Sense, Show, Act

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 22, 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

  1. Discussing an integrated design space across sensing, visualization & interaction
  2. Identify open research challenges at the seams between the strands
  3. Generate cross-disciplinary application concepts through structured ideation
  4. 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:

Submission deadline Sep 15, 2026

Accepted papers are planned for open-access publication – e.g., via CEUR Workshop Proceedings, arXiv, or similar – subject to author consent.

Important Dates

Timeline

  1. Aug 12, 2026 Website & call live
  2. Oct 09, 2026 Submission deadline – short papers & demos
  3. Oct 16, 2026 Notification to authors
  4. Oct 30, 2026 Camera-ready due
  5. Nov 9, 2026 Pre-workshop reading package sent
  6. 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 22, 2026 – the day before the main ACM ISS 2026 conference

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