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