Participation & Affordances LCC 2700: Intro to Computational Media

Borges Forking Paths A book that is a labyrinth An action that is a coded message A view of human life and the meaning of our choices

Borges Forking Paths Fictional exploration of philosophy A stable genre: the detective stories - clues and puzzles => solution Time branches into infinite futures Space - Time - conceptual space - time as space

A Novel that can be read in multiple ways The book/maze of Ts’ui Pen Everything is possible, and everything occurs in some reality

4 properties of the digital medium Procedural Participatory Spatial Encyclopedic

4 properties of the digital medium Procedural Participatory Spatial Encyclopedic

Agency What does it mean to be “active” in a computational environment or system?

Postmodernism / Poststructuralism Structuralism –The study of fundamental elements that constitute higher order structures –Humanistic movement of the 19th and 20th c. –Linguistics (Ferdinand de Saussure) the system over the use of language Fundamental linguistic structures Semiotics Linguistic signs = signifier/signified –Anthropology (Claude Lévi-Strauss) Fundamental mental structures Cultural phenomena: mythology, kinship –Literary studies The structures or formulas for literary production

Postmodernism / Poststructuralism Poststructuralism –A response to structuralism –Intended to unseat the former’s intention to craft absolutist, top-down understandings of cultural systems –No generalizable meta-language is sufficient to understand human experience –Poststructuralists believe such experiences are culturally situated and can only be understood in light of such contexts –Psychoanalysis (Jacques Lacan) –History (Michel Foucault) –Literature (Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, etc.) –Philosophy, art (Gilles Deleuze, etc.)

The Rhizome Concept from Deleuze & Félix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus One of many poststructuralists models or analogies for artistic/literary production and consumption Rhizome: from botany –An underground stem or root system that extends new shoots from its nodes –In contrast to the branching root system, the rhizome symbolizes arbitrary growth Deleuze and Guattari borrow this term for to describe literary, artistic, and cultural practices that allow for non-hierarchical movement within systems of meaning Any point connects to any other; a part of a much larger theoretical framework

Relationship to Literature and Art “Free play” in a signifying system engenders multiple meanings Notion of artifacts as “texts” to be read in a variety of contexts De-emphasis of the intention and role of the author –“Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes New emphasis on the role of the reader/viewer/etc. –Texts as co-produced by the author and the reader Rhizome as one way to characterize this free play “Rhizome” is borrowed heavily in hypertext theory and practice Hypertext and “new media” as “realizations” of poststructuralism

Problems with the Rhizome Practically, the notion that “anything is possible” is not so productive, perhaps even impossible –Texts can be read creatively –Computational systems? Janet Murray, “the rapture of the rhizome” –“unheroic and solutionless” –Postmodernists “privilege confusion” over representation, liberation from the “tyranny of the author” Solution: A return to intentional experiences: design for intended, but open effect

Can you really “do anything you want”? Would you want to?

Participation as Structured Expereince Constraints structure the possibility space of experiences

Constrained action Computational expressive artifacts as goal-directed works with constrained action Constraint produces and structures expression

Some examples

Epi oinopa ponton the wine-dark sea

Some examples

Interplay of free play and structured rules MUD examples from HoH Videogames Software as media for work, play Interaction through fixed input systems with Procedurally authored rules

Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things Well-known computer scientist VP at Apple, “Human-centered products” Partner, Nielsen-Norman Group (with Jakob Nielsen) “The Andy Rooney of design”

Norman’s design principles Conceptual Models - the way human minds find meaning in things Affordances - “appropriate actions are perceptible, inappropriate ones are invisible” –Jointly determined by environment and organism Constraints - limits to choices Feedback - showing the effects of an action

Norman’s design principles Mostly interested in physical and cognitive affordances And perceived affordances in particular Determinsm? Free-play? Expression?

Determinism? Free play? Expression?

Relationship between usability, interaction, and expression Gadgets and affordances The economy of use: efficiency

Expressive systems rely more on possibility spaces