Interfaces: Making the Unintelligible Intelligible and Communicating the Abstract through the Concrete
There is a great deal of mystification involved in digital media design which all designers must confront. Ultimately, we are seeking to make interventions and models of things that are incredibly complex and almost out of our reach in terms of comprehensibility. For example, a great deal of specific knowledge of programming is involved in designing new interfaces, software for digital computing devices, especially when involving networked digital computing devices. However, not all of us may come from a computer science or engineering background and this is an issue Distelmeyer identifies as the cause of the expansion of graphical user interfaces (23). He argues that as computers become more deeply embedded in our societies, we find the need to expand the indexicality our graphical user interfaces and that this requires us in the social sciences and humanities (specifically in Film and Media Studies) to more closely study “how interfaces define today’s reality in manifold ways” (25). Indeed, the way we are able to seamlessly engage in tasks via our computers and smartphones is in large part thanks to our expanded lexicon of graphic symbols that inform us on what unintelligible function will be performed when I click or tap on icons like a s magnifying glass or what program will be opened when you click on one browser icon versus another.
It is significant that we find more ways of interacting with our devices for the purposes of our work as digital media designers. On the other end of the interaction is the computer or smartphone, which has been trained to understand our relatively minimalist inputs to perform incredibly complex functions that may even be easier for us than it is for them to perform. One area where MacCormick points out we far outshine our mechanical counterparts is in the realm of pattern recognition (81). Pattern recognition is an essential function involved in the innate human ability to recognize faces, handwriting, objects and speech (80). The algorithms that are at play to facilitate computers in these tasks where the inputs are highly varying includes nearest neighbor classifiers, decision trees and artificial neural networks, all of which aim to solve the essential problem involved in pattern recognition for computers...classification; humans enjoy the relative ease in this department due to being taught and through repeated exposure to inputs or to the functions involved in pattern recognition, that it becomes second nature to us (82). While these algorithms have advanced significantly in recent years, often attempts at AI are still viewed as too mechanistic and thus do not render to the fungibility between humans and machines in many functions (103). But far from putting our minds at ease in terms of the ability for machines to solve our problems for us, we need to be aware that they indeed can be destabilizing for our societies if we remain out of touch to their limitations and the extent to which the machines are acquiring traits we once found human and we are finding traits we once found mechanistic. Both MacCormick (104) and Distelmeyer (29) express this tension between humans and machines in their work.
But if we focus more on ways using digital media technologies for purposes of communicating ideas that place human beings at the center, there is great promise in being able to drive the development of technology in a more humanistic, path at least within our own immediate social media and data-based contexts. Immersive interface media is one form of digital media where exploring ways of bringing humanistic and social scientific visions to play to communicate ideas like never before. Woletz argues that “instead of concentrating on technology, I suggest focusing on the interfaces of immersive media” (97). She does this by exploring how “various interfaces of spatial media create effects of immersion by addressing the body in different ways.” Further, she explore how interfaces of media practice, devices and cultural programs can grant us better insight into ways people interact with media to experience immersion (101). One way in which I got to experience a sample of type of media was through Ian Alan Paul’s Conditions of Possibilities (Shoroot al-Imkan), where the writer-photographer’s experiences in Egypt in the post-revolutionary context were deeply explored through a mix of written narrative, video, photos and reflections through social engagement with folks living in Cairo. He introduces this work as an “Online cryptodocumentary that explores and theorizes Cairo’s political, ontological, and affective dynamics following the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and subsequent coup”, which he explores through ‘drifts’ to capture periods of time throughout the development of the work. This project is an amazing illustration of how human-centered narrative and digital media can interact to create a new immersive experience. Even as a reader and witness going through the work, the careful juxtaposition of photos with narrative and links to works cited was truly impressive and satisfied both my intersubjective, humanistic and scholar-activist needs, which just goes to show how Paul carefully practiced putting the reader-witness along with the subjects encapsulated in the project at the core of not just his research design and praxis, but also his digital media design and praxis.
Works Cited
Distelmeyer, Jan (2018) “Drawing Connections How Interfaces Matter” Interface Critique Journal, Vol. 1.
MacCormick, John (2012) “Pattern Recognition: Learning From Experience” 9 Algorithms that Changed the Future: the Ingenious Ideas that Drive Today’s Computers. Princeton University Press: Princeton.
Paul, Ian Alan (2016) Conditions of Possibilities (Shoroot al-Imkan).
Woletz, Julie (2018) “Interface of Immersive Media” Interface Critique Journal, Vol. 1.
Kommentare