Working at the boundaries: how intersections can inform innovation

This talk is about the spaces between things, and how investigating such spaces can open up new areas for research and technological innovation. Specifically, I will discuss the spaces between what might appear unlikely bedfellows, for example, between the ordered and cluttered areas of the homes we live in, between scientific method and design practice and, as odd as it may seem, between artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction (HCI). Drawing on my own ethnographic research of family life and, more recently, of design practice at the Royal College of Art, I will make a case that it’s often from these regions of ‘betweeness’ or liminality that novel approaches and creative ideas emerge. I will use this position to outline a research proposal for a Post Doc at MSRC, suggesting that MSRC provides a site of unparalleled opportunity for revisiting the intersection between HCI and technology-led research like AI/machine learning. My proposal outlines a project for investigating this intersection and considering how it might inform and enrich new avenues of research.