Intelligent Environments conference

Special Session on Social and Psychological Dimensions of Designing and Experiencing Intelligent Environments in the Urban Context.
session organizers:Dr. Dimitris Charitos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Everyday urban environments can be seen as complex spatial systems, which function as contexts for supporting communication. In the beginning of the 21st century, these environments are radically being re-ordered by technological systems and networks. These environments may also incorporate systems, which capture visual, auditory and other types of information regarding human activity and consequently utilize this input to affect the process of generating digital representations. Very recent advances in mobile, wireless, pervasive and ubiquitous computing technologies have begun to transform the potential for social interaction taking place within urban public space. We can therefore put forward the hypothesis that the incorporation of ICT systems results in an electronic enhancement of our everyday urban environment since our communication with these environments and with other individuals who exist and act within them is mediated by these systems. The most advanced form of these mediated spaces incorporate intelligence thus affording a novel type of mediation. These intelligent environments could be regarded as spatial interfaces that expand in physical space and integrate with it, thus affording a hybrid (physical and mediated) spatial experience, in the context of which a novel form of social interaction may occur. Thus, the experience of interacting with/within an intelligent environment may affect the way that users perceive the relation between the physical world and the technologically mediated environment and consequently the way that they experience and conceive of urban public space and everyday life within it. The significance of these changes for social life in a 21st century city is the main motivation for proposing this special session. The focus of the session is on investigating the emergence of intelligent environments and the impact that the implementation and use of such systems has on their users, from a social and psychological perspective and ultimately on mediated communication taking place within the context of these spaces. Particular emphasis is given to investigating the manner in which the urban spatial context, where situated communication occurs, is transformed by the introduction of these technologies. Indeed, when we refer to multi-user intelligent environment systems, these could be seen as communication environments, which function as systems supporting interpersonal computer-mediated communication; within the context of these environments, communication amongst locally or remotely located, networked individuals is mediated. Intelligent environments are systems of situated, context-aware communication.They bring human-computer communication and human-computer-human communication back into the context of our physical world, instead of expecting humans to adapt to the needs of a computer environment. In order to understand the social ramifications of these mediated spaces, it is important to: investigate the impact that the kind of interpersonal communication they support has on our everyday experience within the urban context; propose conceptual models for understanding the use and impact of such systems; study the use and impact of these systems from a user perspective, regarding either the personal or the interpersonal aspect of this use. The proposed special session welcomes contributions that will spark discussions on the personal and social implications and effects of using urban intelligent systems, which may consequently be useful for informing the design of such interactive environmental experiences.
For more information please contact: Dr. Dimitris Charitos, vedesign@otenet.gr, UOA, Greece.
www.media.uoa.gr/~charitos
See: http://conferences.theiet.org/ie08/cfp.htm for more info