Re: [-empyre-] computer systems as sensual transducers

[Komninos Zervos <k.zervos@griffith.edu.au>]

a very beautiful post, illuminating and virtualising.
komninos

-----empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote: -----

To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
From: Nancy Paterson <Nancy.Paterson@senecac.on.ca>
Sent by: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Date: 10/12/2004 01:14AM
Subject: [-empyre-] computer systems as sensual transducers

I have been doing a bit of reading (and thinking) about synesthesia lately,
and find this perspective, in particular, compelling.
Waterworthâs  (1996) research considering relationships among human
perception, creativity and computer systems is based upon the idea that
âthe 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.â  An
argument might also be made for synesthesia as an example of pre-language
communication, as for many it involves signs and âconstant formsâ.
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.


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