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Playful Research Fiction: A Fictional Conference

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Funology 2

Abstract

Fiction has long been important to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research and practice. Through familiar tools such as personas, scenarios and role-play, fictions can support the exploration and communication of complex psychological, social and technical requirements between diverse collections of designers, developers and end-users. More recently, HCI and design research has embraced the development and evaluation of make-believe technologies as a way to speculate and study the possible future effects of technological innovation, since it enables us to unpack and understand the implications of technology that does not yet exist. In this chapter we explore the weird relationship between fiction and technology research through the lens of a fictional conference, a playful project that gathered ideas about fiction in research through fictional research, and explore the fluid relationship between the real and unreal in HCI.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the contributors to the conference for their engagement and contributions: Imran Ali, Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, @_CHINOSAUR, Sally Jo Cunningham, Andy Darby, Mark Dudlik, Chris Elsden, Enrique Encinas, Lidia Facchinello, Leo Frishberg, Jennifer Golbeck, Ben Griffin, Estelle Hary, Clive Holtham, Alan Hook, Jon Hook, Jo Iacovides, Josh T. Jordan, Juho Hamari, Aaron Kashtan, Bastien Kerspern, David Kirk, Eva Knutz, Charles Lambdin, Tau Lenskjold, Andreas Lieberoth, Caitlin Lustig, Yana Malysheva, Thomas Markussen, Louise Mullagh, Michael Muller, Serena Pollastri, Søren Rosenbak, John S. Seberger, Dhruv Sharma, Jaakko Stenros, Josh Tanenbaum, Anita Marie Tsaasan, Marian Ursu, Susann Wagenknecht, and Ding Wang.

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Correspondence to Ben Kirman .

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Kirman, B. et al. (2018). Playful Research Fiction: A Fictional Conference. In: Blythe, M., Monk, A. (eds) Funology 2. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68213-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68213-6_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68212-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68213-6

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