From Isotype to Many Eyes. Social responsibility of design in data visualization

Isotype (1925–1971) and Many Eyes (2007–2015) are two projects that share the intention of using data visualization methods and techniques as a tool for democratizing knowledge, although they differ in a considerable set of features and a large distance of time. The main goal of the creators of Isotype Otto Neurath and Marie Neurath was to overcome cultural divisions and educational stratification with an effective visual method of communicating important social facts, promoting specific values, or showing the rapid social, cultural and economic changes at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, Many Eyes is an open social participation environment (web application) that gives users the ability to share data resources, generate their own visualizations and discuss the procedures for their creation and cognitive effects of their use. The authors of the system are Fernanda B. Viégas, Martin Wattenberg – two researchers and designers who have been consistently exploring the “social life of visualization” for several years. Isotype and Many Eyes – as examples of socially engaged design – are analyzed in this text on two important dimensions: firstly – how the complex conditions of design practice have been integrated (design skills and teams, design procedures and methods, technological and institutional resources); scenarios for the transfer of identified challenges, threats and barriers to a specific solution that responds to the real needs of users; secondly – scenarios for the transfer of identified challenges, threats and barriers to a specific solution that responds to the user needs

Hipertekst. Pewna historia

Recenzja: Mariusz Pisarski, Xanadu. Hipertekstowe przemiany prozy, Korporacja Ha!art, Kraków 2013, ss. 296

Tworzywo bez właściwości – technologia cyfrowa jako metamedium

Material without qualities – digital technology as a metamedium    Today, we witness two generative forces of digital media culture meeting – flexible, open, easy-to-use digital technology and large-scale social communication, sharing of in- formation, knowledge and media representations. These two forces are equally important in media convergence and divergence, but also tightly coupled. This paper traces the root of “metamedium” concept, developed in late 70s by Alan Kay, to show that at the beginning two crucial aspects of digital revolution were intentionally connected within the project of creating “personal dynamic media”. Thinking of digital technology as a “material without qualities” – as a open to any transformation, mutation and extension metamedium – has significant impact on new media discourse. Not only because it reveals essential difference between “old” and “new media”, but also because it exposes solid ground for practices od media hybridization, innovation or – using Lev Manovich notion – process of “deep remixability”

Wokół "Comparative Textual Media" N. Katherine Hayles

Dyskusja wokół książkiComparative Textual Media. Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era (2013), pod redakcją N. K. Hayles i J. Pressma

Funology - Homo Ludens and Homo Faber in Interaction Design

Concept of fun – as well as game, enjoinment, pleasure or engagement – mark out very interesting field of discussion in interaction design studies, which corresponds to and reinforces the User Experience (UX) paradigm. Funology, as an important research domain within UX, first and foremost, is not oriented towards exploration of computer games, interactive gadgets or strategies of the new media entertainment industry. The main goal is rather to transfer body of knowledge, methods and thechniques for making products enjoyable to these kinds of application, which purpose is not such a well defined – i.e. for which the challenge is to design artefacts, interactive systems or rich, complex and multi-user environments open for different uses and needs, where ludic, emotional, aesthetic, cognitive and functional qualities must be put together and dynamically conceptualized

Generative beginnings of digital Art

Marcin Składanek Generative beginnings of digital Art The art of algorithmic code (today considered as generative art) started in the 1960’s and is the first form of computer art. When we look at the first two decades of its existence, its contemporary reception and assessments, we clearly can see that the road leading to modern recognition of the first manifestations of computer art as an avant-garde of digital culture was long and not easy at all. The process of its taming and adaptation to the domain was primarily connected with two dimensions of fundamental importance for creative coding - first, calculation, automated and semi-autonomous process; and secondly – critical synthesis of the third-cultural turn of orientation of art and progressive orientation of techno-scientific paradigm

Funology — homo ludens i homo faber w projektowaniu interakcji

Funology - Homo Ludens and Homo Faber in Interaction DesignConcept of fun — as well as game, enjoinment, pleasure or engagement — mark out very interesting field of discussion in interaction design studies, which corresponds to and reinforces the User Experience UX paradigm. Funology, as an important research domain within UX, first and foremost, is not oriented towards exploration of computer games, interactive gadgets or strategies of the new media entertainment industry. The main goal is rather to transfer body of knowledge, methods and thechniques for making products enjoyable to these kinds of application, which purpose is not such a well defined — i.e. for which the challenge is to design artefacts, interactive systems or rich, complex and multi-user environments open for different uses and needs, where ludic, emotional, aesthetic, cognitive and functional qualities must be put together and dynamically conceptualized.Funology - Homo Ludens and Homo Faber in Interaction DesignConcept of fun — as well as game, enjoinment, pleasure or engagement — mark out very interesting field of discussion in interaction design studies, which corresponds to and reinforces the User Experience UX paradigm. Funology, as an important research domain within UX, first and foremost, is not oriented towards exploration of computer games, interactive gadgets or strategies of the new media entertainment industry. The main goal is rather to transfer body of knowledge, methods and thechniques for making products enjoyable to these kinds of application, which purpose is not such a well defined — i.e. for which the challenge is to design artefacts, interactive systems or rich, complex and multi-user environments open for different uses and needs, where ludic, emotional, aesthetic, cognitive and functional qualities must be put together and dynamically conceptualized

Generatywne początki sztuki cyfrowej

 Generative beginnings of digital ArtThe art of algorithmic code today considered as generative art started in the 1960’s and is the first form of computer art. When we look at the first two decades of its existence, its contemporary reception and assessments, we clearly can see that the road leading to modern recognition of the first manifestations of computer art as an avant-garde of digital culture was long and not easy at all. The process of its taming and adaptation to the domain was primarily connected with two dimensions of fundamental importance for creative coding - first, calculation, automated and semi-autonomous process; and secondly – critical synthesis of the third-cultural turn of orientation of art and progressive orientation of techno-scientific paradigm. Generative beginnings of digital ArtThe art of algorithmic code today considered as generative art started in the 1960’s and is the first form of computer art. When we look at the first two decades of its existence, its contemporary reception and assessments, we clearly can see that the road leading to modern recognition of the first manifestations of computer art as an avant-garde of digital culture was long and not easy at all. The process of its taming and adaptation to the domain was primarily connected with two dimensions of fundamental importance for creative coding - first, calculation, automated and semi-autonomous process; and secondly – critical synthesis of the third-cultural turn of orientation of art and progressive orientation of techno-scientific paradigm