New York, NY, USA -- We all have expectations of how we expect to interact with machines, from computers to VCR's to toasters. How these expectations were shaped will be the topic of the opening plenary presentation at this year's CHI 97 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Rick Prelinger, President of Prelinger Archives and author of a recently released 12 CD-ROM set entitled Our Secret Century will open the conference by examining the historical roots of our current perceptions of how we should interact with computers in a presentation titled "Utopia Appropriated: The Future as it Was."
These historical expectations have not been realized. Many users thought that life would be more magical in the future: that there would be an end to routine housework, temporal and spatial limitations would be abolished, and that "thinking" machines would be commonplace. Our major problem would be what to do with all our leisure time.
Prelinger will document the history of these ideas from the 30's through the 70's using clips from his huge collection of rare advertising and industrial films, "movies made to turn Americans into obedient children, better students, harder workers, and freer-spending consumers" says Prelinger. Responding to the privations of the Depression, according to Prelinger, "American corporations synthesized a group vision of a bright future enabled by high technology. This vision hardened into a mythology, then a set of clichés." He will use his presentation to illustrate social and cultural issues of importance today, as well as in our future.
The CHI conference features a full program of presentations, tutorials and vendor exhibits. Participants come from both academia and industry, from around the world. This annual conference is the premier worldwide forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of how people interact with computers. CHI conferences are sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM)'s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI).
The theme for 1997 is "Looking to the Future." Approximately 2,500 user interface designers, managers, researchers, designers, educators, artists, writers and students will join to look into human-computer interaction from March 22-27, 1997 in Atlanta, GA at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta Hotel.
The CHI conference is traditionally supported by industry organizations. The CHI 97 corporate sponsors are: Andersen Consulting, Apple Computer, AT&T, Bell South, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, NCR, NYNEX, Oracle, Philips, Rent-a-Computer, Sun Microsystems and Unisys.
For more information, contact the CHI 97 Conference office at +1 410 263 5382, send e-mail to CHI97-help@acm.org or look at the CHI 97 home page at: https://chi1997.acm.org/