C05: Data Through Matter: Bio-based material systems in HCI

Abstract

This course examines how bio-based and regenerative materials can expand the scope of sustainable Human–Computer Interaction beyond digital interfaces. As HCI increasingly engages with sensing, health, and long-term material impact, a central challenge for the fi eld emerges: how can data be experienced through materials that grow, change, and decay over time rather than through screens or discrete outputs?

Structured into three modules, the half-day, on-site course combines instructor-led demonstrations and guided design exercises. It is primarily demonstrative, presenting projects and research involving living cells, microbiomes, and biosensors alongside no-risk hands-on engagement using biochemically responsive materials such as pH-sensitive hydrogels. Material work focuses on observing how these benign systems can be applied as fibers, coatings, and surfaces.

The first module introduces biological sensing as a form of computation through a biome-mapping activity. Participants use visual tools to situate microbial and bio-based systems within everyday personal and environmental contexts, developing an understanding of how invisible biological processes shape interaction and material experience.

The second module centers on biointeractive textiles through demonstrations of responsive materials. Instructors present pre-prepared examples to show how material response can register and indicate environmental or bodily change, illustrating how data can be embedded directly in matter without electronics. Limited, guided hands-on exploration may be offered using non-toxic, pre-prepared materials.

The final module shifts toward design scenarios and material ecologies. Participants explore how slow, material-based data systems might operate in contexts of health, care, and sustainability, alongside conceptual mapping of circular material flows and discussion of AI tools for biomaterials design.

The course is intended for HCI researchers, designers, educators, and practitioners interested in sustainable interaction and material-centered methods. It positions bio-based materials within Sustainable HCI as both a design method and an interaction medium, and explores how material-centered and more-than-human perspectives can inform responsible, ecologically grounded approaches to interaction design.

Course Content

Structured into three modules, this half-day, on-site course brings together biological sensing, bio-based material systems, and interaction design. The course is designed to be primarily demonstrative and conceptual, combining instructor-led presentations of existing projects and research involving living cells, microbiomes, and biosensors with guided, no-risk engagement using biochemically responsive materials such as pH-sensitive hydrogels. Material demonstrations focus on how these benign systems can be applied across different form factors, including fi bers, coatings, and surfaces. The remaining activities emphasize conceptual mapping, design reasoning, and critical discussion.

Through examples from Sustainable and Microbial HCI—such as biofi lm-based displays, olfactory biosensors, and embroidered living circuits—the course shows how biological processes can become legible and interpretable within interaction design. Participants gain both conceptual and applied understanding of how synthetic biology, computation, and craft practices intersect in HCI, and how material behavior can function as a form of data representation when materials are dynamic, responsive, and situated.

Module One: Computing with Microbes (60min)
This module introduces environmental microbiomes as biological systems capable of sensing and responding to environmental and physiological conditions. The focus is on understanding microbes as information-processing entities. Participants are guided through a biome-mapping activity that situates microbial and bio-based systems within everyday personal and environmental contexts such as water, air, soil, indoor spaces, and the human body.
All activities in this module are conceptual and paper-based. Participants use printed templates, diagrams, and drawing tools to visualize relationships between biological systems and daily environments. No biological materials are handled. Examples from the BioInteractive Design Lab and Microbial HCI research introduce WCBSs as a design medium and frame living systems as computational and relational partners within HCI.
Activity format: Guided biome-mapping using visual tools, followed by discussion and refl ection.

Module Two: Biointeractive Textiles (90min)
This module presents textiles as programmable, bio-based material systems that can express data through material response rather than electronics. The module is primarily demonstration-based. Instructors introduce embroidery, coating, wet-spinning, and extrusion as fabrication approaches for integrating biochemically responsive materials into textile form factors.
Demonstrations use pre-prepared, non-toxic systems such as pH-sensitive hydrogels, thermochromic materials, and related fi llers applied as fi bers, surface coatings, and textile substrates. These examples show how the same material logic can operate across multiple physical formats. Stimuli such as heat and moisture are applied exclusively by the instructors using safe, household-level tools (e.g., warm air and controlled water application).
Participants may engage in limited, guided hands-on exploration using pre-prepared, benign materials under supervision. No live microbes or hazardous chemicals are used, and no laboratory infrastructure is required.
Activity format: Instructor-led demonstrations with optional, low-risk guided material interaction and discussion.

Module Three: Biomarkers for Health and Wellness (60min)
This module shifts from material systems to application contexts and design frameworks. It explores how bio-based and material-based data systems might operate in personal healthcare and environmental sensing contexts when signals are slow, evolving, and embodied in matter. Participants consider how interpretation changes when data is expressed through material transformation rather than real-time digital displays.
The module is fully conceptual and discussion-based. Activities include scenario building, conceptual mapping of biomarker interactions, and refl ection on ethical questions such as responsibility, care, and data meaning. The session also introduces critical perspectives on AI tools for biomaterials design and data interpretation.
Activity format: Group-based design scenarios, conceptual mapping, and guided discussion focused on future interaction paradigms and sustainable material systems.