Data as Experiential Knowledge and Embodied Processes

Over the centuries our understanding of what constitutes data has – and continues today – to shift. In the 18th century, datum, the singular of data, referred to a piece of information through which inferences could be drawn. For the scientific community, the focus shifted from receiving what is given to extracting what is not. Data transitioned from an entity that was previously unknown or unexplored to being the epitome of what scientists strive to uncover via systematic investigation and observation.

More recently, the art and design community’s engagement with data has once again shifted understanding of the term. Data became an experimental medium for artists and designers and data literacy of general audiences began to emerge. These changes have prompted a more nuanced understanding of the term. Beyond the purely quantitative, data are now recognised to carry temporal and emotional qualities that can be meaningful, malleable and evocative.

Making with data is no longer exclusively digital. Data appear in hybrid and physical forms that invite various perspectives, interpretations, and reflections. For example, data can be found in physical forms like 3D-printed models, sculptures, or even tactile exhibits in museums. In addition, users can explore the embodied nature of data in virtual environments, offering unique perspectives on data's virtual materiality and influencing our perception of scale, complexity, and interconnections between humans and data. Data are no longer exclusively a scientific output either, but instead appear in art and design accessible to entirely different publics. The growth of self-tracking technologies now allows anyone to track, experiment with, and explore data in ways that extend what is known about the self and decision-making in everyday life. More recently, artificial intelligence has once again contributed to shaping our understanding of the term through the use of generative technologies. Even design education has shifted in recent years, using data to inspire, support, and expand students' projects.

Thus, the idea of data has expanded beyond its conventional scientific boundaries and has become a versatile and ever-changing medium that influences how we see the world, stimulates creative expression, and enhances our daily lives in new and remarkable ways.

Topics of Interest Include, But Are Not Limited To:

What constitutes making when designing with data at various scales?
How do the cultural, social and contextual influences of data affect design processes?
How might engaging with data shift our understandings of space?
What role does data play in speculation?
Are data and material practices antithetical?
At what points in the design process does data provide inspiration?
How can data take the form of new materialities?

Call for Papers

Papers

For EKSIG 2025, we invite the submission of full papers (4000-5000 words excluding references) that offer new or challenging views on the conference theme that have not been previously published. The papers will be selected through a double-blind peer-review process by an international review team.

Workshops

We also invite for workshop submissions that should include:

Workshop Description (max 2 pages)
Schedule and Duration of the Workshop (max 3 hours)
Technical Requirements (including material requirements)
Organisers pictures and bios

We invite contributions from creative subjects and other disciplines, e.g. design, architecture, engineering, craft, media, HCI, performance, music, fine art, curation, museology, archaeology, philosophy, knowledge management, education, health, cognitive science, sensory studies and other fields that are concerned with collaboration in research and in creative and professional practice.

Please submit an anonymized version of your full paper of 4000-5000 words or workshop according to this template. Please use the provided papers template for workshop submissions too, ensuring that it is adjusted to meet the specified requirements. Submissions for papers and workshops should be made using the same Easychair link.

Important Dates for papers and workshops:

Deadline for Paper Submission: 22 November 2024
Extended Deadline for Paper Submission: 29 November 2024 (AoE)
Review time: 1 December 2024 - 31 January 2025
Final Selection Meeting: 1-5 February 2025
Notification of Acceptance: 10 February 2025
Camera-ready Papers Due: 10 March 2025
Conference Date: 12-13 May 2025

SUBMIT YOUR PAPER

Keynote Speakers

Miriah Meyer

Miriah Meyer is a professor in the Department of Science & Technology at Linköping University, supported through the WASP program. Her research focuses on the design of visualization systems for helping people make sense of data, and on the development of methods for helping visualization designers make sense of the world. She obtained her bachelors degree in astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Utah, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at LiU she was an associate professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah and a member of the Vis Design Lab in the Scientific Computing & Imaging Institute. Miriah has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work including being named a University of Utah Distinguished Alumni, both a TED Fellow and a PopTech Science Fellow, a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow, and included on MIT Technology Review's TR35 list of the top young innovators. She was also awarded an AAAS Mass Media Fellowship that landed her a stint as a science writer for the Chicago Tribune.

Andrew Vande Moere

Andrew Vande Moere is a Professor in Design Informatics at the Department of Architecture at KU Leuven (Belgium). He conducts design-oriented research investigating the designerly potential of various emerging technologies. By combining the methodologies from design science with computer sciences, his research contributes to the fields of human-computer (HCI), human-data (HDI), human-robot (HRI), and human-building (HBI) interaction. As such, he was one of the very first researchers recognising the creative potential of: 'designing' rather than 'developing' data visualisations (i.e. 'information aesthetics'), visualising data in a physical rather than digital formats (i.e. 'data sculptures'), and locating visualisations in the actual physical environment that the data was originally sourced from (i.e. 'public visualisations'). His current research around data work focuses on revealing the uncertainties in data through visualisation, and on uncovering the power imbalances within various data visualisation activities. Several innovations from his academic research have been valorised, among which the university spin-off "Citizen Dialog Kit" (CDK), which allows governmental organisations to open up their collection and presentation of data in any public environment.

Mihály Minkó

Mihály Minkó is a lecturer, design researcher and practitioner at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. Mihály investigates the outer reaches of data visualisation. In addition to visual representations of data, he also creates physical art installations. In these, he often goes beyond the use of conventional materials, and experiments with biodegradable, renewable biocomposites. He regularly holds R&D courses, including on the framework of the Balatorium project, students’ work on which he has also presented in an exhibition. In addition to delivering courses and lectures to MOME students and researchers, Mihály is also the professional course leader of MOME Open, specifically of a successful data visualisation training course that has been running for several years. He is a regular speaker at business intelligence conferences in Hungary. Relying on his network of contacts, he also facilitates collaborations between industry players and the university.

Workshops

Jacob Buur

What people do with data physicalizations – Flow State, Play Moods, Small Beginnings

This workshop invites designers of data physicalizations to make sense of how people (‘users’) actually engage with their designs: What kind of discussions and actions can data physicalizations trigger? What rests on the designs, and what depends on facilitation?

In the workshop we will observe people interacting with data physicalizations on video and apply Dimensional Analysis as a (fun!) method of comparing and making sense of engagement. As a starting point my colleagues and I have developed a framework that helps identify engagement as ‘Flow State’, ‘Play Moods’ or ‘Small Beginnings’. From there we’ll discuss what it takes to design engaging data physicalizations.

Expected duration: 4 hours

Kálmán Tarr

Transforming Physical Movement into Digital Interaction and Puppetry Control

This workshop will explore the gradual process of understanding how physical movement can be digitized, transformed into data, and manipulated to bring a puppet to life.

Participants will delve into the concept of physical interaction data—the translation and transformation of threedimensional movement into mechanical actions—and experiment with creating tangible, interactive systems. Unlike traditional lectures with slides and theoretical discussions, this workshop will prioritize hands-on experience and experimentation, enabling participants to feel and engage directly with the technology. The goal is to bridge the gap between artistic expression and technical innovation, fostering collaboration and creativity. It is ideal for those interested in bridging the fields of robotics, interaction design, and performative art, while gaining hands-on experience with emerging technologies.

Objectives:

Direct Interaction: Participants will manipulate puppets or other objects both in traditional ways and through data-driven control systems.
Understanding the Transformation: Explore how movement becomes data and how data drives movement.
Collaborative Building: Participants will construct and experiment with the mechanisms.

Expected duration: 1.5 hours

Ginevra Terenghi and Sara Lenzi

Health Self-Revealed: Exploring Self-Narratives and Data Physicalization Practices Towards a Shared Design Vocabulary

Have you ever considered symptoms as material signs of dysfunctionalities self-inscribed in your body? Inspired by autographic visualization (Offenhuber, 2023 and 2020), this workshop suggests data physicalization and sonification to represent symptoms while also exploring material properties for personalized data communication.

While data physicalization typically encodes information through geometry and material properties (Jansen et al., 2015), and sonification relies on non-speech audio (Kramer, 1994), this workshop aims to combine these techniques to explore how the sound produced by materials can influence the representation of data, and symptoms specifically.

Working in groups, you will be asked to associate common symptoms (e.g. headache) with physical variables (e.g. shape), sound variables (e.g. rhythm, pitch), and the interventions needed to produce a sound (e.g. scratching). Different materials will be available to test, and some labels will facilitate the association. The purpose of the activity is to create a multi-sensory vocabulary for symptoms representation and explore the combination of physicalization and sonification modalities.

Design researchers in the field of healthcare, health communication, patient-doctor relations, personal data, and self-narrative, but also, information designers interested in multi-modal data representation are invited to join. By participating, you can contribute to exploring and defining new rules for data translations that will contribute to the definition of shared design guidelines for multi-modal data representations. At the same time, you will acquire new communication skills they can integrate into their design research activities, in health-related research and beyond. Everyone can join, no specific requirement or prior knowledge required.

Expected duration: 3 hours

Romi Mikulinsky, Aya Bentur and Micaela Terk

Space Oddities - Societal Effects of Phygitality

The forthcoming wide scale use of smart glasses and mixed reality (MR) devices has already begun to transform uses and understandings of public space. In this forthcoming era, lines between physical and digital realms are blurred. Smart glasses are designed to collect vast amounts of data about users' surroundings, behaviors, and interactions, introducing potential risks of biometric surveillance and privacy violations, but also inviting new and creative ways of interweaving physical locations and digital interactions.

By going beyond screen-based interaction, smart glasses are poised to redefine our interactions with technology and one another, shifting social norms and altering shared perceptions of reality.

In this gamified workshop, we will navigate some of the social, ethical, and legal questions that the rapid adoption of immersive technology raises. After a brief overview on the techno-social aspects of immersive environments, we will use a toolkit of speculative design and roleplay techniques to craft near-future scenarios, explore interactions, blindspots and frictions, and uncover the ways smart glasses will shift relationships with one another and affect public space. We will experiment with near-future “phygital” interactions, mapping data collection processes and the entanglements between human and non-human agents in public space. This workshop was co-developed by designers and policymakers to raise awareness around the societal effects of the phygital era, using play as a tool for informed public engagement.

This workshop is open to participants who are interested in the societal impacts of phygital technologies. We invite you to come with an open mind, and no previous familiarity with the field is necessary to join.

The workshop consists of a theoretical part dedicated to the techno-social aspects of phygitality and to speculative design. The game is followed by a discussion by the participants.

Expected duration: 3-4 hours

Abhay Vohra

Embodied Computing Practices for a Contingent World

This workshop explores embodied intelligence as a form of computation for navigating an increasingly unpredictable world. While artificial intelligence relies on algorithims and big data, embodied intelligence is enacted through real-time interactions between our physical and cognitive capabilities, experiential knowledge, and the material environment. Embodied Intelligence becomes particularly crucial in contingent situations where technological solutions may fail or be unavailable.

Through structured activities participants will learn how embodied intelligence enables us to respond adaptively to changing conditions and unexpected challenges. The workshop frames everyday practices—from organizing spaces to repairing objects—as sophisticated computational processes that combine experiential knowledge with physical engagement to transform real-world situations.

This workshop will interest design researchers and practitioners exploring alternative approaches to problem-solving in uncertain conditions. It offers valuable insights for those seeking to understand and strengthen our capacity to respond effectively when conventional technological solutions are compromised.

Expected duration: 3 hours

Alice Mioni and Antonella Autuori

Framing Generative Waste as Multi-Layered Interpretive Data Towards Sustainable and Reflective Design Practices.

As Generative AI transforms design workflows, it also generates vast amounts of discarded visual data—what we define as generative waste—which consumes energy, storage, and other resources involved in the generative AI production process, while remaining creatively untapped and forgotten.

This workshop addresses this dual challenge by raising awareness of its environmental impact and introducing sustainable design methodologies. Participants will engage in hands-on exercises to re-think, re-code, and curate abandoned generative images, enriching them with subjective and objective tags. Through remixing and reassembling those visual fragments, participants will uncover latent narratives and transform ephemeral digital traces into meaningful visual artefacts.

Expected duration: 2 hours

Attend

Dates

Monday-Tuesday, 12-13 May 2025

Venue

Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest
9-25 Zugligeti Str., H1121, Budapest, Hungary

Registration

Please note that each accepted paper to be published needs to have one paying author. Below are the registration fees. The registration link and more details will be announced soon.

Early Bird Registration (3 March – 31 March)

Regular for Paper Presenter: 390 EUR
Concessions for Paper Presenters*: 320 EUR
Guest**: 220 EUR
Workshops participation only***: 13 EUR

Standard Registration (1 April – 21 April)

Regular: 490 EUR
Concessions*: 420 EUR
Guest**: 320 EUR
Workshop participation only***: 23 EUR

* Concessions are available for confirmed students, PhD students, and DRS members. Upon arrival at the conference, you must present a document or student card along with your ID to verify your status.

** The Guest ticket is available for attendees who are not paper presenters but would like to participate in the conference.

*** Workshops are free to participate for attendees who have paid the fee for the full conference. Those are the Regular, Concessions or Guest tickets. This ticket is for individuals who would like to only participate in one or more of the selected workshops.

The Regular, Concessions or Guest tickets will give you access to the following:

Digital Full Paper Publication for presenters
Paper Presentations
Keynote Speeches
Opportunities for Networking and Discussions with fellow researchers and participants
Exhibition
Free Participation in two workshops
Closing Event
Complimentary Conference Materials e.g., welcome bag
Lunch, Refreshments and Coffee Breaks throughout the conference

You are welcome to attend the conference without presenting a paper; in this case, please select the Guest ticket option.

If, as an author, you have several papers selected for publication, please note that for each paper to be published, it needs to have a unique paying author. This may be one of your co-authors.

If it is the case that no other author is on the second paper or co-authors are not attending, please get in contact with us (mail to: eksig2025@mome.hu) to discuss second paper rates.

BUY TICKETS

Organizing & Program Committee

Mary Karyda Moholy-Nagy Universtiy of Art and Design
Jessica Hemmings University of Gothenburg
Renáta Dezső Moholy-Nagy Universtiy of Art and Design
Damla Çay Moholy-Nagy Universtiy of Art and Design
Ágnes Karolina Bakk Moholy-Nagy Universtiy of Art and Design
Nithikul Nimkulrat OCAD University, Canada

Mihály Minkó exhibition chair
Ádám Szabó exhibition chair
Natália Pass project manager
Dr. Judit Kollár event manager
Vivien Andavölgyi project manager
Márk Gelley graphic designer
Gábor Réthi media designer

Contact us

eksig2025@mome.hu

Past Conferences

https://eksig.org/conferences.html