The Otherware Network

WHAT IS “OTHERWARE”?

Most approaches in Human-Computer Interaction follow the ideal of embodied interaction. However, more and more technologies evolve, such as chatbots, smart voice interfaces, and domestic or social robots, that imply a fundamentally different relationship between human and technology. This “Otherware” presents itself either incidentally or by design as computational counterpart rather than as embodied extension of the Self. The predominant strategy to design form and interaction with otherware is to mimic humans or animals (i.e., naïve anthropomorphism or zoomorphism). While this strategy has some advantages, we call for exploring an alternative, namely to cultivate the otherness of computational counterparts rather than to mimic existing lifeforms.

WHY AND FOR WHOM?

The Otherware Network aims to initiate a research and design network where the HCI community can actively participate, contribute to and deepen research on Otherware, especially from an interaction perspective. What are alternatives to naïve anthropomorphism and zoomorphism? How should computational counterparts look, behave, and communicate? What are the beneficial application areas of Otherware?

As an interdisciplinary research community, HCI provides several perspectives on such a topic. Together with computer scientists, psychologists, designers and artists we want to speculate on alternative models of interacting with Otherware and appropriate forms of otherness. It lays the foundation for a more nuanced perspective on how to design the interaction with computational counterparts besides embodied interaction.

WHO ARE THE INITIATORS?

The Otherware Network is an initiative of the Faculty of Business Informatics at the University of Siegen, the Chairs of Individual and Technology and Media Informatics and Human-Computer Interaction at the RWTH Aachen University and the Chair of Media Informatics and Multimedia Systems at the University of Oldenburg.

The Otherware Network is currently organized, hosted and administered by Marc Hassenzahl, Matthias Laschke, Volker Wulf, Jan Borchers, Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten, and Susanne Boll.

http://otherware.net/

The Otherware Network is an initiative of the Faculty of Business Informatics at the University of Siegen, the Chairs of Individual and Technology and Media Informatics and Human-Computer Interaction at the RWTH Aachen University, and the Chair of Media Informatics and Multimedia Systems at the University of Oldenburg.