|
|
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| <div style="width:800px">
| |
|
| |
|
| -Introduction, critique of information
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| Over the course of the second trimester I've been interested in the flow of information starting from sign display up to cognitive processing. Reading becomes a software application in itself that takes the platform on which the information travels as an input. As such, there is a sort of materiality that is ascribed to the action, which has caused many a debate: if we read on a tablet, from a newspaper, from books or from our phones, this will alter our experience. However, with the accelerating intake of data, this action is becoming more and more similar to viewing: searching for key interest points on a page and jumping from one signal to another instead of a slow and methodical procession of each word.
| |
|
| |
| In 'Critique of Information', the social theorist Scott Lash stresses that in the global information order there is a generalized notion of outsourcing, including the outsourcing of the unconscious. We now rely on databases instead of memory just as much as we have replaced the inner dialogue with ourselves with an externalized browse over bite sized decontextualized pieces of media wisdom. Reflexivity is being pushed more and more into the corner of our mental space as we start focusing on the nodes in the information network we are building and not on the space in between. We see this in cultural phenomena such as Kenneth Goldsmith’s university course on wasting time on the Internet, where he instructs his students to fully immerse themselves in a “digital haze”, to float in unarticulated directions and to adopt a constant state of awareness.
| |
|
| |
| With that in mind, I worked on a project that recreated the entire content of a book with CAPTCHAS. By using CAPTCHAS, which have a history of being computational hieroglyphs that can only be deciphered by humans, I tried to slow down the meaning making process by inviting the reader to ponder upon each word. I was interested in how you could organize someone's attention. By manipulating the reading interface, you force the user to adopt a mathematical attitude: they have to go through each line to understand the whole, as opposed to ‘literary’, ‘close’ or ‘deep’ reading where the user can take the liberty to read words selectively.
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| -Demystification
| |
| One of the goals throughout my work last trimester was to make readers aware of the strategies that are at work to nudge them into the desired behavior by the manufacturers. There are a lot of choices that are delegated to programmers and designers, for good reason, but this is often forgotten or intentionally hidden, which sometimes results in the illusion of objectivity reflected on the particular software or platform. Having a history option on your browser means you can retrace your steps at any time; what you were searching for three months ago is still stored in this external memory that you can return to at any given point. Having the option of multiple tabs encourages you to distribute your attention to multiple sources. Similarly, having the option to save bookmarks allows you to create your own encyclopedia of knowledge.
| |
|
| |
| I attempted to do this through the disturbance of the interface. While learning to work with Javascript for the first time, I devised a couple of projects dealing with these issues. With ‘disappearing fAct’, a bookmarklet that can be rather easily installed, the user is given the option to erase all hyperlinks on a Wikipedia article and render the page static. Multi-tabber, on the other hand, is a tab that multiplies itself when it is closed. The purpose of the project is to sabotage the browser to the point of incapacity.
| |
| Writing about the projects now makes me realize that the theme of node isolation shows through which is not necessarily a suggested but an exaggerated solution.
| |
|
| |
| -Unruly interface, noise, choice architecture
| |
| Noise in communication theory is …
| |
| Usually the design of a user interface involves smoothing out and reducing the noise that is seen as a hindrance. This sometimes results in configurations of a product's surface and not a reflection of its intrinsic way of functioning. I am interested to see what a noise-friendly architecture would look like and to what extent it would encourage intervention. [See: Flusser’s art theory and Umberto Eco The Open Work; Calvino Cybernetics and Ghosts]
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| -Diffusion of information
| |
| In the third trimester I've been looking at how information is disseminated onto specific networks and how the container of such a source is being shaped by choice architecture. Matthew Fuller has done extensive research on the subject.
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| -Future
| |
| In the future, one idea is to make a browser extension that gives you feedback on your performance: if you spend enough time on a website you get positive reinforcement and perhaps points too, which allows you to compare your performance with your circle of acquaintances. It would be about regulating your own attention. It has a sort of pathetically humorous aspect to it, I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| Quantifying your running, thinking or reading habits and recording your achievements on a platform is a rather strange reward system in which you perform for algorithmic praise. The Foucauldian notion of an improved self [care of the self- technology of the self] has been around for a while, not exclusively in self-help books that promise to teach you how to be successful and productive. But now the same concepts are wrapped in a different skin that provides instant feedback, instant reaction. I’m interested to see how these techniques shape more reflexive processes. [give examples]
| |
|
| |
| -Conclusion
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| </div>
| |
XPUB & Lens-Based wiki