At the heart of the Cultural Technologies theme is a desire to understand the full richness of human experience and personal relations, and use this understanding to develop technology that make people's lives more meaningful. It is becoming increasingly clear that technologists need to look beyond the confines of their own disciplines if they are to address the problem of creating technology that enhances, rather than diminishes, our experience of the world. The Cultural Technologies theme seeks to enable this by facilitating research collaborations between computing scientists, electronic engineers, and researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Interdisciplinary approaches are already apparent in some areas of computing science research, such as human-computer interaction and systems design, where techniques from anthropology and sociology have helped computer scientists address some of the richness of real-world settings. Cultural Technologies engages architects, musicians, artists, film makers and social scientists in the exploration of the nature of people's encounters with technology, in particular, in relation the everyday scenarios envisaged by proponents of pervasive computing - a future in which technology is integrated into the very fabric of the world around us.
Cultural Technologies is also concerned with the use of technology in the practices and methods of arts, humanities and social science researchers themselves, where we believe both existing and future technologies have the potential to significantly further the goals of these disciplines.
