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Intimate objects

Published: 01 August 2004 Publication History

Abstract

We present a preliminary and ongoing study into intimate objects: technological devices for maintaining intimacy at a distance. We use the notion of critical technical practice to provide a theoretical framework on which to base our designs, building devices that differ from mass communication devices in three ways: they are for couples in a relationship to communicate with each other, not with everybody else, they are for a specific couple to use, not a generic couple, and they are for the transmission of specific intimate communication, not all-purpose communication.We present an overview of the study, give some examples of intimate object sketches produced by our subjects, and discuss questions posed by the study, particularly those concerning the generalizability of the results.

References

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Agre, Philip. Computation and Human Experience. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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Bell, Genevieve, Brooke, Tim, Churchill, Elizabeth, and Paulos, Eric, (eds). Full Workshop Proceedings: Intimate Ubiquitous Computing, Ubicomp 2003. Available at www.intimateornot.com, 2003.
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Brooks, Rodney. A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot. IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, RA-2:14-23, April 1986.
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Crampton Smith, G. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. I.D. Magazine, May/June 1995, pp. 60--65.
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Gaver, William W., Beaver, Jake, and Benford, Steve. Ambiguity as a Resource for Design. Proceedings of CHI'03, Fort Lauderdale, FL. ACM Press, 2003.
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Hutchinson, Hilary, Wendy Mackay, Bosse Westerlund, Benjamin B. Bederson, Allison Druin, Catherine Plaisant, Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, Stephane Conversy, Helen Evans, Heiko Hansen, Nicolas Roussel, Bjorn Eiderback, Sinna Lindquist, Yngve Sundblad. Technology Probes: Inspiring Design for and with families. Proceedings of CHI'03. ACM Press, 2003.
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Kaye, Joseph 'Jofish'. Making Scents: Aromatic Output for HCI. interactions 11(1) January+February 2004, 48--61.
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McCarthy, John, Peter Wright, Jayne Wallace, and Andrew Dearden. The Experience of Enchantment in Human-Computer Interaction. CHI Fringe, 2004.
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Penny, Simon. "Embodied cultural agents at the intersection of robotics, cognitive science, and interactive art." In Kerstin Dautenhahn, ed., Socially Intelligent Agents: Papers from the 1997 Fall Symposium, p103-105, Menlo Park, 1997. AAAI Press. Technical Report FS-97-02.
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Sengers, Phoebe. Practices for Machine Culture: A Case Study of Integrating Cultural Theory and Artificial Intelligence. Surfaces Volume VIII 1999.
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Sengers, Phoebe, Joseph Kaye, Kirsten Boehner, Jeremiah Fairbank, Geri Gay, Eugene Medynskiy, and Susan Wyche. Culturally Embedded Computing. (2004) IEEE Pervasive Computing, Special Issue on Art & Design, 14-21, March-April 2004.
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Strong, R. and Gaver, W. Feather, Scent and Shaker: Supporting Simple Intimacy in Videos. In Proceedings of CSCW '96, ACM Press, New York NY 1996, 29--30.

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cover image ACM Conferences
DIS '04: Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques
August 2004
390 pages
ISBN:1581137877
DOI:10.1145/1013115
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 01 August 2004

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Author Tags

  1. couples
  2. intimacy
  3. intimate objects
  4. participatory design
  5. reflective design

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DIS04
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DIS04: Designing Interactive Systems 2004
August 1 - 4, 2004
MA, Cambridge, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Seam Work and Simulacra of Societal Impact in Networking Research: A Critical Technical Practice ApproachProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642337(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Computing and the Stigmatized: Trust, Surveillance, and Spatial Politics with the Sex Workers in BangladeshProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642005(1-22)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)Sharing Feelings via Mini Robot GesturesProceedings of the 2nd Empathy-Centric Design Workshop10.1145/3588967.3588968(1-5)Online publication date: 23-Apr-2023
  • (2023)Games and Play SIG: Connecting Through Social and Playful TechnologiesExtended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544549.3583176(1-4)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
  • (2022)Exploring Remote Communication through Design Interventions: Material and Bodily ConsiderationsNordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference10.1145/3546155.3546650(1-13)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2022
  • (2021)Shaping Romance: Mediating Intimacy for Co-located CouplesProceedings of the 33rd Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3520495.3520502(86-98)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2021
  • (2021)Troubling Care: Four Orientations for Wickedness in DesignProceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3461778.3462025(789-801)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2021
  • (2021)Enhancing Multimodal Interaction Between Performers and Audience Members During Live Music PerformancesExtended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411763.3451584(1-6)Online publication date: 8-May-2021
  • (2020)Always with MeProceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3374920.3375011(771-783)Online publication date: 9-Feb-2020
  • (2020)Designing and Evaluating 'In the Same Boat', A Game of Embodied Synchronization for Enhancing Social PlayProceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3313831.3376433(1-14)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2020
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