Realismnpold

the interface as an aesthetic and critical framework for digi.art

lit-book- paint- canvas- digital info-interface

rather than as a functional tool of making art

interface culture

realism is the keyword-not found in aesthetic tradition but a realism that stems from the pragmatic urge in engineering to deal with the physical world.

gui, comes from an engineering tradition that has paradoxically tried to get rid of it.

sketchpad 1963 NSL 1968

HCI and "user friendliness and transparency"

interfaces get in the way

interface is preferable invisible in order to produce a mimetic model of the task one is working on

in the perception of VR the interface should be all encompassing and 3dimensional, and the user should be surrounded by an immersive total simulation. The interface would then totally disapear and become totalized at the same time.

How the interface changes what we see, and how and how we experience and interact with reality, and how this reality is reconfigured through the computer. Digital art as important witness of the changes the computer has brought.

In INTERFACE CULTURE(1997), STEVEN JOHNSON argues that the interface is the most important cultural form of our time + Lev Manovich, CULTURAL INTERFACE

what is the interface-> THE PURPOSE OF IT IS TO REPRESENT DATA, DATA FLOWS AND DATA STRUCTURES of the computer to the HUMAN SENSES, while at the same time seting a frame for human input and interaction and translate this back to the machine. Dynamic form, not a static material object.

Interface's representionality.

The interface aims to give insights into the machine and its dataflow, can thus be understood as a realistic representation along the lines of engineering tradition.

Design interf. paradox-> we live in a society that is increasingly shaped by events in cyberspace and yet cyberspace remains for all practical pursposes, invisible outside our perceptual grasp.

dialectical relationship between reality and representation.

the interface aims to visualize invisible data.its a new kind of image originating in engineer tradition and can be undestood as an extension of instruments like radar and scientific tools which dont represent any analogue image of reality but rather sheer data.

According Scott delaHunta, the interface is more information like likeness more measurement than representation. Consequently, the realism is the dominant representational model of the interface , even though its a complex informational and postmodern realism.

AGain, the realist agenda is set by the engineering tradition.

fps->3ps, avatar self, interface and subjectivity + VR representation = immediacy

visualization of the bourgeois free individual

experience of interface becomes a narrative experience in Max Payne. fixed plot, player trapped in. Narrative becomes an effect, a surface or skin. Mediated perception where the interface becomes an imporatnt part of it.

the advent of net art can be regarded as a reaction to the iconophilia of the computer industry

Jodi max payne- they show the symbolic and coded flip side to the interface. It is possible to navigate this abstract space, though its not possible to see the walls. Jodi empasize that both space and interaction are based on abstract code algorithmic structures and cybernetic interaction. Jodi series Untitled game- print the code controlling the interface on the screen rather than executing it. They demonstrate the materiality and mediality of the interface. The players often use their orientation, but in turn they are given a unique experience of an abstract, modern, informational and cybernetic space, an experience that goes closer to the computer by creating a distance to the illusion.!!!! The interface is the experience and what u see is what u get.

In general, usability engineering is about designing interfaces so we can use them instead of focus on them

functional realism. NAKE;s concept of the INSTRUMENTAL MEDIUM we can see the computer as a new kind of machine that mediates the instrumental or functional and functionalizes the representational medium!!

Cramer , software art roots in conceptual art Pold also in literature.

IOD webstalker

Adrian Ward Auto- Illustrator> i want to express myself using the medium of consumer application software, which is why auto-illustrator doesnt have a radical interface"

tool metaphor-> hides representational/aesthetic choices which are included in functionality

who is the designer?the user, the author or the code???