And another one... Birringer:
PS. Lasse, what does it mean to say: "I use Cybernetics to argue that interfaces are "enacted" through use as much as they are the designed a priori of interaction"? please can you talk more about this argument? Are interfaces not necessarily enactive or enacted, otherwise we would not know them, in a social and experiential sense as interfaces; one cannot program an interface, only design potentials of interaction through certain dramaturgies, or product designs or architectures that enable use and adaptation?
You are right: in a social or experiential sense this argument must not even be stated. I rather aim at a low-level (perceptual) understanding, much in line with von Foerster's argument about "Objects: tokens for (eigen-) behaviors" but also relating to contemporary neuroscience (and evidence for action-to-perception transfer and common coding). While HCI would assume that interfaces are shaped by a designer (e.g. placing buttons on a screen) and "read" by a user (clicking on it), I try to show that this is only one side of the story. The other is that buttons only exist through being treated and reacting as such, and that this also holds perceptually: Within how we perceive an interface our own expectations (that have been gradually built up) become literally (i.e. perceptually) manifest. This can be clearly shown for border cases of action-perception couplings (such as controlling visual illusions) but I think it is active in the whole process of interacting (and Svanaes: "Understanding Interactivity" already gives some empirical evidence for this). Although this most of the time is camouflaged by the extensive training with computer games and PCs we all were subject to and through which we have learned to take buttons for granted.
Menotti:
The game “functions”, but can it be /played/? And if it can’t, is it still a game?
And also the other way round: if it functions as a servomechanism, was it ever a game? (I guess here "the aspect of social agreement that is present in traditional gaming", mentioned by Heckman, comes into play).
Menotti:
(And: is this relation between “functionality” and “playability” in any form analog to the one between “conceptual structure” and “names” above?)
Makes me think of the classic game studies debates about "ludus" and "narrative". I would opt for a complicated relation, oscillating between mastering feedback loops and creating meaning(?) inside them (which will affect action again).
Good morning! Lasse. _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
