004_

Mini-flash project

003_ Reaction to Steve Johnson's "The Desktop"

Johnson begins by comparing the desktop to architecture and urban planning, in that "each design decision echoes and amplifies a set of values, an assumption about the larger society that frames it." In early interface computing such as Xerox's Smalltalk or the later Apple Macintosh, the interface to the computer was seen as a medium of navigation. Therefore, the desktop began to develop into a space for personalization or expression of the self rather than a logistical tool of "information". This shift represents the capability or capacity for what the desktop COULD do rather than what it SHOULD do for the user. In Johnson's words, "[computers] were also capable of adopting new identities and performing new tasks that have no real-world equivalent whatsoever." Consequently, when socialization of the machine began to occur it was scene as a medium of expression in between user to user contact. I would argue that, as this "new" language or mode of communication was born, it created not only new interaction, but a non-space where users would use the medium of a computer rather than of linguistics. With this shift, spatial elements of social interaction are muted, therefore creating not only a new typed language, but also a different way to "look" or "know" someone. If the visual identity of human to human relies on "H3||0" rather than "Hello" the way in which we gather sensory knowledge of other humans can open into a space (or non-space) where "reality" becomes the medium into a new dimension of interaction. In a sense, the computer as this communicative medium is a "high tech" version of dreams or spatial imagination in which we already have access to but cannot necessarily control as easily as a machine. Therefore, when the desktop interface becomes a "lifestyle choice" it evokes a personality of the self, allowing the user to control a new or at least, different identity than possible in "real" physical space.

002_

Here is Project 1.