spreading of textual variation (experiment)

Anatole Pierre Fuksas invited me to participate in this experiment: Mutating Genre Meme (more likely: ‘ecology of emerging new memes’)

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EXPERIMENT
Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

* You can leave them exactly as is.

* You can delete any one question.

* You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change “The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…” to “The best time travel novel in Westerns is…”, or “The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…”, or “The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”.

* You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”.

* You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

My great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.

My grandparent is Belgrad and Beyond.

My parent is The Ecology of the Novel.
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The best abstract painting in european art is:
Black square by Kazimir Malevich

The best mindpushing novel in pseudoethnography is:
The Art of Dreaming by C.Castaneda.

The best psychological film in science fiction is:
Stalker by Andrei Tarkovski.

Passing it to:
Pirkko Hyvonen
George Siemens
Martin Lindner

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R. Dawkins has written: people could view many cultural entities as replicators, generally replicating through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (though not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour.

Does the information have to be molecular at all? Memes. This is not something that I’ve ever wanted to push as a theory of human culture, but I originally proposed it as a kind of… almost an anti-gene, to make the point that Darwinism requires accurate replicators with phenotypic power, but they don’t necessarily have to be genes.

Memes do not always get copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes. These memes may themselves prove more (or less) efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for an hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.

Wikipedia says: The meme as a unit simply provides a convenient way of discussing “a piece of thought copied from person to person”.

Charles J. Lumsden and Edward Osborne Wilson published a theory of gene/culture co-evolution in the book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. They argued that the fundamental biological units of culture must correspond to neuronal networks that function as nodes of semantic memory. Wilson later adopted the term meme as the best existing name for the fundamental unit of cultural inheritance.

Memes spread by the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes have as an important characteristic their propagation through imitation

Memetic drift refers to the process of a meme changing as it replicates between one person to another.
Memetic drift increases when meme transmission occurs with variations.
Generations of hosts pass on these changes in the phenotype. Folk tales and myths often become embellished in the retelling to make them more memorable or more appropriate and therefore more impressed listeners have a greater likelihood of retelling them, complete with accumulating embellishments that may serve to modify human behavior.
Memes can move from one propagation medium to another (more efficient) one.

Very few memes show strong memetic inertia (the characteristic of a meme to manifest in the same way and to have the same impact regardless of who receives or transmits the meme).

Cultures can retain memes that once served a purpose during one epoch or era as vestigial memes.

So basically the meme talk is about spreading neuronal networks that function as nodes of semantic memory through action variables we can observe in behavior, or narrative variables which convey the meme in phenotype? Basically, spreading happens through some viewed action, listened narration or artifact mediation, when ideas were made external, toolisized, embedded to the environment for deliberate spreadout or as a by-product of our own activities.
That is well in line with what i think happens at any of our action - in order to use part of the environment for our actions, we need to make it our own, by toolisizing some of its objects through identifying some of their existence as affording our actions and emotions (basically during the neural processing we internalize ‘part of the objects’ from the environment that we may then name affordances, however if we do so, these affordances may be viewed through our behaved actions, narrations and artifacts by other people evoking similar neural patterns mirroring actions and emotions they see).

Meme is a content or meaning part, while meme propagation happens by decoding the meaning from mediation tools/artifacts?

Anatole thinks that ‘memes’ have to be eventually defined as emergent features instead of units of information residing in the brain. Ramifications of descriptions based on multiple potential affordances of described features are responsible of massive textual variation. Textual plasticity found both in oral and in literary traditions, from papyri to manuscript, from print to digital media supporting shared meaning based on collaboration, corroborate the idea that narratives have to be addressed as emergent features, encoded by means of symbolic systems and referring to perceptual events, actions and emotional correlates.

Do i get it right that in narrated text or written artifact we represent a set of affordances that emerged in action/emotion activation for ourselves (we simultaneously embodied part of objects for ourselves and inevitably embedded these embodied perspectives to in these objects). But if someone picks these perspectives (affordances) up from narrated texts, they will see these embedded perspectives (affordances) as correlates of their own embodied action/emotion of the similar kind. Of course that may not be exactly the same perspective (set of affordances) at all, what they have embodied. So it changes the affordances as they propagate them.

Question is, if meme is more like the meaning, while propagation is more like the action potentiality (affordances), we can imagine that in each person the whole reconstruction of the meaning will take place (like diSessa and Hammer etc. have explained will happen when people build up self-explanations of phenomena) rather than the meaning framework (or meme) was transplanted in them (like there are ideas of Stella Vosiniadou). How will these affordances (that are action/emotion related only?) propagate complicated meanings like some Pythagoras school of thinking?
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Ok..so much of trying to understand the background of the experiment.
It is not so easy to write those following the rule: The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…!
I got in trouble with the genre and medium, especially the medium definition - i think the medium is the tool where we have defined its affordances (novel - mindpushing), the thing what we spread via this medium is the emotion, action or meaning. Why i need to define genre and subgenre..for me they feel like affordances and i cannot define them when i want to propagate my action potentials, emotions or meanings what relate with these action potentials. The classification has no sense for me in this case, it is something we humans do as a game - classification. I never saw any need for that to propagate my embedded action potentials and emotions. Maybe? for systematic meaning propagation it has some sense? Donno…

migrating affordances?

MIGRATION AND NARRATION
Brigitte Boenisch-Brednich

Her article from electronic journal Folklore aims to work out the main narrative techniques of “telling migration”. It is based on field studies of people who moved to New Zealand after war. Why i find this article interesting? It picks up some affordances that are more extending, inviting for the newcomer. It demonstrates how people try to shift from one ecology with certain activity potentials and affordances for them, into another align system by drawing comparisons. Very semiotic approach of translating meanings from align framework to the common one by using certain connection points (see Stecconi writings).
It kind of makes me think about possibility of transferring affordances from some mediating tools in one environment into the totally new object in new setting that then becomes the substitute tool.

Can affordances be re-embedded?

Will the connection with the previous tool and its affordances remain embodied in person and will it be evoked simultaneously with the new tool and its affordances for a certain period of time?
It is also interesting how the narratives point to the affordances in the environment and there is also personal justification and evaluation for these affordances.

To the paper:

The approach is to investigate migration from the perspective of focussing on everyday life, an investigation on the basis of personal experiences, such as “work, housing, food, celebrations, social life”. A special focus is set on the analysing of “mental narratives” as key stories, examples, comparatives etc.

In terms of migration experiences there are 3 types of narrative items:
a) Stories about leaving and arriving

The narratives of the very first impressions on New Zealand are vivid and mostly very short. The first impressions, beside taking in the new landscape, were mostly those of the different food, the missing coffee-shops, the Sundays when everything was closed. But sometimes it was pleasurably different.

b) stories about the first year in New Zealand, which are stories about cultural misunderstanding, language problems, homesickness; basically about feeling alien, and being considered alien.

They outline pictures showing very different, often incoherent patterns to the outsider; only the migrant him- or herself can bring it to a pattern which makes sense for him- or herself.

c) there is a form of narratives covering the whole life of a migrant: the narratives of comparing countries and cultures – the culture you come from and the one you are now living in.

The underlying system of all the stories is the overall scheme of constantly comparing countries.In the process of composing points to compare, people create a supposedly objective reality; this enables them to combine argumentation and narration, and to make sense of their world.

*drawing very personal conclusions
Comparing countries can also mean that people are drawing very personal conclusions about their life in both countries.

*justification, push the rational narrative to points of proving their decision was right
A very personal decision is therefore followed by creating individual narratives which underline the direction in which they have sought to change their biographies.
They push the rational narrative to points of proving their decision was right, because they feel right.

*trying to narrate success
maybe 10% per cent of my interviews revealed this slightly problematic pattern of trying to narrate success when you should really be talking about misfortune or failure. The usual way is that a key narrative is used as a personal and symbolic mark5 to give a rationale

Two Theories of Perception and affordances

I found a paper about the differences of constructive and ecological aspects of perception and their interrelations, that was much in line with the theoretical affordance concept how i understand it, consisting of matching of two kind of aspects coming from the environment and from internal goal-directed processing.

These issues also make me think of our discussion with Mauri Kaippainen: he suggested that in Neisser framework the exploration is sort of unconscious scanning that does not involve so much goal-directed mental construction in advance (seems like ecological framework to me), while i thought that after a while this scanning as a spiral activity will be more and more conscious (seems like constructive framework to me). Also i suggested that sometimes we start exploration by shifting some internal imagination to the external environment, actualizing some aspects there - this again seems like constructive perception to me, where schemata must be internally processed in order to perceive something in the environment.

Joel Norman:Two Visual Systems and Two Theories of Perception: An Attempt to Reconcile the Constructivist and Ecological Approaches
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (6)

According to Joel Norman (2000) the constructivist and ecological theories of perception differ, however, he claims that there is certain continuum rather than dichotomy between approaches. Both approaches to perception, the ecological and the constructivist, are valid descriptions of perception, but of different aspects of perception.

Comparison of two theories to perception:

1. Mental processes to pick up information or not
The constructivists see the stimulation reaching our senses as inherently insufficient necessitating an “intelligent” perceptual system that relies on inferential types of mechanisms to overcome this inherent equivocality of stimulation.
The ecologically oriented theorists argue that the information in the ambient environment suffices and is not equivocal and thus no “mental processes” are needed to enable the pick up of the relevant information.

2. Direct or indirect perception
The constructivists see perception as multistage with mediational processes intervening between stimulation and percept, i.e., perception is indirect.
The ecological theorists see perception as a single-stage process, i.e., it is direct and immediate.

3. Relying on stored information
For the constructivists, memory, stored schemata, and past experience play an important role in perception.
The ecologically oriented approach sees no role for memory and related phenomena in perception.

4. Process versus stimulation
The constructivists excel at analyzing the processes and mechanisms underlying perception.
The ecological approach excels at the analysis of the stimulation reaching the observer.

Milner and Goodale (1995): the ventral stream transforms visual information into an exocentric (also labeled “allocentric”) framework allowing the perception of the object as it relates to the visual world. The dorsal system, on the other hand, transforms visual information into an egocentric framework allowing the actor to grasp or otherwise bodily manipulate the object.

Norman (2000) suggests that if it is true that the two systems function independently and that the dorsal system functions can be carried out with little or no conscious awareness, it is possible that the two systems will be capable of simultaneously processing two different sources of visual information with very little interference.

The primary function of the ventral system is the recognition and identification of the visual input. Recognition and identification must depend on some comparison with some stored representation. In contrast, the primary function of the dorsal system is analysis of the visual input in order to allow visually guided behavior vis-à-vis the environment and objects in it (e.g., pointing, reaching, grasping, walking towards or through, climbing, etc.).

The ventral system is superior at seeing fine details, while the dorsal system is better at seeing motion.

The ventral system is the memory-based system, utilizing stored representations to recognize and identify objects and events. In contrast the dorsal system appears not to have a long-term storage of information, but only very short-term storage allowing the execution of the motor behavior in question.

The dorsal system is the faster.
We are much more conscious of ventral system functioning and hardly conscious of dorsal system functioning.

Ventral system functions aim at recognizing and identifying the object and for this purpose all that is needed is object-centered information. In contrast, the dorsal system must perform some action on, or in relation to, the object, such as grasping it. For this purpose the dorsal system must utilize egocentric frame of reference. In order to be able to pick up the object the dorsal system must utilize absolute metrics, while functions of the ventral system only require relative metrics.

Broader theory of perception is based on the accumulating research findings that point to the existence of two visual systems, the dorsal and the ventral. It was suggested that the ecological approach broadly parallels the functions of the dorsal system, and the constructivist approach broadly parallels that of the ventral system. These two visual systems deal with different aspects of perception. The dorsal system deals mainly with the utilization of visual information for the guidance of behavior in one’s environment. The ventral system deals mainly with the utilization of visual information for “knowing” one’s environment, i.e., identifying and recognizing items previously encountered and storing new visual information for later encounters. But it should be stressed that both systems overlap in the functions they perform.

This last thing is interesting, if to think of the role of perception in determining affordances from the environment in one hand, and affordances of the anticipated activity in another hand, which must be coupled.

Iaccoboni’s studies about mirror neuron function divergence seem to support Norman’s assumptions.

Iaccoboni: canonical neurons seem to be coding the affordance of an object, the pragmatic aspect of how-to-grab-that-thing, rather than its semantic content; mirror neurons do not fire at the sight of an object but will fire at the sight of a whole action. Mirror neurons have auditory access and they enable a multimodal representation of action that is not linked to
the visual channel only.

Ecological approach
Dorsal system: utilization of visual information for the guidance of behavior in one’s environment
- seeing motion
- utilize egocentric frame of reference (i grasp an apple)
Canonical neurons: seem to be coding the affordance of an object, the pragmatic aspect of how-to-grab-that-thing, rather than its semantic content

Constructivist approach
Ventral system:utilization of visual information for “knowing” one’s environment, i.e., identifying and recognizing items previously encountered and storing new visual information for later encounters
- seeing fine details
- recognition and identification of the visual input
Mirror neurons: fire at the sight of a whole action

Decision support tool in action

On saturday we tested iCamp Folio with the group of learners. They had to think of the affordances they need in self-directed action. Next they could move the sliders to switch in some of the affordances. If profile was saved, they could see which tools have the needed affordances, and who of the learners has similar profile.

We also talked with Mauri Kaippainen, that there is an advancement of this software already, that fixes the most suitable selection of tools and users to the upper right corner area. So the whole area of the tool becomes more meaningful. We still need to implement it though in iCamp Folio.

Our ECTEL 07 presentation of the folio.

Theoretical Framework of the iCampFolio - New Approach to Evaluation and Comparison of Systems and Tools for Learning Purposes, Terje Väljataga, Mart Laanpere, Kai Pata, Mauri Kaipainen

Mart suggested yesterday that FOAF could be used to get learner’s expected activity affordances and their tool preferences on the basis of affordances together.

The Friend of a Friend (FOAF) project is creating a Web of machine-readable pages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do.

This idea is interesting, and goes close to our thinking of activity system components interaction when people define their learning landscape affordance-based.

Mapping Hybrid Ecology ideas rev.1

Since we are thinking to start some really interesting brainstorming session about Hybrid Ecologies in augmented reality in Tallinn I started some ideamapping of certain thoughts.

Several community-activities with new technologies can be built upon the relationships between real spaces/objects, people and meanings:
Space with dynamically embedded meanings (eg. spoken narratives, movement) entails action potentials. The embodiment of these action potentials is a process of coupling affordances evoked by internal imagination and goals in one hand, and the perceived and culturally predefined external affordances from the environment, on the other hand. As a result, this space becomes into a place for new interpretors and starts triggering activities. Activities in places are mediated by cognitive tools (eg. language) or physical tools (eg. body movement).

Space geotagged with meanings as media artifacts (eg. textual narratives or images), which were embedded by ICT tools (mobiles, computers, pdas) or manually (etc. graffit, signs) entails action potentials. This space becomes into an augmented place for real and virtual activities (eg. blogging geotagged itinerary). These activities may be simulatneously mediated by cognitive tools (eg. language) or body (eg. movement) and ICT tools (mobiles, computers, pdas) with interfaces (?) (eg. social software like Flickr, Youtube etc.).

Activities in augmented reality are hybrid - interfaces may theatrialize certain action potentials between real and virtual sides of the realm, intentionally activated internal action potentials may be embedded through virtual interfaces to the spaces toolisizing them.

The thoughts, what might be interesting to study, are still to be elaborated. But i believe in to the interplay between three groups: actors, activity patterns and meanings in augmented places, thus, determining interesting ecosystems.

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Here is the initial seed from Anatole Pierre Fuksas:

Storytelling and Hybrid Ecologies in the Age of Social Networking and Locative Media

Philology and criticism usually apply to literary works that have been written and published or literary systems as actual genres. That is, literary studies generally focus on past or present state of the art but they hardly offer predictions, prefiguring forms that will play a role into the future development of cultural landscapes. Making a remarkable exception in respect to the norm, the present contribution aims to forecast potential development in storytelling based on locative media. That is, as part of a more general inquiry on the Ecology of the Novel, it will investigate potential literary applications based on Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographic Information System (GIS) or similar geotagging standards.

In a few years narrative artists and storytellers’ communities will very likely write or tape stories that will be broadcasted by locative media mining 2.0 websites for contents to delievered by Location-based media on GPS or GIS enabled portable wireless devices. Textual narratives as podcasted stories will will invade laptop computers and mobile phones, providing readers and listeners with pertinent references or analogical interferences aimed to enriching natural environments. Presences triggered by the mirror matching of references entailed by symbolically encoded narratives, both in audio and written text formats, will infest urban and rural environments, forests and deserts, islands and hills, mountains and beaches, enhance the sensory experience of perceived landscapes.

So, questions arise. What formats may be forecasted as the standards ones when it will come to the implementation of socially shared narrative art with locative tagging? Will these new narrative standards reshape interactions between subjects and environments? Will coded and shared hybridation based on narrative contents reshape perception of landscapes? Moreover, while providing a permanently operative level of interaction between narrative contents and natural environments, will geotagged stories play crucial role in the literary system? Will eventually the novel be doomed to extintion because of the rise of socially-networked locative narratives? Rather, will the novel outlast this technological revolution too?

See Storied navigation from MIT medialab
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i had a talk yesterday aslo with Mauri Kaippainen. He showed me some interesting thoughts where he used Neisser’s framework for describing the situation in hybrid systems.

http://www.slideshare.net/M3.thevirtual/kaipainen-normak-niglas-kippar

It is notable that Neisser (1994) elaborated Gibson‘s concept of affordance and distinguished three perceptual modes:
- Direct perception/action, which enables us to perceive and act effectively on the local environment;
- Interpersonal perception/reactivity, which underlies our immediate social interactions with other human beings, and;
- Representation/recognition, by which we identify and respond appropriately to familiar objects and situations.

We discussed what the exploration would entail, and can the participants of the community directly view each others’ exploration or is it mediated through the narrative/visual meanings as emergent patterns in the interface.

For me the ‘object’ on the figure is too general, and it does not separate the real objects in the environment and the ‘meanings’ that are tagged to the object. On my opinion these need to be looked together but also as separate things.

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My talk with Anatole:

A:If I get you right, you maintain that interaction with objects imply externalization of feelings, emotions, whatever, and the so called meaning the performer attach to the object while perceiving or affording it is somewhat transmitted to the object, that changes into a tool the performer uses to cope with the environment.

K: I assume that i may have internally an emotion or intention (i refer to the meanings or intentions that are initiated inside me as novel, creative), which i cannot express or do without the use of mediation to the external world (to someone certain, to someone abstract). Thus, i must embed this emotion or this action potential to the environment picking something, an object in the environment, or creating an object that didnt exist and attaching my action potentials or emotional cues to this object so that it will become into a tool that helps me to express this emotion/do this action, or to leave this emotion/this action potentiality as an invitation to the environment. This gives the objects i use as mediators a dimension where they become tools. But at the same time they don’t cease to be objects in another dimension.
My understanding is based on the emboding of objects by means of potential or actual affordances.

My understanding involves also the embodiment. I see it as shifting something that is initially left in the environment to some object by someone internal in order to evoke emotions or trigger actions. I cannot use any tools (that the environmental objects with affordances i perceive) are without partly embodying them, extracting something from the object (this something i see as the perspective with affordances), imagining it, initiating some neural processes that lead to my emotions and actions, and then i am able of using this object as a tool to perform action.

When i have used some tool earlier, later this embodied feeling of using the tool with the affordances can serve instead of tool.

Then there is also a possiblity, that i don’t do this embodiment directly by touching the things, but i may observe the others doing it/talking of it.
Or i may read the others having used it. In the last case i somewhat create imaginary tool with affordances, which serves as real tool for triggering my actions and i can use the imaginary tool and do what i wanted to do. (eg. i imagine streets to know where to go, and i can explain it also by using this imagined tool)

A: So, human anatomy is crucial as the shape of the object is and certainly Human phisiology is perturbated by affordances, hence performers can feel like affording a book just by thinking of it or talking about it (mirror neurons etc…).

K: yes..human anatomy and perceptional organs?

A: Now, the actual affordance of an object …

K: i dont believe the object has an actual affordance, it may have many affordance perspectives only due to different actors who have embedded/omitted some of their emotions/action potentials to the object

A:… may turbate the status of the afforded object and the change makes sense to me in terms it determines subsequently different assessment of the landscape it belongs to.

K: i cannot understand word turbate
since i disagree the first part it is hard to get the point of second part

A: I’d redefine the idea of externalizing feelings by actually affording objects in different terms.

K: yes, exactly - omitting internal affordances which we imagine as necessary prerequisties for actions/emotions to the objects in external world.
However i also believe it is kind of coupling process. The objects due to our perception, earier experiences, cultural background, embodied action potentials of these objects will always sort of extend some properties to us, that makes us to pick these objects, feel as if there are paired affordances for our action. So for me at both sides there is matching between imagined affordances.
Is it the same what you think with previous sentence of turbating?

A: That is I’d say goal planned actions so to be defined as purposeful and planned at all have to entail emotional correlates (Bechara and Damasio’s studies I quoted and I attach, one of them I have in paper, so send you the reference and another one I just got the abstract).

K: logically this sentence is not argumented here. But in principle i believe they come as pairs.

A: So, emotions are not externalized, they are simply part of the decision making process…

K: there are some emotions that precede any intentions, and there are some emotions that procede intentions or are simultaneous with emotions

A:… that is they are crucial and completely embedded into the action planning strategy.

K: at least two last versions of emotions are
but some emotions exist per se, not because of intentions
creative emotions often have no goal but emotion

A: To a certain extent, perception triggers action potential and emotional correlates at the same time.

K: i agree

A: So, in order to ‘get’ the emotion driving somebody else into, say, leaving a book into a bookshop, you may be able to decode it from CLUES he left WHILE interacting with the object, that is handling, manually affording it.

K: Yes i believe you attach the emotional potentials to the tools when you actually embed the affordances of action.
But for pure emotion to evoke emotion, do you need the action/goal things in between or can you also embed to some objects, afford pure emotion?

A: Dunno if this fixes the point and sets us on the same page, but I think it may help you with your externalizing struggle

K: for me we are at the same ground, the question was more in my use of words: embedd, externalise, omit, embody is somewhat nice word for himans to take something as part of their body parts, but for me actors and objects do not feel that different. For example trees feel me same as humans. Or stones. Or houses. Or water. So i could somewhat imagine they have some goal-directed embodiment as well.

For example there are studies in the north how trees transmit fear. Or there are many studies of water having structural kind of memory. If to think a bit more open way further, you can see my struggle with embodiment isnt so simple.

balance in ecological tool-action system

I just got an interesting idea when rethinking of Manovitch lecture and the reflections of my own affordance thoughts.
Let us suppose that within activity system the affordances emerge as constraints allowing/restricting some actions among many. Let’s imagine this as a trading process where internal goals make us to expect certain affordances for some actions in one hand, and the external environment with its objects and persons sort of extends some affordances culturally above others, when we perceive this environment. This is working like the balance between two systems.
Now if we think of Manovitch example, we move from toolisized theatric interface world to the seemless interfaces for actions. The balance moves from embodying externally theatrized affordances from tools (eg. mobile phones, computers) for action, towards externalizing internally created action affordances and acting them directly to the environment using seemless interfaces, bypassing the tool side.

What makes this balance to move? Anyway, this seems very ecological indeed.

Lev Manovitch in Tallinn University

Interaction with information as an aesthetics experience

prof. of new media in university of California, San Diego

born in Moscow

How the design - material and interface form - of information devices have dramatically changed - witnessing paradigm shift, which has not been described.
Our lives have been meditated by information devices, but we are not noticing, realizing this design change.

Focus on mobile phones
Compare your first and current phones: information objects have been redesigned as aesthetic lifestyle objects.
‘Prada phone’
This lifestyle, fashion trend has happened in all price categories.

Where does the shift came from, what it means?
Larger trend - aesthetization of mobile tools, interfaces
Where does this trend start - 10 years ago from Apple iMac, appealing to senses instead of being just the office tool.
Sensations of colors, transparency, touching the surface

Democratization of design - this paradigm shift is not reducible only to the economic changes

Everyone is involved nowadays in cognitive, symbolized processing

Computer as a multifunctional tool - communication, culture, social life dimensions of these tools

Interfaces at work and at home were different at 50ies - today the interfaces for pleasure are the same interfaces that are used at workspaces.

Consumer market has opened up because of leisure user practices with this information technology in order to distinguish it from the work practices and business aesthetics.

Modern design formula came to be replaced with new formulas.

How this larger aesthetization trend changed our information usage practices?

Until 1990ies: Best interface should be invisible, that the user does not notice.

Interface was modeled not to track attention, it was in coherence with office life items and artifacts.

This paradigm is going to disappear

New paradigm: interface is going to become visible

The more we interact with our information devices, the more we interact with the interface itself. Interaction with the interface becomes significant in your information life.

New paradigm reflects this new reality - designs no longer try to hide interfaces, interaction with the interface is treated as the significant event, as an orchestrated experience rather than some necessity.

Interface interaction is becoming into some game.

Affordance of using Photobooth in lecture: Manovitch demonstrates on large screen the mobile usage.

Piaget’s child development: touch -> images -> cognitive symbolic processes
Interface design has same mentality development

We are talking on top of interface design the appeal to different senses in interface designs.

Current design is in accordance with classical culture - integration with different elements.
Current design is tradeoff between technology and marketing, it is not in coherence, it is schisophrenic.

Theatricalization of interfaces is his main message.

To build and stimulate senses for cognitive learning experiences

There is also one new trend in design: disappearance of technological objects as such, which become integrated into our spaces.

Manovitch demonstrates ipod design, white design is almost giving the illusion of becoming invisible.

Next stage: from technological fetish (prada phone) to dissolvment to everyday life, invisible infrastructure

Architecture and design as an empty medium - becoming into interface, it refuses to communitate by itself

Rethinking of Lev Manovitch main message and ecological approach of design

1. Manovich stated that: tools are vanishing and becoming into seamless interfaces
It seems then that affordances of the activity-side become stronger and stronger perceived, while the affordances of the object side, where interface is embedded are decreasing in the perception of the user?

Questions to Manovitch in IMKE wiki

ecological approach to the designs in technological world

I woke up in the morning to read more thorougly Anatole’s post about Action potential and urban fiction about Xing Danwen’s works.

What came to my attention was this part:

Danwen maintains that «people live in cubes that are squeezed next to one another, separated only by thin walls. This physical proximity, instead of leading to greater closeness and intimacy between people, can often create psychological distance and loneliness. The sculptural form of these new residential buildings, the floor plan of the apartments, and the various interior designs are all related to the inhabitants and their “individual” taste and needs. The models of these new living spaces are perfect and clean and beautiful, but they are also so empty and detached of human drama».

Then Anatole comments that:

Hence, an ecologically grounded approach emerges, since issues as proximity and spatial closeness and, interestingly, they are asymmetrically paired with psychological correlatives as intimacy, distance and loneliness.

We have been recently discussing this ecological approach with him, where objects from external environment in correlation with our internal goals will start affording certain activities and certain emotions.

Could we state that these new interior designs would entail certain culturally defined potential affordances that would trigger us to actualize only our certain goals in these urban spaces and then perform certain selected actions and feel emotions of lonelyness?
Or can we say that our internal urban lonelyness actualizes certain correlates in the environments (specific affordances) and repeats more and more these goals and actions that lead to urban drama and seclusion?

Or is it about interaction of externally embedded potential affordances, which we defined by culture and our internalized culturally defined mindsets that leads to evoking certain affordances in the environmental objects?.

Anatole’s blog post also mentions that if we add something from ‘alive’ environment to this sophisticated and cold modern realm, it will change the whole setting.

Danwen offers that «when you take these models and begin to add real life–even a single drop of it–so much changes»

I am questioning, why then we don’t add this real life part to the ‘cold cube world’? to prevent that the interrelations of our lonely being in technology and the external correlates of it, which we have created, would lead us towards greater and greater human solitude? And how could we add this real part.

Can we do it, shifting our internal imaginations of ‘ other warm life’ external as new objects and items and designs - basically toolizise our intentions to change the culture?
Or can we instead actualize our goals so that we ignore certain culturally defined technological design elements and their potential affordances and we would encode these objects into ‘warm’ and ‘alive’ emotional feelings and actions. This means we do not need to add certain ‘different’ real objects to the environment to trigger different affordances. We can add them sort of in our imagination and it would work the same?

I think this is already what we are doing in the technology world. Mart gave me to read the PhD thesis of Elza Dunkels “Bridging the Distance: Children’s strategies on the Internet”. She did a lot of online interviews in chatroom to ask about how they perceive the Internet environment. She writes:

From 8000 words in the interviews kids actually mentioned the word computed 19 times, and only at 2 occasions this was initiated by the child. Communication and fun themes, rather the use of technology per se prevailed.

On my opinion, the actualized affordances of Internet seemed not to depend of the objects, computers, technology with its functionalities and limitations, but instead these ‘information age immersed kids’ externalised real life and very warm and alive activity goals and perceived in the technology environment other affordances that the grownups from earlied generations. And accordingly these ‘communication and interaction affordances’ they sort of shifted to the technological world replaced the affordances of the technology as a technology. Kids totally forget that technology is there as a mediation tool!

Having this thought in mind i was going with my thoughts to monday, when we are having Lev Manovitch visiting our group and having lecture in Tallinn. He wrote about similar things in his paper: Friendly Alien: Object and Interface (2006). It talks about certain misfit of the technological content and activities and fashionable ‘old world’ designs that some modern artifacts (cell phones, etc.) are packed in luxury shops (eg. encrustation, silver textures, ”art deco” patterns).

Manovitch wrote:

cell phones, PDAs, portable game players, portable music players, portable video players all contain interfaces – most often a screen for output and input and a few buttons, and sometimes also a trackwheel, or a small built-in keyboard. And behind the screen lives a whole separate world with its logic, aesthetics, and dynamics. And when this electronic screen and the world it presents to us ends (I am talking about the physical boundary of the screen), this creates visual and psychological feeling of discontinuity. Suddenly we are in a different world – that of non-interactive, “dead” surfaces which enclose the screen. And typically the design of these surfaces does not have much to do with the design of the screen interface.

Thinking of Elza’s ‘Internet kids’ - do they perceive it the same as we ‘old generation’? Somehow i think they don’t.

Ok, then Manovitch writes about how the technology would change the objects we are used to see around us:

as computation becomes incorporated in our lived environment (the trend which is described by such terms as “ubiquitous computing,” “pervasive computing,” “ambient intelligence,” “context-aware environments,” “smart objects”) the interfaces slowly leave the realm where they safely lived for a few decades – that is, stand-alone computers and electronics devices – and start appearing in all kinds of objects and on all kinds of surfaces, be it interior walls, furniture, benches, bags, clothing, and so on. Consequently, the forms of all these objects that previously lived “outside of information” now have to address the likely presence of interfaces somewhere on them. This does not mean that from now on “form follows interface.” Rather, a physical form and an interface have to learn how to accommodate each other. Beyond the traditional requirements that the material forms have to satisfy – a chair has to be comfortable for sitting, for example – their design is now being shaped by new requirements.

In short, today the interface and the material object that supports it still seem to come from different worlds. The interface is a “friendly alien” but it is still the alien. The task of rethinking both interface and objects together so they can be fused into a new unity is not an easy one and it will require lots of work and imagination before aesthetically satisfying solutions will be find.

The surface of an object can become both an output and input media, bringing together the physical and the screen-like – form and information - in surprising ways.

Manovitch deals with ‘interfaces’ enclused to ‘objects’. Both trigger currently different potential affordances for action. Implicitly, he worries that the separation of hidden action potentials technology offers through ‘interfaces’, and the action potentials that the objects had in another previous culture, would be contraversial and causing certain battles between what action to carry out and evoking necessity for grounding contraversial affordances. This would result in not using these new devices most effectively as planned by the designers and visioners of new technology, because we would be triggered simultaneously by the affordances evoked by two different cultures.

Basically what we need, is immersion of cultures, becoming these new ‘immersive technology generations’ and we will no more distinguish the potential affordances the objects evoke as old and new activity potentials. Rather we will shift out internal immersed and augmented intentions into the environment activating combined affordances.

Do we need new designs to obtain the new culture or would the new culture emerge in using currently not ideally integrated technologically enriched objects and augmented reality? If so we will just start evoking different affordances in this environment and the design and immersion of old and new should not necessarily be melted to each other organically, we would do it by ourselves, with our perception and imagination.

In this case we can act in the current environment we are used to, but we can see if we want so in this environment also this virtual, technologically added space - we will get hybrid, augmented or ecologically defined environment for totally new activities, where we can go or not go depending our intentions.

thinking of hybrid ecology 2

I have an idea what i want to do in augmented (hybrid reality) where some narrative and visual artifacts are tagged, which people can find with mobile phones, plus the place itself has a lot of objects around.

I want to try out how this new content changes actions, objects in the environment, and how objects in the environment and actions would change content of these artifacts.

I think it is like the 3 dimension system: one is some objects in the envitonment, second is actors (subjects), third are different artifacts and meanings and art etc. Actions are like flow in this system.

What is complicated, is to start seeing it as patterns, because especially the 1 and 3 dimension elements are changing in these patterns into tools and back.

What i am interested in is, the patterns in hybrid ecology.

In computerbased systems you create something verbally, by typing, drawing..and at some moment it serves like the tool, at another moment it is hanging out there and is a potential object to become back into the tool when someone starts using it in actions for realizing some goals.

I was discussing these issues yesterday with Anatole again. There were some interesting ideas i would like to keep.

Anatole pierre Fuksas 10/4/07 10:28 PM
so, for instance, the sand castle story we was discussing yesterday may fit your 3rd layer
whereas the beach subjects are walking on fits the 1st
and the subjects themselves fits the second?

Kai Pata 10/4/07 10:28 PM
yes, for a while when we talk, we use the story as a tool

Anatole pierre Fuksas 10/4/07 10:29 PM
why do you feel like that story works as a tool
in my understanding that story just enanches the setting by means of descriptions
basically implements stuff into your 1st layer
by means of mirror matching vehiculated by sentences
as in, you feel like the castle is there even if it’s not
(as the sound of an helicopter performed by a sound blaster behind your back, the helicopter isn’t there but you feel like it is before you turn)

Kai Pata 10/4/07 10:30 PM
a tool is every item what i need to perform an action - either real action or imagined action
if you want to explain me something, you shift something from the environment to be this narrated tool for me..and i shift this narrated tool back into the environment doing some action on the basis of it

see on left side..and right side..What i think happens between the layers is this embodiment and externalization.

Anatole pierre Fuksas 10/4/07 10:39 PM
Natural environments and narrative environments are of course different in terms that the second one is not directly experienced by senses but by words referring to perception, action and related emotions

Kai Pata 10/4/07 10:40 PM
But if words, phrases are like objects?

Anatole pierre Fuksas 10/4/07 10:41 PM
still, for a narrative environment to actually work and being of some interest, it has to trigger perceptually related action potential by means of descriptions

Kai Pata 10/4/07 10:41 PM
i think narrative (language) mediates something what is behind it, and the real environment with its elements and objects does the same

Anatole pierre Fuksas 10/4/07 10:42 PM
They both refer to actions that may be performed by?

Kai Pata 10/4/07 10:43 PM
As soon as you start using something from the environment, you create a bond over affordances, and this object becomes into something in this system, you embody this object through affordances, and it is like the tool in the scheme.

when organisms evolved and they developed different senses..do you think the environment they perceive and use for actions is so much different of the voice-sounds what we also perceive?
if you touch blinded way things, you perceive them, voice is like touching too..and both ways you create this something in this interaction,
that enables you to act on the basis of it, get emotions too..i dont know what first
if you think of language now, then narrated language is just more culturally defined
same is environment what we use

if we think of signs we use to write down narrations, different signs probably are like objects..i just started to think of hieroglyphes and different languages, does writing down narration become (when in sign) something special of its own, that has more dimensions and affordances than just spoken sign?..and also spoken sign depends of how it is said

Anatole:
let’s put it this way, may words work as objects and tools they refer to?
I mean, you are on that beach, i say bucket and showel, you feel like you might start digging hole in the sand filling the plastic bucket
still, if we sit on the sand and i tell you once I wrote my name on the sand with my finger I am probably enanching the environment (your layer 1) by means of description
I mean, my words directly complement the natural landscape without acting as tools

Kai Pata 10/4/07 10:59 PM
they are always mediated through someone who perceives
let me try to understand that drawing on the sand
if you wrote the name on the sand and left, it is there as part of the environment..i can perceive it as it triggers my emotions, and what affordances for action it gives to me..and it may not be the same as it affords for you..

after you wrote it, you shifted, externalised it to the environment (in my scheme)..it is same as you wrote a post in blog..and it is now part of something different.
ok..you actually say the words now to me about the name on sand, then it seems a bit different!

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 23:05:02
I mean, if I say I feel like writing something with my finger, words as ‘finger and write’ may trigger action potential working as a tool and you may start wondering what I may eventually write, or feel on the skin of your arm the touch of a finger writing something as it was on the sand

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 23:06:38
i mean, the first case triggers potential that is not related to features yet embedded into the landscape

Kai Pata: 23:06:43
for me i see the two things are different..if you leave something behind, or if you just now say/do it and i watch you saying/doing

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 23:07:22
yes of course, but I am still just talking about descriptions, I mean, I am not moving I am not actually writing with my finger
just describing two different things
the will of writing with my finger
and a word I once wrote with my finger

Kai Pata: 23:09:52
ok..is it like this..
i am like the monkey, i observe you doing something and i think/relate it with my goal and i am feeling some emotions as if i was you doing it..
this is the same as you tell me on writing (because telling and seeing feels same to me due to this mirroring thing)…
in another case, you said it by really externalising, embodying it to the environment and left,
will i be able of feeling the same as in first case?

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 23:10:31
that’s even more tricky

Kai Pata: 23:11:18
but for me it is the main thing what they havent discovered yet.
Neural studies have proved the case 1 with watching and with hearing, but not the case 2
and basically what you try to say on my opinion is about case 2 to work same frames

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 23:12:06
you mean if emotions attached to verbalized actions referring to past actions or to action that have not yet been performed feel the same as the ones perceived while being performed?
you are right, this is still disputed, there is still not any sort of neurological evidence supporting one view or another

Kai Pata: 23:13:25
i mean, will they feel the same if the actual origin of the action the one who did it /said it and had connections with it 1) has left and you are on your own with that ‘object’
on my activity system with affordances..i would say they don’t feel the same, as some component of the system is off

some ways it may be the same ‘mystic’ person if the action/verbalised action is there or if just the sign or object was left..but what i think, if the guy is off the picture, then you are getting something less from the sign/object because
i) they are like having interaction while they are together?
ii) or because the guy has interaction with the thing and other elements around when there? or
iii) does all of it play some ways on your awareness etc
Do u say something you keep having interaction with this thing until yo are on the play
like you keep this saying on the string and don’t let it lose, and thus it is different

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 23:24:20
not sure, I am thinking about clues being eventually MORE effective if origin is off the picture

Kai Pata: 23:24:40
effective is tricky
but if to take Lotman stance again..then you are right
as soon as the author is off the picture, the other can translate (or you used encode) how he likes without any common area where he knows how to translate, and this is suppoesd to be more creative, making the birth of new things, bringing new elements into system, creating semiosis

Discussing hybrid ecology

Trying to come on common ground with Anatole about what we have in common in the framework of affordances, and hybrid ecology.
It is still not clear to me, but i think keeping these recordings will enable to develop further my thinking of the activity system in which affordances play the certain role. And part of this activity system i see Anatole’s interest in art and literature and hybrid ecology.
Main idea from this talk what i filtered is Anatole’s comment: everything is basically revolving around the concept of space as an emergent feature

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 15:55:58
do you think that art and literature may be part of an hybrid ecology?
Kai Pata: 15:56:39
in my understanding there are 3 layers, people, tools/environmental objects and artifacts, so the creative artifacts definitely can be

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 15:57:48
yes I know this 3layered things of yours
basically you set art crafts and novels into the third isn’t it?
Kai Pata: 15:58:06
i can see the artifacts and the meanings on the artifacts as something that is transported/or actually it is not transported but changed in spots by users
i mean not changed but interpreted and reused
in action, or in making new tools, or making new artifacts

Kai Pata: 15:59:55
in summer i developed some very nice thoughts after we discussed

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:01:40
I am more into flee flowing of concepts into plastic and fluid systems, still, since you agree stories may be part of hybrid ecologies, there is definitely room for merging.
I really do think that what you say about meaning emerging from shared affordances
my point is description processing shape the space as direct sensory processing does
Kai Pata: 16:04:19
that is pure semiotics how lotman has, isnt it?..he does not use affordances, he says something what we perceive from another system we can interpret in our system, and then new meaning may emerge, if the untranslatable things are translated from one system to another

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:06:43
yes semiotics is basically about translation but ecological approaches, to my understanding bypass the translation thingy, since the symbolic encoding is an emerging feature as well, and any new encoding is based on plastic, fluid data, not just on the received code. Still, of course semiotics deal with symbolic features, hence is not ‘deeply’ concerned by reference

Kai Pata: 16:05:18
elaborate this: my point is description processing shape the space as direct sensory processing does
i think i get, but the phrase is complicated!

my thought is we can shift internal descriptions/imaginations into external and then we shape the space, and environment, and tools there so that something becomes into a tool

its like shifting from imagination the affordances into external in action, but then the things we use in this process become tools

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:09:07
yes i got it, but why do you need internal and external into an ecological perspective based on interaction between perceiver and perceived environmental features? since perception triggers potential actions, externalization is just the result of activation of a given motor scheme

besides i do totally agree about the way things become tools
(basically actual affordances toolize things in a very pragmatical way)
everything is basically revolving around the concept of space as an emergent feature, that may sound tricky, since we are so used to give it for granted
that is to separate the perceiver and the target
whereas the space is just the result of their interaction
Kai Pata: 16:11:57
i like this: everything is basically revolving around the concept of space as an emergent feature, ..and i agree
is there only one space or 2?
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:13:20
well maybe since you start seeing things like that probably the very concept of external and internal doesn’t make sense anymore, but I am still not that sure, i mean, it’s something I completely understood
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:14:03
well space being an emergent feature, it emerges as singular just in terms you can synchronize it into a given, unitary view or understanding
Kai Pata: 16:14:32
the space where we act (more ‘objective’ although it is still perceived differently by different people) and then the space that is totally plastic and subjective (in mind, or when you dream and create), and then space that is a bit constrained representation of your dreams/creations…in this system you need to define some things
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:15:23
still, picture a beach where you went lately
of course you are not walking on the sand now
but the feeling suddenly arises
smell iodium, waves roaring
your senses are reacting
to my decription as to your imagination
moreover, I am picturing a different beach
Kai Pata: 16:17:28
on my scheme it is embodiment of certain action affordances from the environment and when i do it, i can make it my own and feel emotions
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:18:06
but you may attach emotions to descriptions too, that’s why you can feel concerned by the destiny of a character when you read a novel
Kai Pata: 16:19:24
You can also create totally new affordances that are not embodied from previous action, imagine them and write them down so that it will create feelings and action possibilities of the character
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:21:18
so, let’s agree on the basis, narrative descriptions can be part of hybrid ecologies in terms that they shape environmental features and their potential affordances as direct sensory appraisal does
Kai Pata: 16:22:36
yes i agree with this
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:22:44
I mean, picture this: you are walking on that very same beach and somebody starts telling you that just 100 mts ahead he once built a sand castle. The sand castle is not there, but the story he told you ’shapes’ space
you are somewhat forced to set the castle about where your friend is now pointing at
Kai Pata: 16:24:12
i mean i get action potential to build it, or emotional drive
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:24:21
both in my opinion
depends if you are emotionally concerned by the sand casle lol
Kai Pata: 16:25:17
imagine there is an inventor, he imagines something like electricity bulb or mobile phone that nobody has thought of, then he first he develops proposal to develop such a thing..and then it is the matter of other people do they start believing into this invention..if he develops it, its the same, it may or may not become a tool depending of other people’s interpretation of it as a tool
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:25:44
definitely
cultural difference can be an interesting test in this case
what’s a semaphor in the understanding of a native esquimese?
Kai Pata: 16:27:13
or goal-directed thinking and emotions?..in case if it is a sand castle, i may not be so romantic, have similar kind of memory, i may not even know what the sand castle is..and i build a totally different thing, lets say a sand hole
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:27:59
yes, you may have been one of those terrible kids tearing down sand castles or jumping on them and feeling guilty lol
Kai Pata: 16:28:04
and then one thing becomes into another, (that lotman example)
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:28:32
yes I see the translation thing
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:28:54
but there I say what is the esquimese translating?
I mean, he has no clue about the intended meaning
his own meaning just emerges as the intended one in the understanding of the creator
I mean, both are symbolizing independently
Kai Pata: 16:30:05
this is also at lotman scheme
translating from untranslatable..and you actually just get a trigger and do something totally wrong
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:30:18
encoding an emergent meaning into their own framework
Kai Pata: 16:30:27
yes
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:30:52
more than translating, since translating is basically moving from code to code
encoding is moving from perception to code
in my understanding I mean
Kai Pata: 16:31:34
but if you don’t know the code? and still translate
is it encoding?
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:32:07
lol yes but why do feel the need to call it translating
Kai Pata: 16:32:29
then you take a wrong pierce of puzzle into your own system and start using it as your own, but in another system this pierce has different meaning
Kai Pata: 16:33:14
i don’t feel certain urge to tell it is translating, but when i think of this scheme in my mind i still use the word
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:33:48
let’s see if I can summarize effectively…
Kai Pata: 16:33:51
i think it is translating, as if omitting the meaning to the object we don’t know but what feels to fit somehow into our system
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:34:24
(yes I see your point, that happens all the time and his a very interesting concern into globalization framework)
Kai Pata: 16:35:58
think at lotman scheme this is the whole point of creation to become possible - that there are known and unknown areas, and the borders between these areas we create by our perception, action, culture, and also with the people who are involved etc.

Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:36:45
I would basically make difference between encoding and translating in terms that encoding is sort of labeling environmental features in symbolic terms whereas translating is like re-coding and encoded feature in a new language
Kai Pata: 16:36:36
do you know something about social networks?
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:37:05
yes I know something about social networks, i am investigating one calling anobii (is a social network of enthusiastic readers uploading book titles and comments into a given hong kong based platform
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:37:27
I will write a paper about “The Long Tail of Digital Shelves” that is about it
Kai Pata: 16:37:37
there are people who share ideas, and then some people may be like transferring points from one social network to another, and the ideas they carry become in another network like new seeds, because they seem different there
you write: I would basically make difference between encoding and translating in terms that encoding is sort of labeling environmental features in symbolic terms whereas translating is like re-coding and encoded feature in a new language,
but my question is why you do not consider environment as one language?
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:38:56
yes I see what you say, but that’s completely in the field of plastic re-coding of symbolized issues
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:39:23
ok I see your point clearly now
Kai Pata: 16:39:28
or why cannot we say language is one environment?
Anatole pierre Fuksas: 16:39:40
yes i see I see, lemme think about it lol
in my understanding language can be defined as an environment as in a metaphor, since language is just the code… instead, environmental landscapes may certainly emerge from narratives or simple descriptions