Performative experience design: where autobiographical performance and human–computer interaction meet

Abstract

This paper identifies theories and practices specific to performance art for the purpose of describing a potentially fruitful area of exchange between non-representational performance and human-computer interaction (HCI). We identify three strands of current HCI research that are already working in this area of overlap, which we have termed Performative Experience Design. We then single out one of these strands, digitally augmented autobiographical performance, for further examination. Digitally augmented autobiographical performance draws on both autobiographical performance, which we see as rooted in performance and performance art, and media sharing, a field of research within HCI.Drawing on our experiences of designing a digital system for autobiographical performance, we offer a series of proposals for HCI research and applications of Performative Experience Design. KeywordsPerformance art, performance, human-computer interaction, interaction design, experience design, Performative Experience Design, autobiography, digitally augmented autobiographical storytelling, user roles, play Main text IntroductionThe field of human-computer interaction (HCI) has incorporated an increasingly wide range of approaches over the years. First-wave HCI, with its focus on the usability of a particular machine for a particular task, gave way to second-wave HCI, which paid attention to situated, contextualised use. The second wave has in recent years begun to give way to a third wave, which reaches for new theoretical and methodological tools to understand the rapidly shifting terrain of ubiquitous technologies that are 'non-work, non-purposeful, non-rational' (Bødker The first aim of this paper is to identify an existing and potentially fruitful area of overlap between the fields of performance art and HCI, which we argue can usefully be termed Performative Experience Design (PED). We have created this label not just to give a new name to existing work but to illuminate the specific ways in which performance art might further enrich these and other areas of HCI research that share similar goals. Having established the rationale for understanding PED as a category of the juncture of performance and HCI, this paper moves on to its second aim: a more detailed analysis of one of the strands of PED, called digitally augmented autobiographical performance. We argue that this strand grows out of traditions of performance and overlaps with research into media sharing within HCI, which is becoming increasingly important in light of the rapid development of social networking and the 'free' digital photography available via every smartphone. We then offer the third aim of the paper, a set of proposals for HCI research, particularly in media sharing, drawn from theories and practices of autobiographical performance.

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