week 2 readings
The thing I found most interesting about the Manovich readings was his discussion of how ?cultural interfaces? are comprised of three older forms of media: print, cinema, and HCI. In his Interfaces chapter, Manovich asks why cultural interfaces look the way they do. I think he answers his question most clearly much later when, in his chapter on form, he points out that ?new media does not radically break from the past? (202). As I was reading his article in PDF form and commenting and highlighting it using Adobe Acrobat, I thought how true that statement is. My PDF, though it?s electronic and might be considered new media, ends up looking exactly as it would if I had printed it out. I used the highlight tool to highlight important passages just like I would use a physical highlighter to highlight important passages on the printed page; I use the comment tool to comment on the text, and Acrobat automatically creates a comment box in the margins of the document. When I am finished I have a document with highlights and random scribbling running down the margins of the text that looks almost identical to a book after I have read it. It reminds me of when Dr. Silva showed us the example of a manuscript compared to a document printed using the early printing press. There was no reason an early printed document had to look like the manuscript just as there is no reason my commented PDF has to look like a marked up book. The reason the new looks like the old is because any shift that is too drastic is simply too hard for us to use and too difficult for our minds to process (in other words, too hard for us to ?interface? with). That is why we adapt our new cultural interface using the interfaces we are familiar with (e.g. the web page is built off the printed page).
I was also intrigued by Manovich?s discussion of art and the interface. His point that changing the interface changes the art is a good one. The things artists can do using Photoshop are things they can do because the Photoshop interface allows them to. Does that mean that art becomes nothing more than informational design? No, it doesn?t because the artist can choose her interface just as previous artists could choose their medium and that choice affects the output just as drastically as whether Michelangelo chose to work in paints or sculpture. The interface becomes a medium of its own. When you go to a museum you can read the placard and see what materials the artist used to create an image (e.g. acrylics, oils, etc.). I wonder if some day we will walk into museums (will they even exist? I think so, but that?s for a post I?m not trying to keep reasonably short) and instead of a card listing the materials there will be a card listing what computer program the artist used. I think it would be appropriate because I agree with Manovich that the difference between informational design and real art is that the artist makes a conscious decision about the interface she needs to accomplish an artistic goal. It?s the same as consciously choosing a medium.
Manovich?s article on database structure versus narrative structure was also interesting and closely related to the discussion on interactivity. The history of media has shown switches back and forth between database and narrative (novel-photos-film-computer), and we are currently in a database structure. Unlike the photo period though, new media make it possible to easily incorporate narrative into the database (it was possible with photography, but clunky). Because we are familiar with narrative structure, it still exists in our database structure though it doesn?t have to. What is most interesting is that narrative refuses interactivity, taking away from one of the things we often associate with new media. I have read some hypertext fiction, which I do believe is truly interactive. The fiction I have read operates out of a sort of chaos and allows the reader to follow a nearly limitless number of paths throughout the work. It?s not narrative though. There is no way to make something truly interactive and let it remain narrative. Narrative has to progress and chaos fiction does not progress. We choose our own paths, but the chance of having 50 different options to read next and choosing those options in an order that allows for narrative is practically nonexistent.
The ideas of interactivity and database structure lead naturally to Bush?s and Engelbert?s articles. Bush?s idea for the memex is brilliant, and if it is ever realized fully, would change the way we gain and process knowledge. The memex is like a huge database (like EndNote or Refworks, but far more advanced) that allows scholars to store their work in a revolutionary way. Rather than traditional indexing techniques, the memex stores sources, data, etc. using a system of association similar to the way the human mind works. It records paths the researcher follows to get to her conclusions and keeps track of all the sources consulted. Future researchers can examine those paths to see exactly how the researcher reached her conclusions and the thought processes the original researcher followed. It is amazing that Bush conceived of this idea in 1945, and even now, our hypertextual and information management methods are nowhere close to being as efficient as he imagines. The thing that makes the idea of the memex so amazing is its combination of both narrative and database structure. Undoubtedly, the memex would serve as an amazing knowledge database, organizing and storing all the research a scholar ever did; however, its greatest potential lies in its narrative structure. A scholar could turn over his memex to a protégée and the protégée could then follow exactly how the mentor?s mind worked. Being able to follow the ?narrative? of the research process would prove to be an invaluable tool. Can you imagine being a physicist and looking at the order (as chaotic as I?m sure the order would be) of the process Einstein used to develop the theory of relativity? You could see the way one thought led to another and get as close as anyone possibly could to literally getting ?in the mind? of great scholars.
Engelbert addresses different ways we can ?augment human intellect? and then discusses the memex (or at least a process based off the memex). The second part of his article discusses an experiment he performed in which he actually created a card system that used associative connections described in Bush?s piece. His experiment showed that his productivity was greatly improved, but he then adds an important caveat: ?the relative limitations of mechanical equipment in providing processes which could be usefully integrated into the system would soon lead to its replacement by electronic computer equipments? (102). He then describes a linking process that would be possible on computer that seems like a more advanced version of the hypertextual process available in research/information tools such as Wikipedia. His hypertext would allow users to travel back and forth in the order of the process, seeing how one develops conclusions based on basic premises. It would also allow you to group all the different roots you took to develop your idea by any number of arbitrary substructures.
Engelbert and Bush?s ideas are remarkable and are more important now than ever. Bush discusses how the huge number of articles published makes it impossible to wade through them. Well, to briefly (I swear) link this to last week?s readings: if everyone becomes a producer, developing a way to understand and access that production becomes one of the most important goals of the 21st century. It is a nearly impossible task now, and becomes more daunting with each passing moment.
Oh and on a side note on interfaces, one thing we can learn from this class is that when designing interfaces we should examine the wolfblog system and do everything exactly the opposite of what it does.