[-empyre-] computer systems as sensual transducers

[Nancy Paterson <Nancy.Paterson@senecac.on.ca>]

I have been doing a bit of reading (and thinking) about synesthesia lately, and find this perspective, in particular, compelling.
Waterworth’s  (1996) research considering relationships among human perception, creativity and computer systems is based upon the idea that “the most salient and vital aspect of interacting with computer systems is consistently overlooked, that is, the importance of computer systems as perceptual rather than conceptual tools. Insofar as people interact with them, computer systems function primarily as sensual transducers which I term synaesthetic media and not as so-called cognitive-artifacts.”  An argument might also be made for synesthesia as an example of pre-language communication, as for many it involves signs and ‘constant forms’. Waterworth further argues that computers have evolved to be much more than tools which advance the computational aspects of cognition. Rather, the non-computational aspects of sensation, imagination, emotion, and fantasy as well as more plausibly computational faculties such as mental problem solving are now key factors in interface and softw
are design. It is where these factors intersect, at the juncture between human reason and human sensation, that the potential for creativity is richest.