Chapter 23

1975
Nicolas Negroponte
Soft Architecture Machines

• shows direct relationship between architecture and human-computer interaction
• some of the most influential architects in this field were: Michale Benedikt, Marcos Novak, William Mitchell, and Nicolas Negroponte
  
• architecture proved the need for virtual reality to see visualizations of physical buildings
• use of architectural knowledge about space and design have inspired work with computers
• users should be empowered by computers
• computers should have certain levels of awareness about its programs and users
• Negroponte opened the MIT Media Lab in 1985 to conduct research into technology applications

It's sad to think that we have all these great intuitive ideas about computer software, written over 30 years ago, and we still don't (not that we can't) put them into practice. When he mentions the movie program that turns on the screen saver 5 minutes in, I was reminded of all the times that has happened to me, and how simple a code that would be to withhold turning on a screen saver when the movie application is open; this seems like a no brainer. There are many other awareness issues with technology we have today, and perhaps we need to be taking more advice from the founders of these tools.

Chapter 22

1974
Augusto Boal

• went to jail for practicing his interactive techniques in performance.
• encouraged opressed peoples to take on the "cops of the street" and the "cops of the mind" holding them back (which is why the Brazilian military was so against him and those working with him)
• for one of his performances he decided to run for office, but actually got elected and used his theatrical techniques to put forth legislation to help the people without a voice.
• discusses the question of embodiment, which is often forgotten in discussions of new media
• techniques for overcoming the spectator/actor divide could help Baudrillard's quest to overcome the producer/consumer divide

It's amazing how so many people with progressive ideas throughout history have been treated as treasonous and sent to jail, or executed, or assassinated. It's always the ones that want peace and equality that are put down. How sad.

Chapter 21

1974
Computer Lib/ Dream Machines
Ted Nelson

• apparently the most important book in the history of new media
• Janus-life codex that joins two books
  
• Computer Lib predicted personal computers, and challenged what the fundamental use of computers would be from when he was writing
• meant to argue against Central Processing
• claimed that the importance of the computer would not be its computational skills, but its ability to generate new media
• wrote some of the founding documents in the field of human-computer interaction
• stressed the importance of design and having it be open and interchangeable
  
• predicted the explosion of knowledge that has occurred today with the Internet

Nelson was hugely influential and ahead of his time in this field. I would like to at some point actually read this dual-book and see how spot on he really was.

Chapter 20

1972
Raymond Williams

• one of the first to critically approach the medium of television
• discussed the importance of "flow" in the experience of TV watching
• TV remains a touchstone for the discussions of the relationship between technology and society
• once a technology is in place it operates as a life factor
• discusses the importance of collectivity in decision making over technology (specifically the Internet, whose standards are set by anyone with the time and interest to be involved)
• the problem today is that the government wants to privatize the Internet, and it has created a select few to monopolize
• the Internet was not created by one man, it was and is being created by everyone who participates because of the social processes interacting with scientific.technical processes

I worry that the Goverment will succeed in permanently privatizing the Internet and the whole beauty of its public-ness and democracy will be ruined. Hopefully we can get enough users to speak out against it and retain public control.

Chapter 19

1972
Jean Baudrillard
Requiem for the Media

• response to Enzensberger's "Constiuents of a Theory of the Media"
• views the media more in terms of social reaction and response to the media than the structure of the technology or the content
• the solution to the problem of our media is not to make everyone a producer, but to change the model of communication which is currently, a "simulation" that forgoes actual interaction
• Baudrillard wants to transgress the producer/consumer relationship, mass newspapers and video networks are only a start in his mind

I would like to see what Baudrillard imagines as an actual transgression of the producer/consumer relationship; when will we have gotten to that point? I can certainly see the importance of having more public interaction, but we live in a society of consumption and it will be difficult to rid the media of this idea entirely.

Chapter 18

1970
Hans Magnus Enzenberger
Constituents of a Theory of the Media

• new media is forward-thinking, action-oriented, away from tradition
• criticized media business - "operates to perpetuate an unjust society by convincing us t accept that society (similar to McCluhan)
• work with media to fix the problem
• media is not just for consumption, but a means of production
• proposes a new organization of media, not just mass distribution, if an organized campaign of videotaping were in place, it would have been more effective than the original Rodney King video

William S. Burroughs

I like William S. Burroughs for the same reason I like John Cage, because he was willing to think outside the box, to take something traditional and use it in an innovative way. Even though it was simple, to cut up writing and paste it together, it was considered unheard of, and we needed people like that to shake things up and pave the way for even more out of box ideas that just cut-and-paste.

John Cage

I was able to learn a lot about John Cage in another class I took at Gallatin with Leslie Satin, and he really was the essence of the happenings movement. He felt very strongly in the process of making art over the product created and often used chance operations to create compositions. In the video we say was one of his most famous creations, the prepared piano, which as the speaker explained, is really an instrument of its own. I got to see one of his pieces played on a prepared piano in an exibit at Lincoln Center, and it was bizarre, but it was great to hear the piano, the most classic instrument played in such an unconventional way.

Microcosms

As we talked about in class, I've loved all of the recent Earth documentaries, and this one on insects was particularly cool. I'm not usually into bugs, but this film gave them real personality and such a great perspective on them because of how close the camera could get. With the addition of the sound and music it really told a story about "le peuple de l'herbe" which would literally translate to the population of the grass (which doesn't sound as nice in English but I think the sentiment suits the movie better than microcosms). I was surprised to hear how long ago it had been made considering how advanced the camera was that they were using.

Chapter 17

1970
Software - exhibition at the Jewish Museum, organized by Jack Burnham

• visitors were being asked to interact/operate computers in several contexts
• the actual exhibition went really poorly, but the implications remained important
• Ted Nelson created a catalogue of information called Labyrinth, the first publicly-accessible hypertext - readers decided what to read and in what order and the computer would store this information to be printed out for each reader at the end of their visit
• Nicholas Negroponte headed the Architecture Machine Group which presented Seek - a series of metal blocks creating an environment inhabited by gerbils. the blocks were moved by a computer controlled robotic arm that reacted to the movements and alterations of the blocks caused by the gerbils
• broadcast poetry via AM radio using the glass windows as low-grade speakers
• goal was "to focus sensibilities on the fastest growing area in this culture: information processing systems an their devices."
• before Software, computers making art were mainly trying to imitate alredy existing artforms, but this was an exploration of computers rather than trying to create finished products - express ideas and art propostions

Ted Nelson made a comment about the Seek display in which he felt that perhaps the gerbils presented a danger in this kind of human-computer interaction in that he "had a sense that [the gerbil] was worshiping it." I wonder if we see this kind of "worshiping" today, and if we are, do we notice? Clearly this exhibition was ahead of its time in terms of ideas and desires for the use of computers.

Chapter 16

1968
Douglas Engelbart and William English - ARC

• introduced the use of demos to prove the importance of their research
• 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Franciso presented their most famous demo of interactive computing - pre-Internet
• ARC was creating tools to express and share concepts -> led to WYSIWYG layout tools
• creation of tools for expert computer users like any other craft -> led to more "user friendly" systems that first-timers could operate
• users would use tolls to create better tools -> software with its vast gulf between users and creators, working against piracy of software
• allow peopel to work together to solve problems with computers ->a network of communication to share resourses -> arrival of the ARPANet ->the Internet

It's cool to hear about the beginning of these large computer demos after we've been watching so many TED conferences. I have no idea what WYSIWYG is, or what exactly it is that they presented at their famed 1968 demo but it must have been amazing.

Chapter 14

1961/1972
Billy Klüver
"The Garden Party"/ The Pavilion

• if a scientific experiment cannot "fail" neither can an artistic experiment
• Jean Tinguely worked with Klüver to create "Homage to New York"
• a machine in which "jean supplied the energy to create the freedom and was ruler over the chaos" a work of chance and of the moment - much like the city it was paying respects to
• the machine created and destroyed itself to present us with an ephemeral moment
• "creative masters of changing reality"
• the pavilion was a massive collaboration of artists, scientists, engineers, and participators
• the goal was to give he visitors "choice, responsibility, freedom, and participation" so that the work was not complete until they had been involved
• emphasis was on the visitors relationship to the environment rather than on the object itself, it was a giant experiment in human behavior
• each collaborator was involved in a specific aspect of the project, so all are equally authors of the work
• the fog and mirror involved were incredible feats of science and technology that would later have many practical purposes besides its original artistic one
  

1966-7
E.A.T.

• founded by Klüver, Rauschenberg, Whitman, and Waldhauer
• first project was a collaboration between Klüver, a research scientist at Bell Labs, and Jean Tinguely, artist
• engineer was no longer an artist's assistant, but collaborator
• group takes off when Klüver met Wiggen who was organizing the festival of art and technology
• EAT created a variety of events and pieces that went beyond art or technology by fusing the two
• "eliminate the separation of the individual from technological change and expand and enrich technology to give the individual variety, pleasure, and avenues for exploration and involvement in contemporary life."

I love the idea of the pavilion because I have always enjoyed interactive art. Walking through a standard museum, asked to stare at painting after painting, after sculpture is boring, and lifeless. An interactive art/science/technology enviroment is alive and constantly changing as we are is way more exciting. There is a small modern art museum near my parent's house that this reminded me of because each few months a new artist gets to take over the space and rebuild it however they see fit. Usually it involves a certain amount of interactivity, but the fact that the space itself is constantly changing is why its so fun to go back.

Chapter 13

1962/1964
Marshall McLuhan

The Galaxy Reconfigured:

• media extend human abilities and the human body itself
• culture was moving backwards toward tribal configurations
• "electric" or "new" media was causing a shift in western thought
• sense ratios change when "any one sense or bodily or mental function is externalized in technological form"
• popular press offers no single vision, no point of view, but a mosaic of the postures of the collective concousness
• "In opulent and commercial societies to think or to reason comes to be, like every other employment, a particular business, which is carried on by a very few people, who furnish the public with all the thought and reason possessed by the vast multitudes that labour."
• best means of communication with the unconscious is through myth and symbol
  

The Medium is the Message:

• popular media should not just be treated as unimportant entertainment, but deserves to be studied on its own terms
• consider the medium on its own, separate from content
• change in media will bring both positive and negative consequences; "print caused much trash to circulate, but it had also disseminated the bible and the thoughts of seers and philosophers."
• the medium shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action (ie, IBM realizes it is in the business of information processing, rather than just office equipment)
• the content of any medium is always another medium
• argues that typography created cultural uniformity and continuity. 

I thought it was really interesting what McCluhan said about thinking/reasoning becoming an occupation of few people. I would be curious to hear him go into more depth on this issue. I think this is probably true today, but I wonder who society would consider to be the "reasoners" since everyone's idea of rational is different. In terms of the medium, we definitely see this idea that the medium is the message in our class as we examine new types of media and their potential impact on "human association."

Marshall McCluhan

What a strange character he is! I was immediately reminded of Antonio Rutigliano, if anyone else has had him as a teacher, because of his unconventional teaching style and unique ideas about popular culture (although I wouldn't say he's totally against it as McCluhan was). It was interesting to hear about media from a more philosophical standpoint. He had a really interesting quote when he said, "a pervasive environment is almost beyond perception," and I really feel like this is what has happened with popular media. It's everywhere, affecting everything we do and we don't even realize how we are being brainwashed, and he was only referring to the billboards everywhere, imagine if he saw how advertisements are being used today.

Scott McCloud

I think I can officially say that I'm a comic book nerd, or at least dangerously close to that line because I thought this was a really cool perspective on the future of comic books. McCloud's emphasis on maintaining the "comic-book-ness" in a digital comic is really important for someone who actually follows comic's. The entire idea is that there is still enough room in between frames for your imagination to be activated. Once it becomes too fluid it turns into an animated show, and then there's no longer any brain power involved (although I'm sure many will argue that there's not much brain power involved in reading a comic book either, but I would debate that).

Life-logging

Is this considered self-stalking? Is the assumption that we are not paying enough attention in our lives? I would probably agree to that, and that's why I think this continuous photography idea could be interesting for a day, but to record your whole life this way seems obsessive, and not practical. As we discussed in class, it might be fun to use at a party to catch some candid shots that you might have otherwise missed or forgotten. Maybe it could be passed around between party members to catch more action, but it's pretty much just that, a good party trick. However, in the video that we were watching with James May, it seemed as though it got cut off right before they were going to explain some kind of software that would recognize specific patterns, and potentially (although I may be over-speculating) determine specific traits in a person or use this information to perhaps diagnose someone. I'm not sure what that data could be used for, but until I hear some of the possibilities, I'm not willing to wear this day in and day out.

Scots with Lasers?

I like lasers as much as the next guy, but it's hard to get super excited about this. I like the idea of 3-D models made from photographs better than of lasers, although I see how it might be useful, and of course any time we get closer to actually recreating star trek technology, I'm for it. Obviously lasers are much more precise and create better accuracy for surveying a building/object, but I don't think this is really new technology.

Erin McKean's Wordnik

I just want to start this post by saying, I'm now totally into TED. I watch every TED video that I come across now because it's just so fascinating. There really are people out there with incredible ideas and it's great to find that they're all getting together to cheer each other on. Erin was a great TED presenter, and she gave a great argument for the importance of a better system of dictionaries. It's something that no one ever thinks to improve upon because, as she said, everyone has this awful connotation of the dictionary. I keep thinking about times when I was really young and any time I asked my parents what a word meant I had to look it up in the dictionary (all while my dad claimed that he once read the dictionary back to front...there's no way) and how grateful I was when we finally got the Internet and I could just type it into Google. The interesting thing about that is, it really was better to type it into Google, other than it being faster and more convenient, because I would end up with more results from various sources, and sometimes even a Wikipedia page to give the word some context. This is why I love Wordnik so much, because it compiles all those results for you and gives you the context you need to actually understand a word aside from a stiff, unrelatable definition (as I'm typing, blogger is telling me unrelatable is not a word, but I'm going to throw caution to the wind and use it anyway because Erin said I could...)

Piano Stairs

These piano stairs make me smile. I would love to have those installed in more places, although I'm sure that would be fairly expensive. Who doesn't want to have more fun doing mundane activities, especially when it could be good for you, such as walking up stairs. I loved seeing the reactions of the people who experienced the stairs, and how generally gleeful it seemed to make everyone feel. I have to walk up 5 flights of stairs every day to my apartment, and part of me feels like this would make it more bearable, and another part of me thinks that it would definitely become annoying when the neighbor comes home at 4am. I want more ways to make my daily life more fun, maybe I can think of a better final project that would involve more fun.

Eric Rosenthal

Eric Rosenthal's lecture was a little too biologically specific for my taste, but when he started to discuss the implications of archiving I definitely perked up. So for my sake, I'm not going to bother to discuss the human vision system, accept that I think it would be great for a camera to work more in line with how our eyes work. I would love to see some of the test shots that he did with the technology he came up with, I can't even imagine how much better a camera image could look (I've been so impressed with the Red camera lately, but a camera like the one Eric describes sounds like it would blow it out of the water).
As for archiving, it's something that I unfortunately haven't thought much about in my life, but hearing him talk about it I suddenly feel this great sense of urgency to start printing everything I find (although that seems like a terribly un-environmentally friendly option). I can't believe this is not a bigger issue for our government, and in general for the world, but it seems like no one has yet to discover a way of keeping information in perpetuity. Certainly the options we have in place now don't seem to have been given much forethought, and I wish there was an easy answer. For now I suppose I should just try to be more mindful of the information I store on my computer and remember that my laptop is not infallible. I have recently learned the importance of external hard-drives after having two laptops stolen, but I wonder if I should consider keeping a written log of important stuff somewhere (who am I kidding, I'm way too lazy for that).

Ken Perlin: Where the Wild Things Are

I love his account of how Pixar came to be, I had never heard that before. I always felt that Pixar had much better graphics, and ultimately better films as well, but I love that it developed because the people at Disney didn't want to go in the digital direction, how ironic. Go Ken for being the instigator that started Pixar.
As for the actual animation, I was interested to hear Ken's description of how they did the lighting. I like that they really thought about making it both real and fantastical so that the effect would be a realistic storybook world. Today we keep trying to make graphics look more and more like reality, but I think for some things, and definitely animated kids movies, that there should be an effort to maintain the fantasy. However, when he started to discuss the actual software, I became pretty confused. I'm not sure what "divide by the blurry silhouette..." means, or even how the smearing works, but I think I'd need to take some more tech classes for that.