Bring us your creative, tech-inspired projects — from robots to radical interfaces — and we’ll help you level them up with thoughtful, constructive feedback.

Open Circuit is HICAM’s design review night where artists, designers, engineers, and creative technologists gather for an evening of presentations, cross-disciplinary critique, and collaborative problem-solving. Whether you’re exploring speculative concepts, developing a fabrication technique, refining an interaction model, or wrestling with an engineering challenge, this is a space to step back, share your work, and receive constructive feedback from peers and HICAM’s expert team.

In art and design practice, a “crit” is a moment to pause, evaluate, and open your project to new perspectives. At HICAM, we broaden that tradition: Open Circuit invites creators working across technology, robotics, AI, advanced manufacturing, and hybrid art–engineering practices to showcase works in progress, surface questions, and gain insight from adjacent domains. Expect a mix of conceptual, technical, and practical dialogue — from material processes to human–machine interaction to systems thinking.

Themes in Focus

While not required, we are especially excited about work relating to:

• Digital → Physical - novel fabrication techniques, hybrid workflows, and unconventional material exploration
• Physical → Digital - movement from material objects and embodied processes into virtual space, including scanning, sensing and simulation
• Aesthetics & Industrial Processes - creative use of industrial tools or processes to generate new forms and experiences
• Robots, Co-Bots & Intuitive Interfaces - experiments in use cases, form factors, autonomy, and human-machine relationships
• AI & Agency - how AI can empower human capability, creativity, and decision-making (and how to avoid complacency)
• EduTech - tools, systems, and interfaces that help humans adapt, upskill, and learn
• Bio-Inspired Systems - engineered systems modeled after biological mechanisms, structures, or behaviors

Complementary work outside these themes is also welcome — if it sits at the intersection of creativity and technology, we want to see it.

If you’re interested in sharing your work at this or a future session, fill in the form below and submit supporting documents to 42@hicam.io. We encourage submissions at any stage of development: sketches, proofs-of-concept, and polished prototypes are equally welcome. Due to time constraints, we may limit the presenter slate or prioritize projects based on thematic relevance or stage — but there will be many future opportunities to participate.

Attendance & Livestream

This is an in-person, participant-only event to ensure a focused and supportive review environment.

However, we will be livestreaming the entire session for our extended community, sign up to receive a link and reminder when we go live!