Hi everyone,

Just a reminder that our next Dynamic Abstractions Reading Group is coming up next Friday, July 25 at 12 pm EST / 9 am PST!

🔍 Topic

The Creation, Evolution, and Formalization of New Notational Systems
We will discuss the topic of the "Creation, Evolution, and Formalization of New Notations"—why and how are new notational systems made? How do they evolve? How do they become “formalized” over time (come to be seen as “formal”... what does being "formal" mean)? And finally, how could a better, systematic understanding of notation evolution shed light on interface design (in this new era of LLM-frozen-culture, where systems tend to amplify existing, popular notations)?

🎙 Speaker: Ian Arawjo
🗓 Date: Next Friday, July 25
🕛 Time: 12 pm EST / 9 am PST
📍 Zoom link: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/85916011665
🗓️ Add to Calendar
– Google Calendar
– iCal (See attached)

👤 Speaker Bio

Ian is an Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Montréal in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research (DIRO), where he is also affiliated with Mila. He founded the Montréal HCI group and created the popular ChainForge visual programming environment for prompt engineering and LLM evaluation. His recent work deals with topics around LLM evaluation, human-AI grounding, and pen-based notational interfaces. In the past, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, working with Professor Elena Glassman.

📖 Reading:
There’s no required reading, but for those curious, Ian suggests:

• Languages of Art – Goodman (particularly the chapter on notation)

• Experiments, Models, Paper Tools: Cultures of Organic Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century – Klein

• Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being – Lakoff & Núñez

• Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics – Kaiser

• Cognitive Dimensions of Notations – Green, Blackwell et al.

• To Write Code: The Cultural Fabrication of Programming Notation and Practice – Ian’s own work

Don’t miss out on another exciting session, and feel free to share this with others who might be interested.

Have a great weekend!

Best,
Sangho
(on behalf of the Dynamic Abstractions Reading Group)

🔗 Links
– Dynamic Abstractions Homepage
– Reading Group Page
– Join Discord