New Media Reader #2

Theater of the Oppressed

• Augusto Boal – works in interactive performance
• military government forced him out of Brazil because of his works about oppressed people
• was later elected office in Brazil and used his performance techniques to further the legislative process
• idea of “embodiment”
• embodiment in terms of interactivity and making the groups and audiences work together to create performance and understand each entity more clearly
• Invisible Theatre

Soft Architecture Machines

• “structures for human activity” – architecture, human computer interaction
• virtual reality first seen in architecture where a person could see what a building would eventually look like
• Negroponte thought up software that would be more intuitive and understand the needs and desires of the user
• The user would have understanding control over the computer, instead of the computer doing what it willed and only expert computer programmers understanding what was going on

Computer Power and Human Reason

• computers have always been looked at as worrisome things – many believe computers could one day take over the world
• Weizenbaum created a chatterbot that was able to seem almost human, a psychiatrist that would answer and ask questions depending on what data it was given
• Weizenbaum looked at this carefully and almost disdain because “computer applications either ought not to be undertaken at all or if they are contemplated, should be approached with the utmost caution”
• During this time in the 60s people were afraid that human interaction with computers could become too human and humans could not realize what they were actually interacting with – a scary concept for those afraid that computers could take over

Responsive Environments

• new media often takes the user into other artistic and technological fields, ie literary arts and architecture
• Krueger created some virtual reality environments and was accepted by the computer science field
• His artistic endeavors, however, were not accepted
• Many see art and computer science connected and don’t see why “as of 1971 no art department had its own computer
• Krueger sees both art and technology connected and thinks the two should be connected in the future…there should not be one department of art and one department of computer science, but rather a collective department where people can interact with both

Personal Dynamic Media

• The Dynabook
• Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg looked at computers not as tools for businessmen and engineers but all citizens
• They understood the need for a notebook computer
• They highlighted how the computer of the future would be used…as a daily, notebook, addressbook, all-in-one device for all citizens
• It was after the Dynabook vision, the Alta personal computer, and then the Star system that created a whirlwind of computers and started the personal computer revolution of the 1980s

A Thousand Plateaus

• Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
• rhizomatic text
• “long live the multiple”
• challengers the reader to reconsider “dualisms”
• “we must find a way to write, to act, to be engaged in life without believing in the self-similar self, without believing in easy dualisms”

Mindstorms

• the home computer era – the 1980s
• computer driven home video game consoles – but also new ways to learn
• Papert developed idea of “constructionism”
• constructionism “looks more closely at the idea of mental construction
• LOGO – allowed children to take control of the computer and learn mathematics through the experience of the computers mathematical concepts
• many things have come about that take on this contructionism idea
• ie, Lego robot kits built by MIT that challenge kids to create and then use mathematical/computer programming knowledge to make the robots do things

Put-That-There

• Multimodal interfaces – combine speech and gesture input
• a computer interface more like spoken conversation
• these were all ideas developed in Bolt’s essay Put-That-There
• two-dimensional screens to create a three-dimensional virtual space
• “if the average computer interface was to become based on orality rather than literacy, the upset could almost be as profound as the shift from seeing the computer as a number cruncher to seeing it as a manipulator of written language

Proposal for a Universal Electronic Publishing System and Archive

• Xanadu is the archetypal dream of a hypermedia network
• in other words, all that we do (read, write, etc.) will be to and from a world-spanning computer network
• an ultimate archive of everyone and anyones things…you can work on any public document
• but what company will operate this network?
• our information is so much more valuable than any other utility company and can be misused and abused
• “micropayment” – but we should instead more towards a networked/online version of a library – something that anyone of any income level can contribute to

Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space

• new types of video installations and environments
• Bill Viola – 70 millimeter video art – “the lyrical in art”
• Viola’s work “relates to the Aspen project or commercial interactive video as poetry relates to an instruction manual or brochure

The Endless Chain

• Old and new seem to be integrating into a common theme
• instead of the internet as being a liberating and individual empowering medium, we have seen more and more “old media” companies adapting easily to keeping their grasp on society
• Bagdikian – predictions of increasing media concentration and narrowness
• media companies, like ISP’s are throttling the internet and not allowing a empowerment by the people, they are unable to use their own public servers, or show the world what they would like, the Internet has become an almost big business media controlled entity

Direct Manipulation

• direct manipulation – instead of using a command language to control a computer, data is processed in a graphically representational way – immediate visual feedback
• graphical user interface – ie, video game interfaces but used for all computer interfaces
• direct manipulation systems show only the essential aspects
• Google search, OS X’s command line – for example – are not graphical interfaces but rather just text input

Video Games and Computer Holding Power

• video games were a telling way in which children encountered the computer
• the computer enables people to enact personae that are difference from the ones they use in non-computing (ie Second Life)
• it is an object that enters our individual and social lives
• role-playing on MUDs allows play with aspects of the self
• action-oriented games, programmers say, can be enhanced with good stories