Talk by Dr. Katie Seaborn (The University of Tokyo, Japan)

Speaker: Dr. Katie Seaborn (The University of Tokyo, Japan)

Title: Towards symbodiment for societal flourishing

Abstract:
The hyper-aged society is upon us in Japan. At the same time, Japan continues to lead the march into a future where technology is ubiquitous, with increasingly smaller and smarter devices becoming embedded in our work, social, and personal lives -- and even in our bodies. In this retrospective talk, I review the last eight years of my HCI research in and outside of Japan that is representative of these trajectories. Examples include: mixed reality gaming for older powered wheelchair users; persuasive and interactive anthropomorphic robots for behaviour change around recycling; and synchronous wearable computing games for intergenerational connectedness. From this, I propose a new social computing approach as a means of actively pursuing societal flourishing in Japan’s hyper-aged society: “symbodiment,” which merges the multiplicity and mutuality of symbiosis with computer-based augmentations and reconfigurations of human embodiment for prosocial ends.