I School professor Kimiko Ryokai and doctoral student Daniela Rosner will be presenting at the 2009 Creativity and Cognition Conference, along with two 2009 alumni. Under the theme "Everyday Creativity," the conference asks how to enable everyone to enjoy their creative potential.
In the "Young Creators" session, Professor Ryokai will be presenting her work on "Children's Storytelling and Programming with Robotic Characters," along with 2009 MIMS graduates Michael Lee and Jonathan Breitbart.
In the "Craft & Art" track, Ryokai and Rosner will present "Reflections on Craft: Probing the Creative Process of Everyday Knitters." The two are exploring the intersection of traditional techniques such as weaving and pottery with new information and communication technologies; in this research, they conducted a qualitative study of crafters introduced to technology that digitally augments craft practice.
Rosner explored similar questions in her Chen award–winning 2008 master's project "Spyn", a system for knitters to record, recall, and share information surrounding the process of handcraft.
Ryokai's research focuses on building new expressive tools that take advantage of people's familiarity with the physical world, and studying how new media expand that interaction space. She also teaches the school's popular " Tangible User Interfaces" course.
The 7th Creativity and Cognition Conference will be held October 27–30 at UC Berkeley and the Berkeley Art Museum. The conference provides a forum for lively interdisciplinary debate exploring methods and tools to support creativity at the intersection of art and technology. The conference brings together academics and practitioners, makers and scientists, artists and theoreticians.
The conference is sponsored ACM SIGCHI (Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interaction), in cooperation with SIGMM, SIGART, and SIGSOFT.
