An analogy of ‘Expression’ in visual culture

Both the reading for today’s class were interesting reads and made me think a lot. There are some things in particular that intrigued me most. These are just my observations and I hope these might give some additional conversational points in class.

First is to do with the Julian Bell’s painting in terms of expression. In the book Approaches to understanding visual culture by Malcom Barnard, he is quoted as:

[1] One must understand the artist’s invisible states of mins, his or her emotions and feelings. One must translate, or transmute the shapes, lines, textures and colors of paintings into emotions and feelings, in order to understand those paintings. It seems that the artist translates or transmutes thoughts and feelings into physical objects and then the spectator translates or transmutes the lines, colors and other formal properties of the objects back into thoughts and feelings.

So basically the author is pointing to a triangular relationship between the object, the user and it’s interpretations. The artist puts efforts to ensure that the interpretation is as transparent as possible. And users (sometimes) put deliberate efforts to interpret them based on the rule that have been learned by them with experience. The ‘expression’ is the subjective interpretation that involves both the object and the user. One may state that the craftsmanship showcased by the artist results in a transparency of this expression than may deliver an aesthetic experience.

No the following analogy might be very obvious, but it was not very obvious to me before reading the article so I want to spend some time trying to construct it. The quote above points to relationships that are in many ways integral to ‘human’-'computer’-'interaction’ design. Coincidentally while researching for my capstone I stumbled upon an article from Hutchins, Hollan and Norman about Direct Manipulation Interfaces published in 1985. The article discusses lot of crucial aspects integral to designing input/output paradigms. Two aspects of ‘Directness’ discussed are ‘Distance’ and ‘Direct Engagement’.

[2] The term directness refers to feeling that results from interaction with the interface. The term distance will be used to describe factors which underlie the generation of the feeling of directness.

The second aspect of directness concerns the qualitative feeling of engagement, the feeling that one is directly manipulating the objects of interest. There are two major metaphors for the nature of human-computer interaction,
a conversation metaphor and a model-world metaphor. In a system built on the conversation metaphor, the interface is a language medium in which the user and system have a conversation about an assumed, but not explicitly represented
world. In this case, the interface is an implied intermediary between the user and the world about which things are said. In a system built on the model-world metaphor, the interface is itself a world where the user can act, and which changes state in response to user actions. The world of interest is explicitly represented and there is no intermediary between user and world. Appropriate use of the model-world metaphor can create the sensation in the user of acting upon the objects of the task domain themselves. We call this aspect of directness direct engagement.

Hutchins et. al. then go on to discuss aspects of directness and direct engagement and in the process of discussion, map out relationship between physical system, user goals and the distance between them which they term as gulf of execution (execution bridge) or gulf of evaluation (evaluation bridge).

The understanding of the diagram below by researchers laid foundation for design of interactions, methodologies and design processes that we are familiar with today. I believe that the execution bridge & the evaluation bridge combined, constitutes the expression & interpretation that is analogical to the ‘expression’ discussed by Julian Bell in the reading.

References:

Figure 1 taken from Direct Manipulation and Other Lessons by HP Labs. http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/96/HPL-96-152.pdf

A more modern version of the same diagram can be found at dubberly.com

Text quoted from:

[1] Approaches to understanding visual culture by Malcom Barnard, pg 64-88.

[2] Direct Manipulation Interfaces by Hutchins, Hollins, Norman. http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~silvia/wien/vu-infovis/articles/hutchins_1985_direct-manipulation.pdf

There is one more analogy that intrigued me a lot. This has to do with the Auteur Theory. Auteur Theory is scoped within the domain of films. It states three characteristics that differentiates an auteur. Now the question that intrigues me is: since we have started integrating cultural epistemology into HCI can we use the theory to define people like Steve Jobs as an auteur. This point is not particularly very important, but I just wanted to share the idea.

Quote of the Day

Here is a quote* that I read 2 days ago and have been thinking continuously about ever since:

What’s interesting for the future of service design is the notion of serving, which is dif- ferent from helping or fixing, in designing a holistic service. Rather than developing a static blueprint, the design community can explore how to express the ways in which people experience services emotionally and socially, and how services might adapt as people use them over time.

How does framing design as “service” rather than as “fixing” or “helping” change the way we think about design?

* The quote is from Forlizzi, J. (2010). All look same? A comparison of experience design and service design. interactions. New York: ACM, 60-62.

Criticism and Writing About Design

I wanted to expand a bit on the question I asked in class on Thursday, as a way of developing this potential linkage a bit more strongly in my mind. The original question was something along the lines of:

Is the construction or reading of design precedent a form of aesthetic criticism?

By design precedent, I mean any artifact of the design process that might be shared with a Community of Practice (CoP) that surrounds production of similar artifacts. So this might include a book of logos for a logo or graphic designer, or an architectural plan book or project documentation for an architect. The point of reading such materials, from a designer’s perspective, is to serve as knowledge of other “ultimate particular” objects, which ultimately creates a collection of design knowledge (seen as different from scientific knowledge). This design knowledge links the designer to other work, which may serve as negative or positive examples which could be helpful to integrate into their own design process (issues of fixation included, as noted in Cross, 2001). You can see an extreme example of a design brief for the Pepsi “smile” logo here, although most forms of design precedent are not quite this involved.

So getting back to the thrust of this linkage, that the creation of design precedent, including commentary or selection of artifacts is, in itself, an act of criticism. While much of this created precedent is clearly situated in the authorial perspective (as in Riefenstahl’s commentary on the creation of Triumph of the Will), I think there is helpful overlap into other categories of criticism, including social context, predictions of reader/user behavior, and aspects of the artifact itself. So, in itself, I would propose, a detailed chronicle of design precedent touches on all four primary categories of criticism, either predictively or as documentary.

The other perspective on this precedent, however, is the reader’s perspective when actually digesting or “using” this design precedent. In this case, the authorial perspective is still foregrounded, but the addition of the reader’s design perspective and expertise, along with the lens of the current project they may be working on, adds a unique critical perspective to the original precedent and even the original artifact. This is where I think the greatest value might be seen, and within the lens of Cross and others, the reading of this precedent may, in fact, provoke many aspects of design cognition as precedent is read and applied to the foregrounded design problem.

 

The two traditions of understanding

Barnard claims that there are two intellectual traditions from which stem all understanding [of visual culture]: the “structural tradition” (fairly self-explanatory) and the “hermeneutic tradition” (understanding and meaning as the business of individuals.) I’m wondering if anyone else finds this dichotomy bizarre or troubling in any way. While I certainly won’t argue with Barnard that these may be two of the most fundamental foundations for understanding [visual culture] I feel uneasy accepting these as the only two – especially since hermeneutic seems like a bit of a cop-out to me. After all, some structural interpretation is certainly subjective to personal perspective; but then again, Barnard even specifically cites that there is overlap, methods that inhabit both traditions.

I guess my problem is that he is saying we either understand because of the structures inherent [in visual culture] or because how we as individuals bring our unique perspectives to our perceptions and understanding of cultural norms and artefacts. Now, I’m as much an interpretivist as the next girl, but is Barnard suggesting that there is no discovery way of knowing, no real “Truth” that can be known? Where does Barnard draw the line between “knowing” and “understanding?” Can we truly ever “know” what visual culture means? In that case, as scholars, how do we reconcile the need for a class such as this, for an “understanding” or interaction culture, when there is no real truth?

I don’t have answers for all of these questions, but I think they open the door to some potentially interesting questions…

This essay is awesome

I’m still only part of the way through it, but I wanted to post it here because I think it would be interesting to talk about

http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

I found it while doing research for my capstone. This guy is perty cool, and his essays are too.

I must still be confused about Nazis…

The title is a little bit misleading in that I’m not necessarily confused about Nazis, but still a little bit confused about Triumph of the Will. Was the final word on this “That we cannot accept Triumph as an aesthetic masterpiece” (pg. 609 of the reading for tomorrow [Bardzell])? I was under the impression that it could still be an aesthetic masterpiece, even though it’s “evil.”

To be less wishy-washy about it: I still believe that it can be an aesthetic masterpiece, even though most people would call it “evil” (including myself). There are lots of things I can call evil based on the logical steps needed to call <i>Triumph of the Will</i> evil. Like the Bible. Like almost every campaign ad ever made. That doesn’t mean they can’t be called aesthetic masterpieces (although I doubt any of the recent campaign ads could even hope to qualify).

To be clear, I’m not comparing the Bible to Nazism, I’m comparing the persuasive goal of the Bible with the persuasive goal of Triumph of the Will. Both offer accounts of something in the hopes of squashing any alternative thoughts, as any aggressive persuasion piece should.

Maybe I’m just clinging to formalism or something, but I still can’t wrap my ahead around this issue. Just because we disagree with the aims of the film doesn’t mean we can now claim that it is no longer an aesthetic work.

And Now for Something Completely Different

So, this is something that I am arguing has a value above its form. Here the form is NSFW, very racy, and has all of the subtlety and tact of an Adam Sandler album. Put more simply, if things of a base, crass, or unrefined nature offend you, then you will get the gist of it from just reading this post. Alternately, I link it because the nature of the video will be an important factor later.

http://www.cracked.com/video_18311_4-terrifying-psychology-lessons-behind-famous-movie-monsters.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Movies+%26+TV&wa_user3=video&wa_user4=cracked_shows

So, focusing solely on the content of the arguments, this is an analysis of horror films based on 4 perspectives:

The first perspective is the internal, fear of the unknown, perspective. As H. P. Lovecraft put it: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” It hinges on that psychological perspective, and then draws an analogy between films of one type (horror movies) and films of another type (hardcore pornography – like I said, racy). Okay, moderately interesting.

The second perspective. This is about Alien (or actually Aliens, given the description). It posits the theory that fear arises from a combination of sexual inadequacy and fear of rape. Again, a psychological perspective. It continues to give a list of formal and narrative qualities of the films that support that idea.

The third perspective is that zombies are frightening because they are a debased version of ourselves. The fear is a self-fear, which then turns into hatred through the narcissism of small differences (Freud) in that they are just similar enough to make them all the more loathsome. Again, a focus on psychology with the addition of aspects of zombies as a concept.

The fourth, and final perspective is a counter-argument to the third. It poses that zombies are the “other” and that is why they are frightening / repulsive. It goes on to draw an analogy between political alignment and the most popular monsters. It does so by siting historical examples of popular movies, the political alignment of the presidents when those movies were released, and cultural ideas that were associated with those presidencies.

Okay, to sum up this analysis  – this is a conversation between adults dressed like Count Chocula, Malcolm Reynolds, Dr. Manhattan, and Taranga Leela. Maybe not precisely what you are thinking, but some aspect of the absurdity of the situation or the base level of its presentation was probably lingering in your mind. At the very least, while I would argue that these perspectives are defensible, the absence of authoritative positioning in presentation (with the exception of Sartre and Hegel at the end) might have undermined their efforts. Whatever the case, their is a certain mismatch between form an content. Albeit far less severe, this same phenomena is part of Devereaux’s analysis of Triumph of the Will, but reversed. In Triumph, the form is held in high regard, but the content is deemed “evil.” In this, the content argues some valid points, but the form is absurd, base, and flip.

Also, beyond the obvious Alien connection to class, the final argument is ended with a declaration that it has made horror movies boring. Could this be a small part of the concern over expertise reducing enjoyment – a fear that removing visceral immediacy will render films boring?

Aesthetics in advertisements

After reading about the Triumph of the Will I started thinking about other forms of subtle media propaganda that we are exposed to on a daily basis. This is by no means a comparison to the impact of the nazi propaganda film, but I present it as more of a subtle case of where aesthetics and beauty intertwine with the “bastard reality” that are scientifically proven affects of cigarette smoking. Among the several carefully planned “aesthetic” features is the imagery drawn on the cigarette box with two cigarettes suggestively poking out of the top, almost as if to encourage you to reach out and grab one for yourself.

The ad suggests we should embrace the sexy image of a cigarette smoker. You see a slim and beautiful woman with flawless features casting a seductive look in your direction.

What would a “beautiful interaction” look like?

This might be a bit late, but I wanted to talk about one of the thoughts that I had regarding the Eaton reading.

In the reading, Eaton described the attempts that have been made to define “beauty, “art”, and “aesthetic”. It is not my interest to argue for a definition of this in this post, but rather, the intention of this post is to ask:

What would a “beautiful interaction” look like?

Eaton described beauty and aesthetic from the perspective of art, music, and movies. As interaction and user experience designers, we should aim to seek out beauty and aesthetic in interactions, both in other’s designs and in our own designs.

While we interact with many things in the world, I want to focus my question on the interactions that are most pertinent to our field — human-computer interactions, or interactions using digital technologies. With the existing technologies out there, is there such a thing as a “beautiful interaction?”

My line of thinking for this post is oriented toward people’s interactions with currently existing input devices, such as mice, keyboards, remote controls, video game controllers, tablets, etc. (So perhaps, others can discuss other types of digital interactions that they feel are beautiful.) I want to discuss this because I feel that currently existing input devices do not allow for beautiful, aesthetic modes of input.

Digital input devices in the past few decades, I think, have been almost solely oriented to be a means of getting something done, not a means of expressing oneself. We move our mice around to move cursors around, and click to initiate an action. We hit keys on our keyboard to type. We push buttons on controllers and remotes to interact with other devices. We might use an analog stick to add some extra degree of control to our video games. However, when I see all these things being used, what might be considered beautiful is the result and/or output of these inputs. I have never gotten a sense of aesthetic wonder from watching a person use an input device, or from the act of using an input device myself.

You might make the case that some modes of input that require a high degree of skill are beautiful input interactions. For example, a few years ago, a YouTube video came out of of someone getting a perfect score in Guitar Hero 3‘s “Through The Fire and Flames”, arguably the most difficult song to play in the genre of music gaming. (The following video isn’t the original video to be released, but is a video where you can see a person using the guitar clearly.)

While a high degree of skill is needed to be able to play a perfect score on that song, I still do not consider this to be some kind of beautiful interaction. I am marveled by this person’s skill, but I am not awestruck with some kind of beautiful, aesthetic experience.

With the recent developments in motion input, we are starting to head in the direction of what might be a beautiful, aesthetic input. In motion, I think there is potential for beautiful interaction.

(image source: http://www.identitymine.com/forward/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/kinect360.jpg)

Our bodies have an immense amount of motions and positions that are possible. With this wide gamut of motion and positioning, we are able express ourselves with our bodies in a beautiful manner — much like what you might see through dancing  or modeling.

However, I believe that we are not close to that point yet of achieving beautiful, aesthetic input interaction through motion. When I see what I believe to be the most complex motion sensor that is publically available — the Kinect — I still do not get a sense of aesthetic wonder from watching someone use it or from using it myself.  I believe that its sensors are not powerful and precise enough to allow one to truly express oneself (and thus, no software has been made available to allow us to do so).

(image source: http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/galleries/2010-06-21/e3-hands-on-dance-central/e3-hands-on-dance-central_1277158587.jpg)

Some might say that a game like Dance Central is something where we can appreciate the input capabilities of the Kinect. However, while watching someone play the game Dance Central, I find myself amused, but not aesthetically aroused. The game itself is dictating how one should use motions. Thus, any kind of personal expression through motion is very limited at best.

So then, what might a beautiful input interaction device look like?

(image source: http://images2.sina.com/english/sports/p/2009/0909/U138P200T1D269340F12DT20090909055102.jpg)

Will we be able to reach a point where input interactions themselves are a source of marvel, rather than their results or outputs?

Will we be able to equip people with digital input devices to allow them to express themselves freely, like an artist or performer might?

Will we be able to watch other people express themselves through these input devices and have a sense of awe?

Will we be able to express our inner selves through digital technologies in ways that we never have before — and would it be only possible through technology?

As interaction and user experience designers, I believe that it is our strong obligation to keep a careful eye on the latest technological developments, because with each new technological step, I believe that there is the potential for us to begin answering these questions. It is my hope that in the next decade or two, strong answers to these questions will begin to appear.

‘Symbolism’ and an ‘Expert’

This post is probably not going to make a lot of sense, but I do want to externalize some of my thoughts that I think may be related to the discourse of an expert.

Over the past weekend, I had been thinking about symbolism. I forgot where the thought had stemmed from, I know somewhere along the line “Da Vinci Code” popped up.

From the movie, Professor Langdon was a professor in symbolism (or something like that). He has years of experience and research under his belt, which may provide a deeper understanding and knowledge about a specific symbol. Yet we, ourselves still do interpret symbols all day long.

That said, I’m going to make a counter-argument to why experts may be regard as experts. And this idea was from a Youtube video of Authors@Google by Gary Shteyngart where he mentioned, “a lot of writing is also reading”. And that Book Reviewers of the past (now apparently only on New York Times) used to read 100+ book every year to review them critically, hence forming a ‘expert’ opinion on books over time.

And as a student or a design student, I think that amount of input is relevant.

In the video, Gary also mentioned that many people these days wants to be a writer. Yet the ‘distraction’ of wanting to be a writer (or a designer in our case) reduces the attention we paid to be one. There may be a tendency to fancy our works above others rather than reading/exposing to them, which he describes as “internalizing and make it part of you” (paraphrased).

I guess what I’m trying to come to a conclusion to, is that in this day and age, everyone seems to be an author. And while we all know what the Internet can and has done, there is probably still such a thing as an ‘expert’, whose collective goal may be topic-specific. And the continuous education in that area increases her/his knowledge on the topic that may externalize as expertise.

Here’s a link to the video for those who’s interested (FYI: the video is more than 1hr30mins long; I just had some free time to spare.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrlaqvH6bzU

I’ve categorized this post as ‘Rants’ since I’m not sure if it got anywhere.