Computation as a Medium
Week 1LCC 2700: Intro to Computational MediaFall 2005David Jimison
NMR Intro: Inventing the Medium• Engineers looking for a more coherent way of
presenting massive information of postwar era• Engineers looking for tools to help people to
think more efficiently• Engineers believe in the possibility of
integrating our perceptions of the world• Late 20th Century humanists (writers, artists,
philosophers) disgusted with intellect and integrative ideologies
• Humanists fascinated with multiplicity of ways of seeing the same phenomena (Borges)
• Divergent approaches twist together to co- invent the digital medium
A new medium!
Happens rarely in human history
Writing ~3500 BC Printing Press 1455 Photography ~1850
Computation as a Medium like Print
Medium Format GenresPrint book novel, history
periodical newspaper, magazine
Computer html page website, blogvideogame shooter, rpg…database payroll, archive
Computation as a Medium like Print
Medium Power of representation
Print Don Quixote Effect
Computer Eliza Effect
Other models of computation
• Technology (like an engine in a car)• Tool (like a pencil or slide rule)• Appliance (information toaster)• Transmitter of other media (network of moving
bits)
These are valid but more limited as an orientation for designer/inventors
Medium is a more inclusive framework
Advantages of the Media Model
For both design and understanding
• Historical perspective, analogies to other periods of media transition
• Rich design palette from legacy practices• Connects computation with other forms of
cultural expression• Focuses us on coherent form
What is a medium?
Something in the physical world that contains an idea of a person, place, thing, event, or concept.
Media vs Technologies
A medium contains (communicates) ideas through conventions of representation.
A technology is a set of methods and materials for doing something, such as creating a media artifact.
The computer can be thought of as an evolving medium that rests on a set of changing technologies.
Converging Technologies/Converging Media
• Digital television/videogame console hooked to internet
• Telephone/camera/appointment book/music player• Actors merging with animations in movies• NY Times producing 1 minute videos on website• NBC producing text and still image articles on
website• Google creating digital, searchable, networked
library• Replacement of paper, film, audio tape, vinyl
records, video tape with digital formats
A medium relies on
• Accessible Practices of Inscription• Fixed Practices of Transmission• Open Ended Practices of Representation
These practices are always cultural and may or may not be technological
Cultural = all shared behaviors , interpretations, and values beyond our biological endowment
Inscription
• = Intentional perceptible impression• Impression may be temporal or spatial• Impression may be auditory, visual, tactile• Impression requires malleable material to
receive and (perhaps) preserve it• Impression requires a means of marking the
material
What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation
Examples of inscription
• Sounds made by vocal tract, impressed in the form of sound waves
• Cuneiform wedges on clay• Hieroglyphics on papyris• Roman letters on Trajan marble monument• Moving images on film or videotape• Electro-magnetic charges configured as
bits
What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation
Issues of Inscription
• Temporality (speech, film)• Spatiality: capacity, direction• Ease of marking• Persistence of marking (fired clay)• Faithfulness of marking, copying
Transmission
Impressions conveyed from a sender to a receiver, from a creator to a perceiver
Can be transmitted over time (preserved)
Can be transmitted over distance(relayed)
What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation
Transmission Involves Coding
Telegraph model: Message -> Coded -> Relayed –> Decoded
Examples of standardized transmission codes:– Facial expressions– Cries– Phonemes of spoken language– Alphabet– 0000 1111– Ascii
What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation
Issues of Transmission
• Coding: how well does the code capture the message? – Alphabet with and without vowels– Binary vs analog codes
• Noise: how accurately is the code transmitted?– Static on a radio signal
• Interpretation by receiver– Does the receiver know how to decipher the code?– Does the code mean the same to the sender and
the receiver?
Representation
Assignment of meaning to the transmitted impressions
Based on shared experience, conventions of abstraction, conventions of symbolic coding
Always an act of interpretation from one consciousness to another (or same consciousness over time)
What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation
Representation
Based on an expanding set of meaningful conventions
• Set of lines interpreted as house, person, tree• Alphabetic text interpreted as sounds, words,
meanings• Interface icons interpreted as buttons connected to
actions
What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation
Mature media have established conventions
30 minute format with commercial breaks
Parents and kids
Foolish behavior
Loving/fighting
Established Media Conventions
• ?
Established Media Conventions
• Paragraphs• Lead paragraphs• Headlines• Mastheads• News photo• Byline• Column• Sentence• Inverted pyramid structure• Feature vs News vs
Editorial
Established Media Conventions
• Columns• Capitals and small letters• Spaces between words• Initial letters: chapter
divisions• Page numbers• Tables of contents• Indexes• Title page• Handwriting styles• Typefaces
Convergence breaks down coherence
Birth of a medium
Arrival of the Train at Ciotat Station, 1895
Q: When was the digital medium born?
A: 1966 in Cambridge MA
Media, Technology, Representation:Inventing the Conventions of Coherence
Effie Briest, 1974
Media, Technology, Representation:Inventing the Conventions of Coherence
Great Train Robbery, 1895
How to invent a medium
• Start with existing genres and import them to new formats
• Understand unique affordances of new modes of inscription and transmission
• Maximize these affordances for purposes of more powerful representation
Summary week 1Computation as a Medium
• Other models of computation• Advantages of media model • Medium: inscription, transmission,
representation• Media conventions bring coherence• Convergence disrupts coherence• How to invent a medium
• Next week: HoH 3 and Eliza
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