Media Showcase Call for Participation

Quick Facts

Video Trailer and Demonstration Supplement due: 9 October 2009 (5:00pm PDT)
Online submission: PCS submission system
Initial Notification of Acceptance: 28 November 2009 (5:00pm PDT)
Extended Abstract due: 7 January 2010 (5:00pm PDT)
Final Notification of Acceptance: 30 January 2010
Camera Ready Abstract due: TBD February 2010
Submission Format: Video Trailer followed by Extended Abstract.
A template for demonstration supplements is provided here.
At the Conference: Interactive demos/performances will occur during the conference at the CHI Media Studio (the exhibition hall). In the World demos will scheduled to occur during the conference at locations around downtown Atlanta. Video submissions at will be screened in the Video Showcase and looped for playback in the CHI Media Studio (the exhibition hall). On opening night we will host the Best of CHI Media Showcase will present the best of Media submissions and Golden Mouse Awards will be given in Oscar-ceremony style.
Archives: Videos will be archived online and the Extended Abstracts will be included in the ACM Digital Library
Contact the CHI Media Showcase Chairs: mediashowcase@chi2010.org

What is CHI Media Showcase?

The CHI Media Showcase is your chance to fully engage CHI attendees at a personal level by letting them see, touch, squeeze, hear or even smell your visions for the future of HCI. The CHI Media Showcase combines together multiple venues from previous CHI conferences, including the Video Showcase, Design Vignettes, and Interactivity.

CHI Media Showcase provides a venue for researchers, practitioners, and artists to demonstrate prototypes and systems in a variety of formats. The venue also enables designers and researchers to engage users/actors in actual use and interaction of their system/concepts. We are looking for the most innovative examples of interaction from all the CHI communities. Getting people hands-on with your design is often the best way to communicate what you have done. If you have a prototype to interact with, a video to view, or a performance to put on - then we want you to submit it to CHI Media Showcase!

CHI Media Showcase is a juried track for CHI 2010. Juried content will be reviewed by a jury of experts that will evaluate the work based on its compellingness to CHI attendees. While not considered archival, content from most juried venues will be represented in the ACM Digital Library through Extended Abstracts. In addition, select video trailers will be archived online.

Preparing and Submitting your CHI Media Showcase Proposal

In The Media Showcase it is possible to submit work that has already been published elsewhere, as long as you make this clear in the submission.

In particular, we encourage Media Showcase submissions that complement a CHI 2010 Paper or Note submission, so that attendees can get a direct experience of your work in addition to the technical presentation.

Submission Components

Part 1: Video Trailer and Demonstration Supplement

(submit by October 9, 2009)

Participating in the CHI Media Showcase begins with the submission of a video trailer. The video trailer should be 1-3 minutes in length and clearly describe your concept.

The key purpose of the video is to communicate to the reviewers your proposal for the CHI Media Showcase. The content of the video will vary depending on how you want to participate in the showcase. For example, if you want to give a music or theatre performance, the video should contain an excerpt of what you will perform. If you want to give a demo of an interactive system, the video should show a working version of the system. If you want to screen a video in the showcase, your submission video should be an excerpt of the final video. More information about the submission categories are provided below. The only limits of content for the video trailer are your imagination! Just be sure that your video communicates to reviewers your proposal for the CHI Media Showcase.

In addition to your video trailer, you must submit a demonstration supplement. If your final format is going to be a Video, the demonstration supplement should be minimal and briefly explain your concept. If your final format is a Performance, Demo, or In the World event the supplement describes how you wish to present your project in the CHI 2010 Media Showcase. It should contain details on how the demonstration will be executed in practice, and how visitors will interact with your work during the conference. The interaction can be described in the form of a short usage scenario, storyboard sketch, screenshots, illustrations, photos, and/or textual description. The demonstration supplement should also include technical requirements such as preferred setting, space, power, networking, lighting, acoustics, and any necessary special equipment. Demonstration supplement materials are for the purposes of review only and will not be published. This document should be thorough but concise and should not exceed four pages. A template for demonstration supplements is provided here.

Part 2: Extended Abstract (if entry is accepted)

(Submit by January 7th, 2010)

The abstract is a camera-ready 4-6 page short paper in the Extended Abstract format. You need to submit an abstract only if and after your submission has been accepted. This abstract will be published in the CHI 2010 Extended Abstracts publication and included in the ACM Digital Library. Therefore it should be self-contained and clearly describe the novelty and distinguishing ideas of your project, even for readers who were not able to view your demonstration at the conference.

To give the reviewers and readers a comprehensive picture of your project, your extended abstract should include:

a description of the system and the problem it addresses
a description of the audience the work intends to serve
a description of the relevance of the work to both the community to which you are submitting this and to the broader CHI community, emphasizing its novelty, uniqueness, and rationale
a statement about the commercial status of the technology
a statement on the context in which the work has been created (e.g. as research, art, education, etc.)

What are the possible modes of presentation for the CHI Media Showcase?

CHI Media Showcase offers four modes of presentation for submissions to the CHI Media Showcase: as Videos, as Demos, as Performances, or as "In-The-World" events. In the submission process, you will be asked to specify the most appropriate presentation mode(s) for your work. You should also note this in the demonstration supplement.

Videos

Video will be screened in front of a large audience. The video could tell the story of a new design, a new vision, or a new interaction technique, or even an interesting failure, or whatever is in your imagination. The video could demonstrate prototypes, systems, design concepts, visions of HCI, uses of technology in novel contexts or extreme environments, telling the story of how technology is used by a community. For example, in addition to prototype and research system demonstrations, we are also interested in submissions of compelling videos and human interest stories with a technological twist coming from ethnographic studies, technologies in the developing world, etc. The key here is to tell a story that is engaging and which sparks the imagination of the viewer. The video content is up to you.

Demos

Demos are demonstrations of interactive systems. If for instance you have designed an MP3 player for athletes, found a new way to get gestural control out of an accelerometer, come up with a great new way to educate cognitively challenged students, just made a breakthrough in direct brain-computer interfaces, constructed a new ergonomically designed input device, devised a new way to organize scheduling based on physical-digital artifact, or if you have come up with anything else that would be interesting for CHI 2010 attendees to interact with, then submit a demo! A Demo will take place at a table or booth in the exhibition hall. If you want to demonstrate a system that takes place outside of the exhibition hall, for example, a mobile game, an augmented reality application, or an architectural projection system, you should submit under the category "In the World."

Performances

Performances are presented in a proscenium, concert-style venue with the audience seated. Technical support is limited to basic audiovisual equipment and equipment you are able to provide yourself, and the stage dimensions for your performance may be limited. If your work exceeds 10 minutes in duration, CHI may ask you to present an excerpt of your work if it is selected for the conference. Please indicate the total duration of your performance in your demonstration supplement.

Performance submissions are particularly encouraged in two categories:

Musical performances enable you to perform compelling music showcasing new interfaces for musical expression and/or new techniques for interfacing traditional musicians with computers. Submitted works scored for 1-5 musicians (violin, cello, flute, clarinet or saxophone, and percussion) will be considered for performance at CHI by Sonic Generator. That ensemble, which is in residence at Georgia Tech, includes some of the best chamber musicians in Atlanta and several members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
Design Theater enables you to share your findings, methods, ideas, and concepts with the public through a staged performance or re-enactment.

In-The-World events

In-the-world events are similar to demos, but they take place outside of the exhibition hall. If your design and research activities are all about urban environment and you have system you would like to demo in the streets of Atlanta, then you should submit to the In The World category. We are particularly interested in ubicomp, augmented-reality, and location based systems that make use of the city. If you have any specific requirements or locales, please let us know. Although In The World events do not take place in the exhibition hall, you can request a table for showcasing your work in the hall as well; please indicate this in your demonstration supplement. Also, please note, you will be responsible for organizing the timing and participants of your event, and you should address this in your demonstration supplement.

CHI Media Showcase Review Process

Submissions to the CHI Media Showcase are juried. This means that the co-chairs will select a group of peers in HCI, Design, Music, and Art to review and judge the submissions together, in a collaborative jury process. The jury primarily looks for a combination of innovation and excellence. A longer list of traits the jury typically looks for includes originality, artistic achievement, technical accomplishment, technical innovation, production value, creativity, resolution, narrative quality, design, entertainment value, and advancement of interactivity.

The jury will be selected and organized by the CHI Media Showcase co-chairs:

Anijo Mathew, Institute of Design, IIT
Scott Pobiner, Parsons The New School for Design
Oscar Murillo, Microsoft
Jason Freeman, Georgia Institute of Technology
Carl DiSalvo, Georgia Institute of Technology
Shahram Izadi, Microsoft Research
Ed H. Chi, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)

What Will Happen at CHI 2010?

Accepted submissions to the CHI Media Showcase will be featured throughout the CHI 2010 conference.

Interactive demos/performances will occur during the conference at the CHI Media Studio (the exhibition hall).
In the World demos will scheduled to occur during the conference at locations around downtown Atlanta.
Videos at will be screened in the Video Showcase and looped for playback in the CHI Media Studio (the exhibition hall).

For any form of demo, the conference will provide a space for your demo, table and chairs if you request it, a power connection, and wireless internet connection (as provided by the main conference). Authors of accepted submissions are responsible for bringing and setting up the equipment that is required for their presentation, e.g. laptop computers, displays, projection screens, etc. If you have any special requirements such as furniture, props, etc. please first try to find a way to bring it to Atlanta, or investigate if you can rent or buy it when you arrive. If this is not possible you must notify the CHI Media Showcase chairs as soon as possible (preferably already in your Supplement) and we will try to work with you and the CHI 2010 organizers to meet your needs. To ensure that we can plan the demo areas properly, make sure to specify all needs in your demonstration supplement.

Third-party material and copyright

It is very important that you have the rights to use all the material that is contained in your submission, including music, video, images, etc. Attaining permissions to use video, audio, or pictures of identifiable people or proprietary content rests with the author, not the ACM or the CHI conference.

Submissions will not be published or shown at the conference without a signed form releasing publishing copyright to the ACM.

In addition, you will be allowing ACM and SIGCHI to upload your video into the ACM Digital Library and YouTube or equivalent video-sharing sites as a CHI2008 Video Showcase collection.

FAQ about submissions

May I submit my unfinished work as a "work in progress" if it is not complete by the submission deadline?
A work in progress may be submitted if it reasonably represents at least 80 percent of the final piece.

My piece makes use of commercially recorded music. Is this OK? What if I use my own rendition of someone else's song?
Using commercially recorded music in an video is only acceptable if you acquire synchronization rights for the recording you are using, or performance rights if you use your own rendition of someone else's song. Such rights are your responsibility, and CHI will not purchase these rights for you. While in many cases music rights can be obtained inexpensively, well-known popular music is frequently difficult to license.

Synchronization licenses must be secured for inclusion of copyrighted musical compositions in film or video presentations. Securing synchronization rights involves approvals from both the music publisher and the record label that owns the original master recording. This process is sometimes straightforward, sometimes painful, and sometimes, often for well-known popular recording artists, impossible. All submitters are encouraged to secure music rights for their films as early as possible in the production. For more information on music licensing, and to find the necessary contacts for the recording you would like to use, see the ASCAP and BMI web sites.

I'm trying to upload my film through the electronic submission system, and I can't tell if it's working. It's been going for over an hour since I clicked the Submit button.
Uploading a large movie file takes a significant amount of time even on a fast network connection. Even if it does not look like anything is happening, your movie file very likely is still uploading. Please test the system (and ideally, upload your final film) many days in advance of the deadline to gauge the upload time required for your material. Note that network performance may decrease close to the deadline due to the large number of submissions. Once your material is uploaded, a web page will indicate the successful upload, and you can return to the electronic submission page to re-download your material to verify that it uploaded properly.

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