From June 22^nd to 24^th 2022, the TRACTION project had a presence at the ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX) hosted by the University of Aveiro in Aveiro, Portugal. The conference gathers an international community of researchers and professionals in human-computer interaction, design, and sociology.

Two peer reviewed works from the TRACTION project were presented by Sueyoon Lee and Thomas Röggla from CWI, a work-in-progress, and a demo paper.

Titled “Designing a VR Lobby for Remote Opera Social Experiences, ” the work-in-progress paper was presented to the “Future Immersive Media Application” track, and described the design and implementation of a social VR lobby part of the project. Conference participants learned about TRACTION and the social VR research during a pitch talk. Then, at the poster session, visitors learned about the goal for the VR lobby, and how it will be evaluated in context of the INO VR opera.

Similarly, the demo paper “The Co-Creation Space: An Online Safe Space for Community Opera Creation” presented the design and development of the Co-creation Space (CCS), a web-based tool that has been used to support community art creation processes with the INO and LICEU. During a pitch talk, conference participants learned about the tool and the TRACTION project, and during the poster session were invited to interact with a live version of the application.

This year’s IMX tagline, “Interactive Media Brings Us Together”, reflects the values and goals of the TRACTION project. The conference is a perfect venue for presenting work related to TRACTION, and for networking in the media field.