ACM ISS 2026 · Half‑Day Workshop

Sense, Show, Act

Placement-Aware Sensing, Visualization, and Interaction on Interactive Surfaces

ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces (ISS) 2026 · Nov 23, 2026 · Turin, Italy

Submit to the workshop About the workshop

About the workshop

Three strands: position-aware sensing, visualization, & interaction

Interactive surfaces and spaces increasingly need to know what objects are placed on or near them and where and how they sit – and to turn that knowledge into meaningful interaction. This challenge spans three tightly coupled strands: placement-aware sensing of object type, position, and orientation via hardware-, marker-, or vision-based approaches; placement-aware visualization through displays, light, projection, or XR, anchored to physical objects; and placement-aware interaction, in which placing, moving, altering, and removing objects are deliberate activities. Choices in any one strand constrain the other two.

Diagram of the Sense, Show, Act cycle: Sense detects object type, position and orientation; Show renders situated output anchored to objects; Act treats placement itself as the interaction. The three connect in a continuous loop, framed by responsible research & innovation and life-centered design.

Sense capacitive & conductive markers, RFID/NFC tags, camera-based vision etc. – knowing what's placed, and where.
Show on-display rendering, projection, ambient light, XR etc. – anchoring output to physical objects.
Act placing, nudging, rotating, stacking, removing etc. – placement itself as the interaction.

This half-day workshop brings together researchers and practitioners across all three strands to jointly map the design space of placement-aware interactive surfaces and to explore novel techniques. Through position papers, hands-on demos, and structured ideation combining insight harvesting/combination with design studio techniques under lifecycle constraints, participants will develop application concepts, identify open challenges, and initiate collaborations toward a shared research agenda, published proceedings, novel methods, and cross-community follow-up projects.

Exemplary Domains

Kitchens
Makerspaces
Museums
In-vehicle systems
Control rooms
Board games
…

Workshop goals

Discussing an integrated design space across sensing, visualization & interaction
Identify open research challenges at the seams between the strands
Generate cross-disciplinary application concepts through structured ideation
Initiate lasting collaborations and follow-up work

Call for Participation

Submit to the workshop

We invite (a) position papers and (b) short technical or work-in-progress papers, or (c) demo abstracts of 1-4 pages, encouraging participants to bring prototypes, printed objects, sensing rigs, or visualization demos.
Submissions should address at least one focus area – placement-aware sensing, visualization, or interaction, including XR scenarios in which physical placement shapes augmented, mixed, or virtual experiences – and are encouraged to reflect on lifecycle, sustainability, or more-than-human implications.
At least one author of each accepted submission must register for the conference and attend the workshop. We aim to gather about 15 – 20 participants from diverse areas.

Category A

Position papers

2–4 pages, excl. references · single-column ACM format

Category B

Short / work-in-progress papers

2–4 pages, excl. references · single-column ACM format

Category C

Demo abstracts

1–2 pages · bring prototypes, sensing rigs, or visualization demos

How to submit

Email your PDF submission to:

Important Dates

Timeline

Aug 12, 2026 Website & call live
Oct 21, 2026 Extended submission deadline – short papers & demos
Oct 26, 2026 Notification to authors
Nov 2, 2026 Camera-ready due
Nov 9, 2026 Pre-workshop reading package sent
Nov 22, 2026 Workshop day

Half-day, in-person workshop with about 15 – 20 participants

Short talks & demos lay the foundation for a structured ideation process

Held on Nov 23, 2026 – the first day of the ACM ISS 2026 conference

Workshop Day

Nov 23, 2026 — tentative schedule

A half-day program: short talks and demos feed a structured ideation process, from individual sketching to a shared research agenda. Subject to change.

0:00–0:15 Welcome, goals, lightning introductions Plenary
0:15–0:45 Keynote bridging the three strands Talk & Q&A
0:45–1:30 Paper & demo madness, ~5 min per contribution Short talks
1:30–1:40 Short break —
1:40–2:10 Provocation: sustainability & life-centered design Impulse talk
2:10–2:35 Insight wall clustering & affinity mapping Plenary
2:35–3:20 Ideation: design studio in mixed teams Teams of 4–6
3:20–3:45 Report-backs & synthesis: design space and research agenda Discussion
3:45–4:00 Roadmap: publications, collaboration matchmaking, next steps Plenary

Organizers

Who's behind it

Lukas A. Flohr

Professor of Interactive Media Production at TH Rosenheim, Germany
Julia Dominiak

Assistant Professor at Lodz University of Technology, Poland & NAWA Bekker Programme fellow at TU Wien, Austria
Julian Rasch

Researcher and PhD Student at the Media Informatics Group at LMU Munich, Germany
Bastian Pfleging

Professor for Ubiquitous Computing and Smart Systems at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany
Paweł W. Woźniak

Professor for Human-Computer Interaction and Head of a research unit at TU Wien, Austria
Sebastian S. Feger

Professor and Director of the study program Smart Interactive Media at TH Rosenheim, Germany

The full proposal

This workshop's ACM ISS 2026 proposal as a PDF.

First page preview of the Sense, Show, Act ACM ISS 2026 workshop proposal PDF

Sense, Show, Act — Workshop Proposal PDF · ACM ISS 2026 · 8 pages Open the full PDF →