Art & Performance

Event	Deadline
Submission Deadline	October 24, 2025, AoE
Notification	~~November 21, 2025, AoE~~ Fri, Nov 28, 2025, AoE (EXTENDED)
Camera-ready	December 4, 2025, AoE
Conference	TEI '26 March 8-11, 2026

Theme: Resurgence and Convergence

As TEI celebrates its 20th anniversary, we invite artistic explorations that reflect on the resurgence of tangible interaction practices and the convergence of diverse disciplines that have shaped our field. Like the rhythmic tides that connect distant shores, tangible interaction research has created currents that flow between art, technology, craft, design, and human experience. At this pivotal moment, we recognize that convergence is our path forward, a necessary response to the complexities of our time.

The theme "Resurgence and Convergence" challenges us to consider how different ways of knowing become "tied" together through tangible interaction, creating new possibilities for community, understanding, and collective action. We seek artworks that embody the cyclical nature of technological innovation and artistic practice, that emerge from informal, grassroots technological communities, and that find common ground across disciplinary boundaries. This is a call for works that demonstrate how convergent practices can address the urgent need for connection, collaboration, and shared meaning-making in an increasingly fragmented world.

Topics of Interest

We welcome submissions that engage with the conference theme while exploring topics including, but not limited to:

Interdisciplinary Convergence

Works that demonstrate how crossings between art, craft, science, technology, and design create new forms of knowledge and practice. Traditional practices meeting contemporary digital materialities through community-based making and grassroots technological innovation. Collaborative practices that bridge different ways of knowing and challenge disciplinary boundaries.

Tangible Resurgence

Revitalization of traditional crafts through technological augmentation and sustainability practices that envision regenerative futures. Post-screen interaction paradigms that reclaim embodied ways of being with technology.

More-than-Human Design

Technologies that acknowledge and work with the agency of materials, environments, and other living beings. Designs that question human exceptionalism and explore multispecies entanglements.

Technologies that actively foster community and connection as philosophical and political acts. Inclusive design practices and accessibility that challenge normative assumptions about bodies and abilities. Cultural heritage preservation through tangible media and participatory approaches to technology that democratize design processes.

Temporal Flows

Reflective works on 20 years of TEI research that reveal hidden genealogies and alternative futures. Generational knowledge transfer in maker communities and slow technology practices that resist acceleration culture. Archival practices and digital preservation that use tangible media to embody memory and collective history.

Submission Guidelines

All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Precision Conference (PCS) website. The Arts Track welcomes submissions of artworks 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.

Works submitted to the Arts Track will be presented as interactive installations and exhibits designed to work within the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry's exhibition environment.

The submission should include:

Artwork/performance extended paper discussing the artwork theme and description (see Format Requirements below).
Detailed spatial and technical specifications required to present your work, including space requirements, lighting needs, connectivity, power, and furniture. Given the venue constraints at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, priority will be given to projects that can work within limited light and sound control and require minimal technical infrastructure.
Documentation of work such as images, videos, sketches, and process materials. Please add content or links to content in the artwork paper PDF. Links should be unrestricted to ensure easy access during review.
Separate PDF document with comprehensive technical requirement description detailing space, light, connectivity, and furniture needs, along with the 3-hour installation timeline.
Artist biography for participating artist(s) (100 words or fewer per bio).
Optional materials: An ethics statement following NIME ethics guidelines (https://www.nime.org/ethics/) and any additional supporting documentation

Format Requirements

TEI 2026 uses the ACM workflow for submission templates and published papers. This requires the use of a simplified one-column template for submission, while the final two-column paper will be rendered for publication after acceptance. Submissions should be in the form of a short (2-4 pages plus references) paper in PDF format that will appear in the TEI Proceedings and will be indexed in the ACM Digital Library. Authors can choose to use either Word (template available from the ACM website) or LaTeX (template on the ACM website or Overleaf).

File Size

Please note that the maximum size of your submission should not exceed 300 MB. Large videos can be submitted via links to online content (e.g., YouTube or Vimeo). Arts Track reviews are single-blind, so submissions should include author names and affiliations.

Selection Process and Attendance

Submissions undergo single-blind peer review. Works are evaluated based on artistic merit, technical innovation and meaningful engagement with TEI themes. The review process prioritizes contributions that demonstrate both conceptual rigor and practical feasibility within the conference context (time/spatial constraints).

Accepted artists must be present throughout the installation period and available for the complete 3-hour setup process, ongoing interaction facilitation, and breakdown. Artworks will be installed amongst the exhibits of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, and installations must be configured on site with this in mind. In particular, artworks must be freestanding, and designed to work within a space with limited light and sound control.

One author from each accepted submission must register for the conference before the early registration deadline for publication in the proceedings. Artists are responsible for their own travel and material costs, though limited discounts may be available for self-funded practitioners.

All accepted works will be exhibited in a dedicated venue accessible to conference attendees and featured throughout the conference program, creating opportunities for sustained engagement between artists, researchers, and the broader TEI community.

Review Criteria

Submissions will be evaluated based on:

Relevance: The work must demonstrate tangible, embedded, or embodied interaction aspects and engage meaningfully with the conference theme.
Artistic Merit: Works should operate compellingly through their formal, conceptual, and experiential properties.
Technical Innovation: Thoughtful integration of computational technology (digital or analog) with physical interaction.
Embodied Engagement: The work must engage the human body and senses beyond traditional screen-based interfaces.
Theoretical Positioning: Clear articulation of the work's relationship to relevant theory and practice in tangible interaction and related fields.
Feasibility: Demonstrated ability to realize the work within the 3-hour setup constraint and conference venue limitations.