TEI

Welcome to ACM TEI2020, the 14th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, from the 9th to the 12th of February 2020, hosted in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, the first time in the Southern Hemisphere. The TEI conference features top-tier work that addresses issues of human-computer interaction, novel tools and technologies, interactive art, and user experience. The work presented at TEI has a strong focus on how computing can bridge atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems.

Our theme for 2020 is Future Bodies, Future Technologies. The theme invites us to speculate on a vision of how technologies could interact and interweave with our future bodies. We consider technologies in the broadest sense: from ancient Greek definitions of skill, craft, and techniques to capabilities provided by practical application of computational, electronic and physical materials. The notion of bodies is an expanded one, encompassing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions, and how we are socially situated in a complex and contested set of realities and world views. Future Bodies, Future Technologies looks at the intermingling and reconfiguration of old and new, traditional and unorthodox, human and non-human towards new forms and possibilities. When designing the future of tangible, embedded and embodied interaction, we are also designing our bodies of the future.

The intimate size of this single-track conference provides a unique forum for exchanging ideas and presenting innovative work through talks, interactive demos, hands-on studios, posters, art installations and performances. TEI2020 hosts a four-day program, starting on Sunday, February 9th with the Graduate Student Consortium and a series of five Studios that engage participants in the concrete making of novel interfaces and interactions. The main program starts on Monday, February 10th at the University of Technology Sydney with an opening keynote on Soma Design - Intertwining Aesthetics, Ethics and Movement by Professor Kristina Höök from KTH Stockholm, who will talk about soma design: a process that allows designers to examine and improve on connections between sensation, feeling, emotion, subjective understanding and values. The keynote is followed by a Full Paper talk session titled Making It Personal.

A special Diversity and Inclusion Lunch will be hosted, the second event of its kind at TEI. This event aims to build and strengthen the diverse networks of our attendees and support mentorships across academia, research, and industry for those with traditionally marginalized backgrounds. This is followed by a Full Paper talk session titled Creating and Changing Shapes. After this is a Pictorials session titled Urban Experiences, Eating, and Communication, the inaugural introduction to the conference series of the visual format suited to communication of designerly approaches to research. In the evening, the Welcome Reception includes an exhibit of Student Design Challenge submissions, that speculate on how humans will create synergies between future digital and hybrid technologies that could be worn, embedded or integrated with biological bodies, as well as the Graduate Student Consortium poster session.

Tuesday, February 11th starts with a Panel on Being Tangible: Reflections and Aspirations for TEI with leading researchers. This is followed by a Pictorials session titled Awareness and Wearables. The afternoon is dedicated to the Demo display, a signature of the conference series, showcasing exemplar demos and posters of the Full and Work-in-Progress papers accepted into the proceedings. The evening of February 11th is the Art Exhibition opening in the Tin Sheds Gallery and conference party at the University of Sydney. The evening begins with the Never odd or eveN iv exhibition in the Tin Sheds Gallery, followed by live performances. A total of 13 curated artworks are exhibited over the course of the conference, open to the public during the daytime.

On Wednesday, February 12th, paper talks are presented in sessions titled Move Your Body and Play, Input/Output, and Reflection and Rituals. The conference concludes with a closing keynote on Country Centred Design, presented by Angie Abdilla of Old Ways New, offering indigenous cultural knowledge as a way forward in thinking through the intermingling of old and new technologies for future world making imbued with an ethics of care for Country.

This year we received 132 submissions to the Papers track. A total of 37 papers were selected after a double-blind peer review process of at least three reviewers and a meta-reviewer, resulting in an acceptance rate of 28%. These works are presented in three formats throughout the conference: twelve of the works are presented as talks, ten are shown as a talk and a demo, while ten are exhibited as short talks, and five are featured as demos.

For the Pictorials track we received 38 submissions, which were subjected to a double-blind peer review process of at least three reviewers and a meta-reviewer each. This resulted in 12 accepted submissions, leading to an acceptance rate of 32%. All accepted pictorials are presented as talks.

For the Work-in-Progress track we received 45 submissions, which were subjected to a doubleblind peer review process of at least two reviewers each. This resulted in 22 accepted submissions, resulting in an acceptance rate of 49%.

For the Arts track we received 32 submissions, which were subjected to a curatorial process with input from external reviewers and final selection by the three Chairs, who performed the selection based on the artistic merits of the work and their engagement with issues relevant to the field of tangible, embedded and embodied interactive art. Thirteen artworks (41% acceptance rate) were exhibited at the conference.

For the Graduate Student Consortium we received 7 submissions. These were reviewed by the three Chairs and selected in terms of the appropriate level of demonstrated maturity as well as scope. This has resulted in 5 students who will participate in the consortium.