through traditional crafts or unconventional materials, professional artistry, craft or musicianship
- Hybrid bodies, prosthetics, human augmentation, posthumanism
- Artistic reflections on the social, political, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions of hybrid systems
- Performances (e.g. dance, physical performance, music) that explore or utilize hybrid systems
- Interactive installations that critically reflect on hybrid materiality
TEI 2019 will host two separate events for showcasing accepted submissions, and all submissions must indicate whether their work is more suited for the:
- Arts reception at the Tempe Center for the Arts; and
- A live performance at the Tempe Center for the Arts (theatre-style setting which will host a performance program for the TEI 2019 audience)
SUBMISSION
The Arts Track welcomes submissions of artworks and live performances from a wide range of practitioners and researchers in areas such as arts, music, design, new media, biology, material science, and technology. We welcome submissions from artists at all career stages, including students and independent practitioners.
Submissions should be in the form of a short (4 - 6 pages plus references Extended Abstract Template) paper in PDF format that will appear in the TEI Proceedings and will be indexed in the Extended Abstracts portion of the ACM Digital Library. Submissions will also include a short (3 minute maximum) video documenting the artwork. Authors should identify whether they prefer to showcase their work during the arts reception at the Tempe Center for the Arts, or a live performance at the Tempe Center for the Arts, which will take place in a theatre-style setting in front of the TEI 2019 audience.
Submissions should include the author(s) name and affiliation - in other words, they are not blind. In addition, applicants MUST submit an additional installation information form along with their Extended Abstract describing the technical and logistical requirements of exhibiting/performing their work.
SELECTION PROCESS
Submissions will be selected based on their artistic merits and their engagement with issues relevant to the field of tangible, embedded, and embodied interactive art. In addition, the logistical constraints of the venue may determine the eligibility of submitted projects.
Confidentiality of submissions will be maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity.
Review Criteria:
- Relevant - The work must have a tangible aspect, in the form of an installation, performance, object, or physical event.
- Artistic - It must operate significantly and compellingly through its formal, conceptual, and experiential properties.
- Embodied - The work must engage the human body beyond the traditional screen-pointer interface.
- Computational - It must involve computational technology (digital, biological, or analog) in some aspect of its form or function.
- Positioning - The work must be positioned within related areas of theory and/or practice.
ATTENDANCE
Accepted work will be exhibited in one of the two conference Arts Track venues (reception or performance events). Artists (or their delegates) will need to be available for installation and bump-out, and for facilitating interaction with their artwork at scheduled times.
One author of each accepted submission must register for the conference before the early registration deadline in order for the final paper version to appear in the conference proceedings.
QUESTIONS?
If you have questions about the Arts Track for TEI 2019, please contact the Arts and Performance Chairs.