This paper offers a theoretical and methodological framework of ‘techno-aesthetic encounters’ that supports nonlinear (situated, materially-driven, and multi-sensory) and art-based modes of inquiry in HCI and the broader STEM fields. We first investigate recent literatures in HCI and science and technology studies (STS) that explore nonlinear modes of practice and creativity in processes of technology design, and argue that better recognition of these dynamics may open space for art-based and nonlinear leaners and makers to more actively engage in HCI research and design. To meet this need, we study three renowned art-and-engineering practitioners (Klüver, Paik, Moog) and our own experimental project titled ‘The Electronicists’ in which participants from different disciplines collaborated to produce three hybrid works. Based on this work, we propose a framework of ‘techno-aesthetic encounters’ that pursues event-based creativity through the mediation of engineering, art, and humanistic engagements. We suggest trust-based experiments, error-engaged studio, and art-based ethnography as promising methodological tenets of this approach.

'I Want To' is an interactive installation controlled by live Twitter messages. One hundred custom designed wooden toys, a television screen and speakers comprise the installation. The system extracts public Twitter messages that start with 'I want to.' The expression 'want to' becomes 'have to', and the newly composed sentence is displayed on the television screen while also being vocalized through speakers. With each "I have to" phrase, the wooden toys respond by marching in unison. This installation gives the audience an opportunity to explore our hopes and desires as unconscious internalizations of external expectations and social norms.

This paper examines the question of "values in repair" -- the distinct forms of meaning and care that may be built into human-technology interactions through individual and collective acts of repair. Our work draws on research in HCI and the social sciences and findings from ethnographic studies in four sites -- two amateur "fixers" collectives' in Brooklyn and Seattle, USA and two mobile phone repair communities in Uganda and Bangladesh -- to advance two arguments. First, studies of repair account for new sites and processes of value that differ from those appearing at HCI's better-studied moments of design and use. Second, repair may embed modes of human interaction with technology and with each other in ways that surface values as contingent and ongoing accomplishments, suggesting ongoing processes of valuation that can never be fully fixed or commoditized. These insights help HCI account for human relationships to technology built into the world through repair.

This paper describes an integrated program of theoretical, ethnographic, and building work meant to explore post-humanist alternatives to questions around HCI creativity and design. We review recent theories in the humanities, social sciences, and HCI that argue for different ways of framing the relationship between human agents and the object world around them. We then describe a program of ethnographic work with artists who feature found and broken technologies as central methods and topics of work. Finally, we describe an installation and self-study project of our own, 'Scale,' that extends these lines of analysis through collaborative acts of building with broken and discarded technologies. We argue that such integrated programs of work offer one useful model for leveraging the theoretical, ethnographic and material dimensions of HCI work; and that the distinct 'propensities' of found and broken objects can challenge and extend HCI notions of creativity and design itself.