[-empyre-] Writing and Pattern Flows

[Bill Seaman <bseaman@risd.edu>]

> (I wonder if Bill could explain a little more why he does not consider
> the concept to be useful and if Giselle could talk a bit about her
> statment that, on digital media, "the interface is the message")


The notion of interface seems to be clear but when one studies deeply 
the variety of interfaces and differing ways to interact with code, 
this begins to disappear. We need a sensing system (of some variety) 
that transduces behavior, eventually becoming  a code input that can 
interact with the code of a chosen system. This is a very open 
situation. This can be motion, voice recognition, pattern 
recognition, movement recognition, heat recognition, all manners of 
affective computing (skin galvinization) etc. physical computing, 
sonar, radar, infrared, eye tracking etc. etc.etc. So one doesn't 
inscribe on these interfaces (transduction vehicles) --- they 
interact through them. [this is a very partial list], and the output 
that this interaction brings about can be equally abstract/open...

[[I can't find the book - but there is a wonderful quote in the book 
about the inability to break down what/where an interface is --- 
where it exists... in Sciences of the Interface...I'll try to find it 
for tomorrow.]]

The interface certainly can be the message in some works and it is 
very important to Giselle's practice but there are other kinds of 
interface that may or may not become enfolded in the reception of a 
work.
i.e. a mouse and keyboard/screen have a kind of transparent content 
[especially on the net](often) where someone else might make an 
interface that becomes enfolded with the meaning in a deep manner. 
"Text Rain" (Utterbach) is such a work.

 In the work where people jumping off a bridge is recorded by a 
camera, one does not easily "write" through the interface of this 
system unless they want to die...(Jeremijenko)

b



--
Professor Bill Seaman, Ph.D.
Department  Head
Digital+ Media Department (Graduate Division)
Rhode Island School of Design
Two College St.
Providence, R.I. 02903-4956
401 277 4956
fax 401 277 4966
bseaman@risd.edu

http://billseaman.com
http://www.art.235media.de/index.php?show=2
http://digitalmedia.risd.edu