Digital world concepts and contemporary applications

Interface Culture

The question of what constitutes 'interface culture' is constantly debated in the field of interactive design. Modern technology allows us to communicate more frequently with one another but it is uncertain if we are actually growing closer to our friends and associates; we may be growing farther apart and more isolated in our virtual worlds. There are both positive and negative sides to modern technology; at minimum we need to have a dialogue about interactive technology's effect on social interactions and culture.

As designers, we must be more aware of the needs of others and the human social and political environment. Art has often been viewed as the primary teaching tool to reveal insights about the human condition but technological design can have the same potential. It is true that design is more interactive than personal like art. But technological design in all its forms encompasses outreach through marketing, media, and advertising and has the ability to shape consumer perceptions and therefore society. Designers are faced with moral expectations, including the need to make a better world and to make life easier.

Is design, as it currently exists, making our world a better place to live in? Although consumer-driven design may be more transient than high art, the business benefits it generates can also be human benefits as people from all over the world can get to know one another better and create a more vibrant world culture. Technology that teaches us ultimately does create a healthier culture.

Brief 4

I was fascinated by Mr. Liam Young's work in the field of science, design and architecture. Young's research studio Unknown Fields is a traveling workshop designed to explore the globe in ways which stretch the human imagination. A graduate of Princeton University, Young's intellectual yet irreverent attitude as an architect was encompassed in his presentation entitled: "City Everywhere: Kim Kardashian and the Dark Side of the Screen." Although Kim may be a reality television celebrity seemingly devoid of meaning, Young used her as a paradigm of how images, videos, social media, and celebrity news have taken over our lives to the point that content becomes pointless. Even the most vacuous things take on symbolic significance because they bombard us constantly.

Young stressed how we must balance our obsession with the virtual world with our sense of what is real, even though increasingly the 'real' has been taken over by the virtual. There are both positives and negatives to the growing urbanization of our lives and our obsession with technology.

Brief 5

At its essence, data visualization involves presenting information in a visual format, usually to make it more compelling, comprehensible and easy to read. Architecture can be viewed as a kind of data visualization, making abstract ideas comprehensible by rendering them in concrete space. Examples of this can be seen in the works of can Herbert Bayer, Stan Varderbeek and many others. Their signature is taking large ideas and dramatically visualizing them in an expansive way.

Herbert Bayer became famous for his work in the fields of graphic design, architecture and landscape design. He was associated with the Bauhaus school. The Bauhaus ethos was characterized by its emphasis on combining art and technology and the need for design to be responsive to the modern world. The founder of the Bauhaus school, Walter

Gropius pioneered teaching, research and practice in this field.

Stan Varderbeek's output also reflects the concept of data visualization. His Movie-Drome depicts a spherical theatre where people can lie down and watch movies. There is no linear narrative, images float everywhere. The viewer's gaze creates his own story. These massive pieces make ideas come to life and comprehensible in a very visceral way.

Brief 7

The field of Nano-bioelectronics has brought us a number of new, recent innovations. One of the most remarkable is that of tattoo-based body electronic sensors which have the ability to monitor skin hydration, body temperature, and any electric signal from the muscles and brain. By printing the electronic mesh directly onto skin, the performance of the sensor is able to better monitor vital signs to improve human health. For example, Professor Joseph Wang of the University of California San Diego heads a research group that has been able to make a wearable ultra-thin sensor that can monitor a diabetic's blood sugar levels without drawing blood. Accurate glucose monitoring can be a matter of life or death for a diabetic patient.

Brief 8

Measuring all available data is almost impossible; however, biosensors allow us to know far more about the body and the world around us than we would or could otherwise. A blood glucose meter is a good example of a recent development that allows more precise measuring of data in a manner that can have a significant impact on human health.

Biosensors have also enabled humans to accumulate more vital data pertaining to food, security and in the environment. Sensors can be used to detect specific flavors like human taste buds; they can be used to scan for fingerprints; hopefully, one day they can be used to provide enough information about the world around us to live in greater harmony with the environment. Biosensors make invisible aspects of the world visible and thus make us more sensitive to our own needs and the needs of the larger world.

Brief 9

There are three ways to look at every object. The first way is in a narrow and enclosed fashion. The second way is through symbolism, seeing the object as representing an eternal and transcendent idea. The third is to see it as a cultural product within a specific context. Good design can evoke multiple layers and multiple ways of seeing objects.

The Black Stack depicts several layers: Earth, cloud, city, address, interface, and user. Some of these layers are more symbolic and conceptual in nature than others. The layer of Earth is the base from which everything starts, including water and ground. The cloud layer combined with the city is an abstraction of where the atmosphere and human life meet. The idea of a cloud connecting people also now has a very specific cultural connotation: it is a form of disembodied technology where all knowledge is accessible in a centralized fashion. Address also reflects a virtual concept, namely the fact that everything online in the cloud has some form of address in the virtual world (like an IP address). The layer of the interface reflects the notion of the virtual world itself and how identity is constructed there. The user takes on these identities but also has a reality outside the virtual world.