Hypercard, Summary, "Get With the Times," and Interface Overstatement?

When I was in my early teens, my nerdy friends and I actually used Hypercard quite a bit. Our favorite thing to do was to create digital flip books--you could program it so that when you clicked on a button, a linked series of illustrated screens would come up (planes crashing into mountains and other teenage-boy-esque cartoons). My friend even programmed a tic-tac-toe game that would let him cheat. I'm sure Manovich would be pleased to know that we were already experimenting with interface (the buttons), text (dialogue, titles, explanations, not to mention programming), and cinema. I'm not sure I agree with him that in Hypercard "no...relationship of hierarchy was assumed. The two sources connected through a hyperlink have equal weight; neither dominates the other" (76). Yeah, try saying that when your friend uses a secret, hidden hyperlink to change the center "X" to an "O" when you're playing tic-tac-toe. I think there are ways to create a hierarchy with hyperlinks...starting with their size (try making a "." a hyperlink--it's not equal to a whole line of text that's been hyperlinked), accessibility, and apparent usefulness. Anyways, back to the readings:

In chapter 2, "The Interface," Manovich describes three main features of interface (cinema, text, and general HCI) and how they "contributed to shaping the appearance and functionality of cultural interfaces during the 90s" (68). He then traces the history of the computer screen: Renaissance paintings, film, radar, etc. and gives thoughts about the future development of interfaces, including, as Jenny discusses in her post, the possibility of "a chip implanted in the retina and connected by wireless transmission to the Net" (114). (Why in the world would computers still scare you, Amanda?)

Jim Porter traces his writing history from writing with an eraser-less pencil at gunpoint (almost) through buying a typewriter (with memory...and a printer) that would cost around $6,750 today, to becoming a "cyberwriter." He uses his history to stress the importance of digital writing, something the humanists don't recognize.

I wish I had used the PDF commenter Tom linked in his email while I was reading the Porter piece. I think he's right that digital writing is important, but I think any writing (even notes with a pencil) is more important than no writing at all; I almost wish I had printed it out. I wonder if the humanists' "distopian view of technology" (Porter 387) is simply due to a limited experience with it. The main feeling I had from reading Porter's essay was that I was impressed by his willingness to be "with the times." It inspired me further to try new technologies that I've been hesitant to adopt (like the pdf viewer I just downloaded).

I kept wondering, even though these publications are fairly recent, what Porter and Manovich would think of recent developments. Does Porter have an iPad (he's a Mac man, right?) and has it, or some other device, changed the way he writes? Is Manovich interested in the MMORPG boom (is boom too strong?) as it relates to virtual reality?

I was interested in Manovich's word choice in a few spots. Jeremy pointed out the "seduce" choice, but I was also interested in the following: "In short, far from being a transparent window into the data inside a computer, the interface brings with it strong messages of its own" (65) and "to change the interface even slightly is to change the work dramatically" (67). Rather than "data," let me analyze his comments with specific examples. A word document: ok, I could see how interface changes could radically change how a text document is received by the audience. There was a comment in class about how reading a text on a Kindle vs an iPad had huge effects. Still, the text is still the text. I'm still a little resistant to "dramatically" and "strong messages." A photograph: this is where he starts to lose me--I agree that how the photographs are arranged has big implications when navigating through them, but when they're full screen, even the controls for managing them disappear. The amount of interface decreases to non-existance (does it work like that?). It's the same with movies, when you're watching the movie full screen on a computer the controls/interface disappears. When consuming photographs and videos, the interface has minimal effect...in my opinion. What do you think?

Yet again, though, a great chapter from Manovich. Two thumbs up for the readings this week.

Here's a video that messes with our thoughts about interface. Notice how he controls the camera:

Richard Samuelson