Quick Update....

So, been busy with Christmas related family commitments this past week. And the one before that I was in Paris. Saw a really tought provoking exhibit on Remenance painting, and a 3D illusion exhibiton. Will post in more detail about them and write up my thoughts in the New Year. Just to say here that I'm thinking about my dissertation and doing lot's of reading/research, and that my other project work is on hold for a week because of that, but I feel confident about it and in conrtol of my time management.

My Very Own Individual Thought

I've been thinking a lot about the question: What is media? I think in order to understand what interactive media is, it is an essential question. Alot of theorists argue about interactive media, specifically about freewill, manipulation and control within it. The term media is just a word, it implies multiple mediums. It is not a thinking, opinionated entity, thus it cannot be accused of manipulation. Any manipulation exemplified by media is the fault of the USERS. The digital age we live in has allowed for a lot more users of the tool 'interactive media', and this is making us more aware of issues regarding freewill. But, it is my argument that these issues are the blame of society in general, and the history of the human race. Interactive media is merely a tool, one that makes us more aware of a debate that has been around since the dawn of communication- does freewill exist? Perhaps this means it can even be argued that interactive media gives us MORE chance for freewill, because it is a tool that is letting us educate ourselves more than our ancestors and appreciate a board range of perspectives, rather than a limited few presented to us by politically tampered with newspapers.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no manipulative media, there is just manipulative USE of media. I think that it could be argued that Interactive Media it is a tool that makes manipulation easier, and encourages the decline of human morality and ethics, but it itself is not the CAUSE of this, it merely makes the representation of problems in society more evident.

Furthermore, on the matter of limited choice in terms of hyperlinks and games....so what? Interactive media is technology, not magic. It may subtly influence us to think logically in the way of the creator, but the creator thought of how to lay the site/game out in a more logical way for us during development. It's a two way street that can't be avoided due to technical constraints. It is NOT manipulation. It can be used for manipulation, yes, but just because SOME people misuse the media, it does not mean ALL Interactive media is an example of this.

Also, you may notice the title of this post- My Very Own Individual Thought, entitled so because it is a thought I have derived from weeks of reading a WIDE VARIETY of texts, and educating myself to devise MY OWN opinion. It is not an idea that I have seen anywhere. Maybe other people have had the same thought, but that doesn't mean it is not individual or self thought out, as this scientific article on free will and brain patterns describes. We may not always be aware of subconicous influences, hence the use of the prefix 'sub', but that doesn't mean we are not capable of making our own decisions based on the facts. I can FEEL, in my inner slef, that this is MY opinion, not one I'm channelling, hence my firm standing on this issue.

I am considering looking into the idea of expanding these ideas for my dissertation, and exploring early forms of media and manipulation to argue that interactive media today is just making us more aware and broadening our minds about an issue that has been around since the creation of old media newspapers (in 1400) rather than being the actual cause of a reduction in new ideas. So if anyone has any opinions or relevant research re: my ideas......please feel free to tell me.

Misuse of Media Manipulation

I just received a text from a friend informing me that a software tool called 'CyberLover.re' has just passed the Turing Test. Intrigued, I looked it up, and discovered that Cyber Lover is a Russian chatbot program that infilterates social networking sites to cyber-seduce female web users, up to ten at a time, into giving out there personal identity information, including phone numbers.

"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," Sergei Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at PC Tools, said in a statement.

I think this is an awful misuse of media, and it raises the questions for me; do media companies somehow see themselves above the guidelines of moral ethics? And how far are we as a society going to allow such practices to continue?

Puzzle Game

This is the puzzle game I mentioned in my last blog entry.
I used a tutorial that supplied the code and some objects, and then manipulated the objects to my own taste, and altered the text responses. The tutorial finished on a simple 'Well Done', but I used some extra code from a QA section of the tutorial and altered the game script so that the solution of the puzzle triggers a move to the next frame.

It's a bit flawed....the message is over clouded at the end dependant on the piece chosen last. Nothing I can't fix if I do decide to use this in my final piece though.

Mental Hesitations - my weak area

Over the last couple of days, I have been focussing more on idea generation and what interests me rather than research.

On Tuesday........
I decided to go with the idea of an immersive puzzle book, created as a touchscreen in Flash, that would be part of an immersive installation and also use sound and lighting. I decided my aims would be to to further my technical knowledge of flash, and examine the immersive, almost magical effects that interactive media can have on a user, in order to gain a better understanding of the relationship between humans and computers. This would also demand my consideration to practical aspects such as information architecture and design principles. The piece would aspire to blur the lines between a storybook and a game, and invoke a high level of mental interaction and immersion


On Wednesday afternoon.....

I wrote this into my 'Digital Doodles' interactive flashbased sketchbook:

"for the purposes of this project, I will create the touchscreen puzzle interface itself (my main
deliverable), and an animation of someone using it. I will plan out how the rest of the installation room would be set up and learn all the technical details, perhaps even creating a scale model out of foamboard for presentation purposes (I realize the brief says everything needs to be shown on screen, and all the important features will be- this is just for my own sake, and can be photographed as a slide show) I could also create a proposal with this pitching the complete idea to the museum. To give my deliverables an edge, I will also consider creating a mock-up environment of the installation at home, setting up a webcam and getting people to have a go at the puzzle. If I can use a touchscreen pane this would be great, but not essential. The point will be to film the facial reactions of the user to examine the immersive effect of my work, and consider ways of improvement based on this and questioning the test subject."

I then made some decisions about my audience:

the identification of an audience is dependant on the gallery that the installation is based in, because this says something about the type of person that will visit, and the age. I want my piece to appeal to a wide range of users, and for the sake of this project I am envisioning it to be for a small fictional gallery in brighton, and after some un-fruitful attempts at researching target audiences for galleries here, I have decided to use my own knowledge that brighton has a strong art and digital media reputation, so think that it would appeal to a lrge audience of students and exhibition lovers. I am going to pick my target audience based on casual puzzle game audiences, which according to research is 65% of women between 25-30, and 35% of men. However I am going to try and ake th egame gener nuetral, to try and interest as many men as possible as well as women (this could be done by the idea of a quest), and also take into account that brighton has a very youthful population, and the idea of a storybook immersion could easily appeal to yougner people too, so based on my research and own opinions, my target audience is men and women, aged 15-35.

I then brainstormed ideas for themes, and found it quite hard to come up with a story. I did some technical research and managed to get a drag drop feature working, so that a key can be dragged and dropped into a lock, and trigger the next frame....a script I could use to trigger animations in more ways than a key/lock, and make my touchscreen a bit more advanced then just using touch/activate buttons. However, this took me along time to learn. If I go with this idea, most of my time wll be spent coding, and I don't think this is very productive for my proffersional development, because I don't want to be a Flash coder. I'm more interested in visuals. I considered making my puzzles more basic, and putting my effort into creating a more diverse narrative, so there is more choice between different storylines, and the option of failing to pass the puzzles, and having something bad happen to the story character, and the story/game end, an okay idea, but it does not really grab me.

I then thought, what if I try and engage the viewer more by reverting back to another idea, and bringing teamplay into action. I could have two people in a room, and one (person action) is looking at on screen puzzles, and the other (person screenreader) is in front of the computer screen, on a large mat with squares on it. Each square has a pressure sensor in it, which correlates to a square on the screen. P.ScreenReader must instruct P Action on how to move back/forward/left/right based on the puzzle they see on the screen, in order to get the player to stand on the correct answer to the problem. The screen puzzle will be formed of rollover buttons that do nothing other than show a cartoon person standing there when that square activation key is pressed. They will work by hooking up each sensorpad to a keyboard key, so that the position of P.Action will appear on the screen. When P.Action reaches the correct answer position, the next level will activate. I could have 5 levels that work like this, and a 30 second timer for each puzzle. If the timer runs out, the game ends and the curator asks the players to leave through a losers door, and if they win they will be asked to leave through a winners door. There will be no difference, but I think the POSSIBILITY that there may be a reward will urge people to try and win. This would mean the players have to work together to suceed. P.Screenreader must be good as a speaker, and P.Action must be good as a listener and show trust in p.screenreader. I would make the environment quite cold and chilling, to encourage the players to focus attention on each other and the task at hand. I am hesitating to proceed with this idea becuase the deliverables for this project will end up being

1. an instruction manual on how to technically set the installation uo (which I am comfortable about the challenge of writing)
2. an animation of how it might look
3. the flash interface, but working with regular mouse or keyboard clicks for presentation purpopses
and maybe 4. a demo of a sensor activating a button to show I am capable of creating this

I think this is a perfectly resonable end result, so long as I think out all the puzzles well, and make the animation very well, but Im worried it's too conceptual.

So, I started to think, what am I really interested in about this idea? and I answered myself......examining the relationship between people and interaction. I like the thought of seeing how they react to my installation, more than creating an installtion itself, and am liking the thought of getting a fully working installation/interface working so that I can film and examine the users reactions.

SO... new idea.......what about a flash interface that makes no logical sense? I will play with design principles and makes navigations difficult, and touch on puzzles to mentally challenge the user to figure out how to get from start to end. They will simply use the keyboard and mouse, and I will then get a test subject, and record there reactions, to each myself about the way the user responds. I can then create a deliverable website or DVD that decsribes my experiment and shows the video of the interface being used, and my own commentry on what is causing challeneges and barriers to ease of use, in order to teach myself, an aspiring web designer, what is good and bad about interface design.

Each idea has pitfalls becuase what I want most s to builf a full installtion of my sensor rigger game idea and film this as an experiment looking at trust between people. But I do not have the resources to do this, and I don't just want to propose something. I want to do it.

So, desicions desicions..... I need to start making them! I am self aware of the fact that this is my weakpoint and need to address it, even if I make a mistake in my choice, at least I will have thrown all my energy into makig the best of it, rather than hesitating constantly about a way forward and ending up with a weak final outcome. SO, I aam taking a few days to consider my choice, and am going to vists an exhibtion on interactive media in Paris, and then in a week I will come back to this with a fresh perspective and commit myself to one of the three outlined choices above.

If you have any comments , please tell me.....( I could do with the input!)

Holiday Crit.....

Had some good feedback, great, about the idea of meeting up for a group crit over Christmas, so just throwing a date/place idea out there....I am away for the first week in Paris, and then there is the actual 3 day event of Christmas, so how would people feel about THURSDAY 27th, at 10.30AM, in a coffee shop in the lanes. If anyone has any ideas for a quiet one please suggest it!

Please post a reply to me here with your e-mail address / phone number or e-mail me (claire.a.johnson@hotmail.co.uk) if you want to come so I know who I'm meeting! Or if this is a bad time we can come up with a different one. It's nice and in the centre of the holiday though, so should be pretty useful.

Change of heart.....

I blogged earlier that the theme of ideas I have selected to develop is 'People and Interaction'. Having analyzed the comments made about my last project, thought about ideas for deliverables, and considered the areas I have researched that I am most interestd in. I have CHANGED MY MIND, and selected my third theme: Immersion and Interactivity (the relationships between people and interactive media. Specifically a book/story) This is similar to the topic of my dissertation and will be helpful to my personal development. The key themes in it that appeal to me are:

fantasy
mental interaction
people
books
installation
puzzles
stories
magic
familiar aliens
immersion

I am now using a digital scrapbook in Flash to generate ideas (partially because my workbook is so overflowing with paper that I fear a whole tree will need to be cut down if I don't start to use alternate resources!!!) to look at my inspirations in more detail and discuss the four main variations of the idea, and brainstorm ideas for deliverables. Over the next day or so I will become ruthless and choose one idea to proceed with, and start developing my ideas for deliverables. I would like to start generating a timeplan for creation of these over Christmas, and think once I've chosen my idea, it would be a good time for a crit, and so will ask around over the next few days to see if anyone wants to meet up sometime during the holidays, just for a couple of hours, to talk about work and present the idea so far. If any of you are reading this and are interested, please post a comment!!

Interactive Magic

I just participated with an interactive magic trick, on this site and then the computer read my mind! Logically, I can see how this was done (I won't tell you in case you want to try...but I'll post it as a comment below, so you can click if you want to see) but it was still pretty interesting. Have a go yourself. The trick is called 'Psycho Test'

TUTORIAL WTH DANIEL PRYDE JARMAN - notes

I talked through my three key ideas with Daniel and identified that my favourites are ‘two’ (intersperson interaction) and ‘three’(interactive book). He suggested that three seems a bit too similar to the last project because of some of the technologies I mention such as e-paper. I don’t fully agree with this, as the emphasis would not be on the technologies used, but on the idea of having an object that seems like ‘old’ media- not very interactive, being surprisingly interactive and becoming ‘new’. However, I too agree it might not be the best direction to go in, as I feel I have more material and ideas to use with option two. Daniel suggested research areas for both idea one(memory/time travel) and two, but I think all would be relevant to two, as I have not totally eliminated the idea of incorporating a memory theme into idea 2. I am going to look at all these areas and develop some new variations to the ideas I have already proposed, from which I will pick one to start working on the deliverable for at the end of the Christmas break/start of week five. I like the idea of not just presenting my work on screen as a proposal, but also perhaps creating it for real if possible and filming people using it (if it is an installation) I will see how my ideas develop and start to consider presentation/deliverable over Christmas.

Comments from Dan / Research to look at-

- Guy Debord – Society of the Spectacle
- Situationist Theory
- Deriva
- Churchill quote: “We design buildings, but then they design us’
- Be productive I games. Don’t just have a threat to defeat
- Systems between people
- Limitations between people
- Geo-caching
- Pervasive gaming
- Psycho-geography
- Blast Theory (Day of The Figurines)

Ideas not to forget....

At the end of the project, it would be a good idea to write a glossary of all the new theoretical words I have learnt and my own explanations of what they mean. Also, because I am finding lots of refernces to research I have already done (names/theories/subjects) in new research that I am doing, I should make my sketchbook more interactive in a way similar to early interactive books, by putting 'See page ?' by each mention of something I have already looked at, or will look at in the future. Will be quite time consuming but tie in well with the theme 'interaction', and make it easier to read and fun!

For all you mac-lovers....

I just discovered a really useful shortcut in Word. If you hold the apple key down and then click your cursor once in the middle of a word, it will auto-select that whole sentance for you. Saves time on making sure you manually select the whole sentance and nothing else when you want to copy a quote.

SELF EVALUATION

SUMMARY OF WEEK THREE / GOALS FOR WEEK FOUR


This week I have been mainly looking back through my work so far and re-organizing my filing of it all. This has helped me to gain a self-awareness of where my strongest research lies and what my best ideas are. After having a tutorial with Daniel Pryde Jarman at the end of this week, and taking into account my ideas for the dissertation and conversations that I have had with Michael and some of the guest speakers, I have decided on the topic of ‘interperson interaction’, and am going to spend this next week (which technically will be only 4 days…my ‘weeks’ are more periods of time that start on a Wednesday because of the date we began the project. I will alter this after the Christmas vacation so that week five begins on the Monday.) doing some specific research to advance my knowledge in this area, based on some tips given to me by Daniel in my conversation with him. I will also take a closer look at the tv show Knightmare which has been of influence to my development of ideas, but has only been mentioned in my blog thus far, and start generating specific, developed ideas for my final piece. I will also read through and make notes on the excerpts from texts that I have this week photocopied, and start looking at the issue of interactive design architecture and principles.


SELF EVALUATION OF PROGRESS SO FAR

I have still not started putting examples of visual research on my blog, which I should be doing, and will aim to start soon. My research is very strong, and I have started looking at counter arguments for issues I research and developing my own ideas. I am also aware of the fact that soon out ‘Client Proposal’ project will start and am keeping an eye open for work opportunities.
I have started generating a lot more research for my dissertation this week, but feel I should be further along with this. I am confident though that I can have a detailed essay structure/plan written up by the end of the Christmas holidays, and am currently doing some reading for that. I want to have sorted out my question by the time we break up. Once my structure is written up I will be able to write a draft fairly quickly I think (as my blog indicates, I enjoy to write), it is just the starting and evaluating what material to use and what not to, and which themes would be best to discuss that is what takes the time. This is what I will spend the Christmas vacation concentrating on doing.

Thoughts Regarding The Disseration

One week left of term. Getting a bit worried. Had a plan for myself to get my research together, and get an essay plan done over Christmas. Now there is rumoured talk of having a first draft done over Christmas, something I had envisioned working on from January until roughly the middle of Febuary. I think I can pull together some of the research I've been doing and get a detailed essay plan done, with a specific question and argument outlined, and themes to discuss and a conclusion all planned out by the end of the Christmas holiday, and will work hard to get a first draft finished by the middle/end of January. I do not want to rush this though, because I think that would be quite harmful to it's development. I have been keeping interesting texts for my research folder, so I do not feel it is something that needs me to suddenly rush into action, as I have decided now to go with the topic of relationships between humans and computers, and have alot of material in my blog already that I want to use. Some interesting ideas I think I might want to address in my dissertation and wish to research further before I start writing or turn my topic into a specific question will include cyberfeminism, cybernation, cybernetics, walter benjamins 'the age of mechanical reproduction', interaction theories, anthropomorphism, and cultural differences in relationships with technology.

Evolution of the project- trying to choose one of three main ideas....

I've been thinking alot this past week about the difference between 'art' and 'design' in interactive media. I don't want to get too caught up in this thought, because it is such a vast topic/discussion, and I want to start focussing more detail on my actual concept development, however this question mark is creeping up in my decision making regarding how to move forward because alot of my research and ideas for installations could fall under the category of 'art' rather than 'design', yet considering my on-going development, I feel I ought to be focussing more on 'design', because of the career path I want to pursue. But then I think, this year is about exploring and being open to new ideas, and I am enjoying that because gaining a wider understanding can feed really well into my knowledge of interactive design

So, what I am thinking is that I might create an installation, and that would fall under the category of art becuase it will be very idea led, but will hopefully convey alot of meaning derived from what I have been learning, but will also be relevant to my aspirations for a career in interactive design, because it will use interactive technologies and I will look in detail at userability, and the way I present my information. I am going to look at (possibly touchscreen based) installations, but use standard design principles that are applied to the web to help with it's development. One way I could do this is to set myself a more exact brief fom a supposed client, perhaps a museum, and approach the final product in the way I would need to if I were actually working in an interactive design company. I could create a proposal for the actual installation, and use the computer to create some working elements to demonstrate how it would work, and an animated overview of the space.

Over the last week I have also been reveiwing my research ideas, and identified four areas that have been constant and re-inventing themselves throughout my whole project. They come under these headings:

1- Memory and Time Travel -how a collection of objects can be interpeted by each person in a unique, personal way that relate to memory and cause a feeling of time travel due to the thought patterns activated by the brain)
keywords: Memory / time travel / eisentstein / montage / science /brain / thoughts / personal / unique

2-Interperson Interaction -an installation that gets people to work together to get the best experience. Possibly an installation that uses people to show how freedom of thought does exist and should not be dwarfed by an authors own ideas....will play with the ideas surrounding control/freedom in interactive media. mental interaction would be a huge factor to consider, possibly a game installation with people as players and pieces, trust would be a big theme.
keywords: people / social interaction / barthes- death of the author / teamwork / games / psychology / control / freedom / ideas / individuality/ mental engagement

3-Interactive Book - an installation that uses an existing (preferable really old) storybook and makes it seem magical through use of interactive technologies and breaking of the fourth wall. Would have sensors in the pages, and also somehow behave differently with different people. Possibly could be a touchscreen book made from e-paper(if that is possible) which allows for diverse choices in plot. The space would somehow mirror the themes/landscape of each page, and would make the user feel like they were IN the book. Turning the page would change the surrounding landscape. Could even be possible that the user can talk to the characters in the pages. OR an interactive digital book on screen, where you can't proceed to the next page, until you've solved a problem on that page... the solution would make the button apparent.
keywords: mental interaction / magic / children / espen areseth / digital storytelling / non linear narrative / pyschical interaction / ubiquitous computing / cybernetics / physical interaction

I'm so keen on all these ideas that choosing one is quite a task. I think I've narrowed it down to either 2 or 3, and am aiming tol make my final choice by the end of Tuesday(tomorrow) so I can get a structured idea of what to get done over the Christmas vacation, and how long I can develop the idea before I need to get practical and producing the deliverables.

If you have any thoughts on what sounds best, please tell me!

Reaction to Systems Theory text

What I took Systems Theory to mean, based on the text:

Systems theory is the idea that any system can be transferred to any group/medium. For example, key ideas or laws from physics systems can be applied to the workings of computers, and in the case of this text, this idea is being used to create systems aesthetics, a system thats allows us to judge a piece of work that is fair to it's context and media, but can be applied to all art/media. The writer suggests this can be done in three ways:

1- Looking first at the way a piece of work relates to the audience it is aimed at. (sociological context)
2- Looking at the piece of work in relation to other works of a diverse, post-modern nature. (i.e, not just looking at paintings when your judging a poster, but looking also at new medias such as digital imaging)
3- Using a flexible definition of New Media to judge it by (because new media is so diverse and constantly evolving that it is unfair to poinpoint certain aspects of it to define)

Inspirations derived from the text

I did not find the text very engaging or inspirational, however I did take an idea from the writers remarks about radical new technologies/media/objects becoming quite old quite quickly and the retrospective way people look at them. The idea is to take an old(it can be an old 'new media') media, and examine the way it was perceived at the time, the way is is perceived now, and look at ways to update it, and make it new again, applying interactive features if it has none, or updating them if it does already.

I also made note of the word 'hermeneutics' which was used not in the text, but in the class discussion of the text, quite frequently. I looked up this term, and discovered that-

'hermeneutics involves cultivating the ability to understand things from somebody else's point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. Hermeneutics is the process of applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts (such as art or sculpture or architecture), which may be either historic or contemporary' [from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermenutics"]

This is an idea that ties in quite well with one of my own ideas of exploring relationships between people and teamwork in interactive installations. Using interactive installations to get people to understand one another could be a way forward with the project.........

theory texts

I was just doing a google search for the exact name of a piece of text I wanted to recommend to someone, and stumbled upon a list of media theory texts. Reading through, I have picked out a list that I want to read over this year, some for this project, some for my dissertation, and some just for my own development and knowledge. The annoying thing is, one I found whilst searching cam up in google without an author. I THINK it may be Lev MAlovich, and will have a look at his books in the library to see if it is his: "From Participation to Interaction: Toward the Origins of Interactive Art." If anyne knows for sure, please let me know!

The list of texts I want to read, and some of you may also enjoy, are:

Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1997.
Braidotti, Rosi. "Cyberfeminism With A Difference."
.
. "Memory: Hologram of Desire." Lucille Nelson, Trans. Trivia 13 (Fall 1988): 42-47.
Brown, Julian. Minds, Machines and the Multiverse: The Quest for the Quantum Computer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
. "Becoming...an Introduction." Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory and Futures. Ed. Elizabeth Grosz. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1999. 1-11.
---. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism . Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994.
Hamilton, Sheryl. "Thoughts on Cyberfeminism." Maid in Cyberspace. 12 July 2000.
.
Hovagimyan, G.H. "Notes on Immersion."   08 April 1998.             .
Kirschenbaum, Matt. "Truth, Beauty and the User Interface: Notes on the Aesthetics of Information." 1997.
Kluitenberg, Eric. "The Politics of Cultural Memory." Online posting. 21 July 1999. Nettime. 21 July 1999. .
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Toronto: Signet, 1964
Malloy, Judy. "Hypernarrative in the Age of the Web." 
 (1998).
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Feminism & Film Theory. Ed. Constance Penley. New York: Routledge, 1988. 57-68. _______(read this already but want to read it again)
-. "100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism." 1997. 13 June 2000. 
.
The Object of Post-Criticism." The Anti-Aesthetic . Ed. Hal Foster. New York: The New Press, 1998. 83-110. [1983]
VNS Matrix. "Cyberfeminist Manifesto."   . 08 Jan 2002.
Wertheim, Margaret. The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine. 2E Cambridge: MIT, 1961. [1948]
"The Future is Femail." Online posting.18 Sept 1998. Nettime. 18 Sept 1998.
.

Cybernation to Interaction: A Contribution to an Archaeology of Interactivity

Doing reasearch for my dissertation, I came across a brilliant piece of text, called 'Cybernation to Interaction: A Contribution to an Archaeology of Interactivity, by media research Erkki Huhtamo. As the title may suggest, it is also of relevence to this project. It ties in really well with the text we just read as a group by David Marshall, and looks into where the roots of some existing theories about interactivity lie. I'm only halfway through so far, but found it gives a great explanation of the difference between "automatic machines" and "automation"(which later was given the new name of cybernation), and the ideas it discusses on this subject can be eaily applied to the idea of interactive media being about empowering the user. The term cybernation is an alteration of the word automation and it also comes from the idea of cybernetics. The reason for this change can best be summed up with a quote:


The demarcation line between mechanization and automation was never as clear as its spokesmen wanted to make one believe. This can be discerned even from Bagrit's scruples about using the word: "I am dissatisfied with it, because it implies aucornaticicy and automaticity implies mechanization, which in its turn implies unthinking, repetitive motion, and this . . . is the exact opposite ofautornati~n."~~Sit Bagrit preferred the word "cybernation," because "it deals with the theory of communications and control, which is what genuine automation really is."" The word "cybernation" had been used before-for example, by Donald N. Michael-to refer to "both auto- mation and computer^."^^ Although Michaei justified the use of the new word (derived from Norbert Wiener's concept cybernetics....


So, cybernation is basically about the idea of computers adapting themselves to human needs, rather than humans enslaving themselves to the computers.

The text is mainly relevent to my ideas on the dissertation which I am writing an essay plan for now, but I will be copying it over to my workbook for this project too, because I think it ties in really well with everything we've been discussing in class.
It also talks about Marshall McLuhans ideas on mechanization, so if that interest you, have a look at it!

I really recommend this text to anyone interested in interactive theory, particularily the ideas surrounding human/machine relationships, or mechanization in the industrial age! Brilliant read!

Plan of action: pulling my research and ideas together

In response to my chat with Ellie, I have decided to hold off doing anymore research for a week, unless I find inspirational material in which case I will certainly save it, but I'm not going to source stuff out, as I think I need to take some time to go through the materialI have already generated and start deciding where to go from here. I will write up all my most favoured ideas in one document, and start to analyze which one(or two) will be best to proceed with, and set myself some boundries regarding what new developed research I will need to generate, and what decisions I will need to start making to develop my idea and make it more informed and mature. One way of doing this will be by writing up what each piece of research has taught me and what I have taken from it, something I normally do at the end of a project to show I have not just stuck stuff in without reading it properly. It will have the benefit for me in this case, if I do it now, of letting me re-fresh everything in my mind, and clarify where my keenest interests and knowledge would be best chanelled in terms of my varied and instinctive, research reactive, whim-y ideas.

Control/Freedom- a symbyotic relationship?

This morning we had a class debate over author control and the empowerment of the media, and what a huge issue this is in interactive theory. My perspective, although it is an obviously big issue in interactive theory, is that it seems to invoke only one way of thinking about control- that it is bad. This might not be the case, but judging from all the material I've seen so far, that idea seems to seep through. That bothers me, becuase I think sometimes control can be a good thing. It's all about balance.

[ At this point my post was saved, and I incorporate the point I was going to make below in my section- 'Talk with Ellie Rees' ]


Guest Speaker: Ellie Rees - influential points from lecture

'Context is what makes art, art, and non-art, non-art'
'Context is everthing'
'Fine art depends on the artists intentions'
'Ellie Rees likes to control the way her work is presented because to change it's context changes it's meaning'


Talk with Ellie Rees
I've just been talking to Ellie Rees about her perspective on the project, and discovered it was quite refreshing to re-cap over everything theoretical I've been learning with someone who doesn't know much about it. My motivation for having a chat with her came mainly from something she said in class, about wanting to have control over the way her work was seen, and it being for the reason that if it was seen in a different way, it will change the meaning(to a point at least). I found this an intelligent perspective on the issue of control.

As I said earlier, it seems that alot of what I'm reading and hearing is geared towards an argument on whether freedom exists in new media or whether all is controlled because of it's set boundaries. I still personally think that all forms of old or new media has a degree of freedom, in the sense that the user/reader/viewer/lurker has control over their own thoughts and emotional response to the piece. Art, film, installation ect can always try and provoke certain responses, but the user always has the end say on how they react emotionally. To get back to the point, most of what I'm reading and hearing seems to stem from an idea that being controlled is a bad thing, but I don't buy into that. I think that boundaries exist for a reason, and what Ellie Rees said about her work exemplifies my point. She creates art pieces that have meaning, and she NEEDS some control over the way people view them, in order for the pieces to be true to themselves, much in the same way that the audience needs some control over their own perspectives and emotional reactions. When she tries to control the context of her pieces, she is trying to create a truer, better experience for her audience. With interactive media, I think the same can be said, to take for example a website, control exists in the from of boundaries and the author decision on where the buttons to be pressed will be, and freedom exists in the users ability to decide what order to view the pages. Yes, this freedom is a limited one, but it is for the purpose that what they are reading belongs not to them, but to the author. In a way the idea of freedom/control in new media both contradicts AND supports Barthes ideas on the death of the author. It supports it because the user is becoming the prosumer/protagonist and therefore the text/object belongs to them as an individual, but also contradicts it because it has boundaries that are set by the author/creator that allow the author/creator to still be able to claim some part of the object/text as 'theirs'.

To clarify my opinion on the control/freedom issue, I would say that yes, there is a big issue there, and yes, both arguments are valid, but I don't see it as an issue that needs any sort of resolution, and I don't side with either perspective. I think that in order for interactive media to be the most effective that it can be, 'control' needs to be a shared privilege between both the author and the audience. When either side gets too much control, it can be detrimental to either the audiences 'right(?)' to freedom, and the authors 'right(?)' to lay claim to their work.

To bring my argument out a little bit away from the world of interactive media, I would like to consider shock art. It is created by an artist who tries to provoke certain reactions in the audience. Is this really taking away the audiences freedom of emotional/mental interaction, or is it a necessary 'evil' in order to let the meaning of the pieces apparent? To a degree, people EXPECT an art work to have a meaning, part of the challenge of looking at some pieces is to identify it, and read what the author is saying, does this mean that that the shock artist is invading their thoughts by invoking a certain reaction? No. The reaction is part of the work. The artist can have an idea of the reaction they want to provoke, but free will is part of the human spirit, and their will always be individuals that react in an unexpected way, and while this is true, it cannot be said that the shock artist has total control. I think that different 'pieces', and 'medias' should all be judged on their own merits, as each type has a difference balance of power between author and user control, and this can be integral and often beneficial to both. So to me the keyword in this issue is BALANCE. It is true that in certain situations the author can impose such rigid control and manipulate mediums to try and mentally engage the user to thinking the way that they do, and that this can result in a bad thing (e.g, Hitler and propaganda in the war), but it is unfair to say that just because some individuals misuse media, that ALL media has hidden control. Context and meaning should always be taken into account, but generally speaking, I think that BALANCE OF CONTROL BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE will always come through as a positive thing.

So, to get back to my discussion with Ellie Rees, she heard what I was saying, and asked me about my ideas for the project, and basically helped me by letting me discuss my thoughts on control and clarify them in my mind, and suggested that I look at using installation to teach people that don't know much about interactive theory or interactive media about these issues, and about my own thoughts. I thought this was pretty similar to my existing idea of having an installation that explores freedom and control, and think that would be a good underpinning 'aim' for the piece. I also talked about my idea of having a screen based puzzle piece that needs mental attention to figure out how to proceed, and she pointed out I would need to make a motivation for the user apparent, something I have already noted by that idea to consider at a later point if I pursue it. Also she got me thinking that I will need to decide how 'challenging' I want the piece to be.

Basically Ellie Rees got me thinking that I have lots of idea already, and a lot of research, and that to progress I need to start making decisions so I can develop in certain areas, which I will start to do as planned at the end of the week. (Oh, she also reminded me the video artist I wanted to research earlier in the project but could not remember the name of is called Tony Oursler)

I am now very aware that the idea of control, and my thoughts of balance between author and user is a big issue for me when thinking about interactive media, and I think that I can definitely come up with alot more ideas related to this theme before I settle on one to develop.

"A New Era In Internet Shopping"....but do we really want it?

I read an article in the Metro this morning, about a virtual shopping mall, theMall.tv, that will be online in the UK next year. Skeptical, but intrigued, I looked up their website, and was dismayed to find just what I suspected....a lovely 3D space, with pretty primitive forward/left/right navigation, and shop fronts that seem to just lead to online stores. Really, what's the point? From the perspective of a busy person who can't get to the shops, and hates being caught in a crowd- 'hurrah!', but we do have this already in the form of internet shoping, with sites that let us compare product prices, see what clothes look like on avatar reps of ourselves, and let's face it, it just takes a few clicks. So why enter a virtual mall where we are bound to spend a lot longer navigating the virtual world, for essentially limited choice of dressed up links that take us to online retailers that we already have? And if you do like going to a mall, this will take away the experience of bumping into friends and having lunch while you shop, getting excercise, strolling past shop windows, feeling out the merchandise, ect. To be fair, all I saw was the promo vid, and experiencing it may prove it to be better than expected. I can see the novelty value, and the idea of being able to stroll into virtual shops with a little avatar and seeing virtual products to order, with other little virtual customers around you in a second life style environment could be very appealing to some, but sadly this is not how TheMall.tv seems to work. Still, to be fair, they do have some good points listed for it, but I guess it depends on your perspective. Personally, I'd rather steer clear...so, a new era in shopping, or not?.......what do you think? Please post a comment and tell me!

I filled in a feedback form on the site to ask a few questions, and will post their response when I get it. This is what I asked:

"What restraints will this mall have...will the doors serve as links to virtual 'stores', with 3d merchandise? Or will they be links to websites for that retailer?
Do, do the retailers pay to be here?
Why do you think this will be more beneficial than just googling a store or product and following a hyperlink? Surely it is just a more elaborate way of online shopping that will end up being more time consuming?
Are any 'mall sounds', like music/chatter/promotions heard?
What benefits do you think your product has in relation to replace person to person interaction in a real mall, and person to computer interaction in the home?"

note2self:links

to look at after class, in response to interests derived from the texts-

http://videogames.suite101.com/article.cfm/why_video_games_matter

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009442.php

http://ase.tufts.edu/gallery/shows/newmediawall.html

http://www.hf.uib.no/hi/espen/

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/cornucopia

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/393/part3/paradiso.html

Self critique of progress so far....

I have just been evaluating my progress so far in this project, and it has come to my attention that something I should be doing is demonstrating my ability to work on multiple projects. I am doing the working on multiple projects bit, but just not demonstrating so, and I will do this by blogging about other areas of my professional development, aside from just this project.

THE DISSERTATION

I am generating some research for this, but probably not enough as I should be. I have decided to focus on creating an essay plan for it over the christmas holidays, and so will make sure that I do alot of rsearch over this period. o prepare for that I will talk to a tutor in class about my ideas before breaking up next week.

CLIENT PROPOSAL

This has not yet been formally introduced but I have approached one company, whom I used to do graphic design work for, to see if they would be interested in me re designing their site, which they are unhappy with, but have not yet received an answer. I will wait to see exactly what the brief entails before making any definitive decisions.

OTHER WORK

Client:
I am about to take on some work for a man putting together a business proposal for sponsorship for his child's sporting activities, this will involve photoshop work.

Student Network Work:

I am continuing to work for Sussex Learning Network / Student Network Sussex and have just submitted a magazine advert which will be printed in XYZ magazine sometime soon. I am also about to start working on web updates for our site, which was visually designed by me and another girl, but has been in the care of another web development student for the past few months, so I could concentrate on uni work. I will now be helping with regular updates. I have also been asked by SLN to act as official photographer for the foundation degree sympoisum in Lewes in the Spring. I have also recently done work for sister company Aim Higher Sussex, in the form of a student rep at a skills fair, and going to Stenyning Gammer School to give a talk about my experience on the FdA course. From January, I will be working with the event management team at SNS to help generate promo material for the student learning event we are holding in March. That work will begin once the venue has been determined. I have also been creating the visual template for our monthly newsletter over the past month.
Our site has lot's os useful info for students mainly in lower level courses, but is worth look anyway. We also have a student forum if your interested in getting involved.

http://www.studentnetworksussex.org.uk/


Creative Catapult:

I have applied for the Creative Catapult workshops, but have not heard back yet.

DScape:

I attended Portfolio Clinic

ITV:

I did a days work experience for ITV last month which is featured here.

Personal Projects:

Sometime by the end of the year I want to re design my own site and change it from Flash to HTML/CSS.

MY SITE


Job Hunting:

I have been working on my CV and keeping an eye out for potential companies to apply to for work next year. I am going to start e-mailing and asking what they would except to see in potential candidates, so that I can prepare myself to start applying for work in May/June.

The Girlfriend Experience- unique idea or badly formed concept?

I have just looked into The Girlfriend Experiment,and realised that it was in fact something Emma DID discuss with us last year, although the name did not ring any bells when I heard it. The project is basically a game that uses real people as avatars, and you can log on a control them, although you need to gain their trust first. The project raised a couple of points for me.

To start with, I have thoughts about the way they look. The avatars are presented in their undergarments, all very basic and with arms limply at their sides, as expressionless as possible. It is a classic look of an avatar that is being customized, and has not yet been instructed how to look. This to me raised the question: 'Why?' Surely the point of computer avatars modelled on the human form is, for alot of people, to appear as human as possible. So why, then, are these actually human avatars playing down their humanity? Obviously it is to make them appear as characters in a game, but surely letting them stand more naturally, with more human expressions, would be more in keeping with the point that the avatars they are trying to look like are trying to appear as - humans. OR, maybe this is a parody of the fact, maybe the game is making a parody of computer avatars trying to be human, by making humans try to be avatars? Would not then, it be more in keeping of this idea to get the humans do to as instructed without having their trust gained first as avatars do. Avatars have no free will. Being 'tools', they are a conduit of the free will of the game creator and the free will of the game player. The avatar has no existing 'will' to speak of, becuase it does not exist beyond it's visual representation. So why then do the human avatars here get a degree of free will? It is because they are not, and cannot ever be, just tools. They will always be humans, they can act as avatars, but will never be that simplistic in nature. In the 'game' they will not do any wrongdoing, they will tell the player to leave, and the idea of gaining their trust suggests to me that this might be an experiment, the purpose of which being to get the player to start relating to computer avatars in a new way, and to bring a human set of ethics to games. We would not ask this human avatar to kill, so why should we a computer one? Because the computer universe is not real...because computer universes allow us to dispense of our agression in a way that does not harm our reality....are two reasons I hear you say, but who is to judge what reality is? Surely ANY unhappy act can be seen as a harmfull blow to our universe, cyber or otherwise...bad thoughts breed bad actions. I am digressing from the point here slightly, so to backtrack, the girlfriend experience uses human avatars and presents them as close to the same as a computer avatar is presented, perhaps for many reasons that can be pondered and argued against. Another point raised for me, beyond the presentation, is the purpose. I have touched on the idea that it could be an experiment challenging the the relationships humans form with computer avavtars, but what if it is instead challenging human to human relationships (human interaction). This could be why the element of trust and the building up of a relationship is such an important factor in it's gameplay.

Unfortunately this game only works wed-fridays, so I have not played, so perhaps experiencing it will make its purpose more evident than just reading about it and looking at images from it. Either way, I can see why it was suggested to me to look at, it is similar to Knightmare in the way that it works, i.e, having a human avatar with whom trust is an important factor. It differs however becuase there are no puzzles to solve or end goal to work towards. I really like the idea of using a human character in a computer game now, but perhaps one with narrative and obstacles, and will be looking into performance art if I decide to take this idea further.

To end, if anyone has played this game or has any differing perpsectives of it, please feel free to post a comment for me to consider/argue against/agree with/debate.

Tutorial with Micheal.....

I spoke to Michael about my project so far and the research that I have been doing, as well as a couple of the themes and ideas I have been exploring. Before noting his comments, I’ll just give a brief overview here of what that was, because I did not go into my research in full, or explain all of my ideas as detailed better in this blog.

I spoke about the following research areas:

- psychical interaction
- control/manipulation
- mental interaction
- interaction between people
- Knightmare tv show
- Non linear storylines / parallel universes

And discussed the following ideas:

- interaction between people (controlling the person as a character in a game)
- installation using montage to provoke memory related experiences
- installation using montage materials arranged in two ways, one to give free will over interaction, one to manipulate and control, to show that free will is better than control in terms of producing more beneficial experiences
- touch screen application using clues in page to mentally engage the user in figuring out how to stimulate the page and proceed to the next.


RESPONSE:

Michael fed back some of my ideas to me in a way I had not considered/been aware of. I am thinking a lot about using installations to experiment on people and prove a point. He says that I sound like I have an opinion on issues such as free will and control in interaction, and could perhaps be exploring differing opinions or thinking about ways of communicating that to prove my point, however, I do not really have a set opinion….I have read a lot of texts and can see a lot of peoples different points of view. If I HAD to choose, I would say that it can be dangerous to use the media to manipulate public opinion, but I wouldn’t say it’s always wrong. His comment made me wonder….am I falling into the trap I have been reading about, of mistaking other people’s ideas as my own? Am I just voicing what I’ve been reading into my ideas rather than judging different sides and drawing my own conclusions? I don’t think this is true, it is still early and my research is quite wide ranging, but I think these are points I should come back to and consider when formulating my main idea to develop. I certainly will come back to the idea of using installation to prove a point or explore a point. One that comes to mind is that ‘interaction between people is good’, which is another comment Michael took my words to mean, though it was not my intent, but perhaps, it could be a theme to pursue, and use installation to prove. Other comments included suggestions to research ‘The girlfriend experience’, the argument that maybe it is not actually possible to completely remove freedom of thought, the artist Lorenzo Hemerr (who created an installation where light would beat at the same rhythm as the hearts of the people watching), and Deleuze’s ideas of repetition. One area I forgot to mention was my research into the fourth wall, and the idea of breaking it, which is something I am going to consider in more detail.