Challenges and Opportunities for Designing with Biodata as Material

This one-day workshop will bring together researchers working with biodata and design for discussing and reflecting upon how design and HCI operate with the body and its data. The main workshop objective will be to identify core challenges and opportunities in this domain. We intend to cohere the projects of the workshop participants into a set of artifacts, images, and theory to create an annotated portfolio that represents the state-of-the art in designing with biodata in HCI. The workshop will be structured around four themes relating to the use and contexts of working with biodata: 1. Making sense of biodata by taking into account a holistic perspective of body, mind and emotions, as exemplified through soma design methods in HCI, for example; 2. Feminist perspectives of biodata that take into account bodily transitions, pluralities of bodies and temporalities of bodies; 3. Non-anthropocentric perspectives of working with and making sense of biodata, to also account for microorganisms and other material agencies in our bodies; and 4. Emerging domains, contexts, and practices around the use of biodata, such as health, affective, and performance contexts. The significance of the workshop is twofold: One, we will produce a group of researchers and practitioners that are working with biodata, aiming to unpack, discuss and respond to critical issues around designing with and for it. Two, we will create an annotated portfolio that can travel on its own as documentation and vision for future biodata-based design practices.