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Outputs (49)

Future Tense - The Challenge of Imagining Alternative Futures (2023)
Book Chapter
Smyth, M. (2023). Future Tense - The Challenge of Imagining Alternative Futures. In Designing in Coexistence – Reflections on Systemic Change (77-88). Croatian Architects’ Association

So why is it so difficult to imagine futures? Not the futures set in galaxies far far away, but the ones connected to the present that lie tantalisingly just beyond the horizon. Futures still tethered to variants of today’s infrastructure. This essay... Read More about Future Tense - The Challenge of Imagining Alternative Futures.

Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Helgason, I., Smyth, M., Panneels, I., Lechelt, S., Frich, J., Rawn, E., & McCarthy, B. (2023, April). Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity. Presented at CHI '23: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Hamburg, Germany

The creative industries play an important role in economic, cultural and social life, and in many creative disciplines much of the workforce is made up of individual practitioners including freelancers, sole traders and small or micro enterprises. Th... Read More about Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity.

Distance: digital immersive technologies and craft engagement (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Panneels, I., Helgason, I., Smyth, M., Darzentas, D., Hocking, L., & Shillito, A.-M. (2023, April). Distance: digital immersive technologies and craft engagement. Presented at Cumulus Conference: Connectivity and Creativity in times of Conflict, Antwerp, Belgium

The DISTANCE project (digital immersive technologies and craft engagement) is a novel practice-led experiment in the use of immersive technology to enable dispersed craft practitioners to apply their haptic skills and material knowledge in a digital... Read More about Distance: digital immersive technologies and craft engagement.

Speculating Futures in an Age of Nostalgia (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Smyth, M. (2023, April). Speculating Futures in an Age of Nostalgia. Presented at Cumulus conference: Connectivity and Creativity in times of Conflict, University of Antwerp, Belguim

This paper will present an exploration of the relationship between the past and the present and how that interaction influences design thinking when speculating about possible futures. It will argue that the growing influence of nostalgia, supported... Read More about Speculating Futures in an Age of Nostalgia.

Has the collective experience of the pandemic reset our relationship with the future? (2022)
Journal Article
Smyth, M. (2022). Has the collective experience of the pandemic reset our relationship with the future?. DOC - Design and Society, 1(1),

The fusion of architecture and cultures that comprised the cityscape of Blade Runner (1982) was a key part in how the narrative humanised the vision of the future, it provided a backdrop in which characters displaying human emotions played out a stor... Read More about Has the collective experience of the pandemic reset our relationship with the future?.

Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education (2022)
Journal Article
Helgason, I., Encinas, E., Mitrovic, I., & Smyth, M. (2022). Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education. Interaction Design and Architecture(s) IxDetA, 5-7. https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-051-001psi

As guest editors of this special edition we are delighted to present this selection of papers responding to our call about Speculative and Critical Design in education. The response to the call demonstrates that interest in this approach is increasin... Read More about Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education.

Echoes of Futures Past - Speculations and Fictions from History (2021)
Book Chapter
Smyth, M., Auger, J., & Helgason, I. (2021). Echoes of Futures Past - Speculations and Fictions from History. In I. Mitrović, J. Auger, J. Hanna, & I. Helgason (Eds.), Beyond Speculative Design: Past-Present-Future (24-67). SpeculativeEDU, Arts Academy, University of Split

The value of mass-digitised cultural heritage content in creative contexts (2021)
Journal Article
Coleman, S., Terras, M., Thornton, P., Smyth, M., Schafer, B., Drost, S., Pegado, B., Panneels, I., Elsden, C., Osborne, N., Lechelt, S., Helgason, I., & Speed, C. (2021). The value of mass-digitised cultural heritage content in creative contexts. Big Data and Society, 8(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211006165

How can digitised assets of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums be reused to unlock new value? What are the implications of viewing large-scale cultural heritage data as an economic resource, to build new products and services upon? Drawing up... Read More about The value of mass-digitised cultural heritage content in creative contexts.

Creative Informatics Guide for Online Events (2020)
Preprint / Working Paper
Elsden, C., Chan, K., Erskine, P., Helgason, I., Lechelt, S., Osborne, N., Panneels, I., Smyth, M., Warren, K., Terras, M., & Speed, C. Creative Informatics Guide for Online Events

Creative Informatics is a research and development programme based in Edinburgh, which aims to bring the city’s world-class creative industries and tech sector together. We are a collaboration between University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier Univers... Read More about Creative Informatics Guide for Online Events.

Speculative and Critical Design in Education: Practice and Perspectives (2020)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Helgason, I., Smyth, M., Encinas, E., & Mitrović, I. (2020, July). Speculative and Critical Design in Education: Practice and Perspectives. Presented at DIS '20: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2020, Eindhoven Netherlands

This full-day, interdisciplinary workshop will address the use of Speculative and Critical Design (SCD), Design Fiction, and related practices, including those that use provocation, ambiguity and activism, within undergraduate, postgraduate and profe... Read More about Speculative and Critical Design in Education: Practice and Perspectives.

Ethnographic Fictions: Research for Speculative Design (2020)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Helgason, I., & Smyth, M. (2020, July). Ethnographic Fictions: Research for Speculative Design. Presented at DIS '20: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2020, Eindhoven Netherlands

Ethnographically informed research that investigates people's lived experiences, emotions, attitudes and behaviours inevitably draws primarily on current and past situations. Design practice is naturally concerned with using research to inform the cr... Read More about Ethnographic Fictions: Research for Speculative Design.

UrbanIxD: From Ethnography to Speculative Design Fictions for the Hybrid City (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stals, S., Smyth, M., & Mival, O. (2019, November). UrbanIxD: From Ethnography to Speculative Design Fictions for the Hybrid City. Presented at The Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019, Nottingham, UK

This paper presents research in the field of Urban Interaction Design which seeks to understand how people's personal, emotional relationships with urban places could potentially inform the design of new technological devices and services. A Speculat... Read More about UrbanIxD: From Ethnography to Speculative Design Fictions for the Hybrid City.

How Can We Balance Research, Participation and Innovation as HCI Researchers? (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Lechelt, S., Elsden, C., Helgason, I., Panneels, I., Smyth, M., Speed, C., & Terras, M. (2019, November). How Can We Balance Research, Participation and Innovation as HCI Researchers?. Presented at The Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019, Nottingham, UK

This paper reflects upon the growing expectation for HCI research projects to collaborate closely with partners in industry and civil society. Specifically, we suggest that this type of engagement is often prefigured around the agendas, needs and cap... Read More about How Can We Balance Research, Participation and Innovation as HCI Researchers?.

DIY Community WiFi Networks: Insights on Participatory Design (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Smyth, M., & Helgason, I. (2019, May). DIY Community WiFi Networks: Insights on Participatory Design. Presented at CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Glasgow

This paper presents a first version of a set of insights developed collaboratively by researchers during a three-year participatory design project spread across four European locations. The MAZI project explored potential uses of a "Do-It-Yourself" W... Read More about DIY Community WiFi Networks: Insights on Participatory Design.

Maker Movements, Do-It-Yourself Cultures and Participatory Design: Implications for HCI Research (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Smyth, M., Helgason, I., Kresin, F., Balestrini, M., Unteidig, A. B., Lawson, S., Gaved, M., Taylor, N., Auger, J., Hansen, L. K., Schuler, D. C., Woods, M., & Dourish, P. (2018, April). Maker Movements, Do-It-Yourself Cultures and Participatory Design: Implications for HCI Research. Presented at 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '18, Montreal, Canada

Falling costs and the wider availability of computational components, platforms and ecosystems have enabled the expansion of maker movements and DIY cultures. This can be considered as a form of democratization of technology systems design, in alignm... Read More about Maker Movements, Do-It-Yourself Cultures and Participatory Design: Implications for HCI Research.

Making and Unfinishedness: Designing Toolkits for Negotiation (2017)
Journal Article
Smyth, M., & Helgason, I. (2017). Making and Unfinishedness: Designing Toolkits for Negotiation. Design Journal, 20(sup1), S3966-S3974. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1352899

The diffusion and democratisation of computing technologies and physical prototyping systems has supported the rise of Do-It-Yourself culture. In the context of design innovation, this shift has undoubtedly blurred the lines between the roles of amat... Read More about Making and Unfinishedness: Designing Toolkits for Negotiation.

Designing digital urban interactions industry landscape and market analysis. (2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Zaffiro, G., Melissa, B., Brynskov, M., & Smyth, M. (2015, March). Designing digital urban interactions industry landscape and market analysis. Presented at 13th International Conference on e-Society 2015

Urban Interaction Design addresses the question of how we, as physical beings, will interact with the technologically augmented, data-rich urban environments that increasingly characterize cities. As an emergent field very little analysis has been co... Read More about Designing digital urban interactions industry landscape and market analysis..

DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city. (2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Andriotis, P., Apostol, I., Gaved, M., Smyth, M., & Unteidig, A. (2015, September). DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city. Presented at Hybrid City 2015: Data to the People

DIY networking is a technology with special characteristics compared to the public Internet, which holds a unique potential for empowering citizens to shape their hybrid urban space toward conviviality and collective awareness. It can also play the r... Read More about DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city..

Life at the local scale: an alternative perspective on the urban. (2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Smyth, M., & Helgason, I. (2015, September). Life at the local scale: an alternative perspective on the urban. Presented at Hybrid Cities - Data to the People 3rd International Biennial Conference

The study of cities has risen to the top of research agendas in the last decade, raising the question of how to study something as vast and eclectic as cities. This paper proposes a return to a focus on the local as an appropriate scale to investigat... Read More about Life at the local scale: an alternative perspective on the urban..