Technologies of Intimacies

Workshop at NordiCHI 2026

The idea of the computer as a neutral, work-driven object as the ideal has long been abandoned. HCI and CSCW communities continue to situate technology as a powerful mediator that people make sense with: Of themselves, of others, and the wider world. Unsurprisingly, as more computing and algorithms find their ways into people’s everyday lives, so does the perceived distance between us and our technologies shrink. This workshop seeks to explore, map and document practices of how we can research with and for technologies of intimacies in care-full, pluralistic and meaningful ways.

Organizers

  • Aska Mayer (M.A.) is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University, affiliated with its Game Research Lab. Aska's research is focused on DIY technology practices, technological augmentation of human interaction, and the transformation of bodily experiences through prosthetic and invasive technologies. Aska's work engages with cultural, technological, legislative, and idea-historical factors of augmentation technologies.

  • Dr. Velvet Spors (they/them) is an Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) of Human Centered Digital Design at the Technical University of Munich. Their research focuses on how technology mediates the relationship between people, others and the wider world—for better, or worse. They are currently exploring care-full, more-than-human ways of play to thrive and survive in the poly-crisis.

  • Dr. Jean Ketterling (she/her) is an Assistant Professors (Tenure-Track) in the Department of Political Studies—Gender, Sexualities and Social Justice Program at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her research focuses on how video games represent sex, their ability to make space for experimental sexual play, and how sexual content in video games is promoted, controlled, and regulated by platforms. Her current research focuses on the social, cultural, legal and economic factors that shape the production, distribution, and consumption of pornographic video games.

  • Ekat Osipova (M.A.) is a doctoral researcher at the TU Wien Human-Computer Interaction Group. Together with queer and disabled peers, Ekat is exploring intimacy from a neurodivergent standpoint. Ekat's research is guided by a range of critical, interdisciplinary lenses, including Critical Disability Studies, Queer Theory, and STS.

  • Dr. Angelika Strohmayer is an Associate Professor and co-lead of the Design Feminisms Research Group at Northumbria University. Angelika's post-disciplinary research explores opportunities for hopeful, care-ful, and trauma-informed participatory design in sensitive settings through the the co-production of interactive textile artefacts, facilitation of close encounters with difficult topics, and infrastructuring design-led agonistic conversations within and across ecosystems of care.

Call for Participation

In this workshop, we want to reflect and explore technologies of intimacy: technologies that enable, extend, modify, or generate new ways of engaging in intimate experiences.Participants are invited to submit a 1-2 page position paper (or pictorial) that showcases their understanding, reflection of or approach to the role for technology for experiences and practices of intimacy; be it “physically and/or emotionally close, personal, sexually intimate, private, caring, or loving”.Submission may address some of the following questions (and go beyond them):

  • What role does intimacy play in your own research?

  • Where does it manifest in your knowledge production?

  • How are you researching "intimately"?

  • What methods, practices and conduct supports or hinders such work?

  • How are you designing, developing and evaluating technologies of intimacy?

We encourage submissions from researchers of all career levels, who engage with technology across disciplines and analytical and reflective approaches that draw from fields such as sexology, psychology, critical humanities, human geography among others.The workshop is designed and intended to be on-site. Upon acceptance, we will ask participants for their accessibility requirements and we will try our best to accommodate those (e.g., by providing options for hybrid participation).The preliminary deadline for position papers is August 05, 2026 (AoE).
Decisions will be shared on August 15, 2026 (AoE).

Please send your position paper to [email protected]