artificial lives

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facing the future

Artificial lives
Some people feel that when you do things on a computer you are entering into an unreal world, and are suspicious of its influence on our lives.

There are no physical restrictions on what can be done in games - it is totally up to the designer. People, creatures, objects and structures can be destroyed at will, and complete cities or landscapes are places in which impossible things can happen. The adoption artificial personas and having 'made up' relationships, 'photoshopping' images to remove blemishes creating artificial perfection, or actually removing people and backgrounds completely to create a false record of events.

They argue that this fantasy, this lack of reality is insidiously detrimental to people’s perceptions as their experiences do not result in real life consequences. This is especially relevant to children since gaming is such a time consuming activity, this limits their time for actual real life experiences of the touchable, physical world.

Physical outputs

This nature of artificiality is actually becoming less significant as more and more uses of digital technology have physical outcomes - outputting images, video, and music in various forms, using maps and content to navigate the real world, enabling people to interact with live events. Designers of all kinds use the widest range of highly sophisticated digital technology. For instance 3-D printers which are able to create real objects from digital files, printing them layer by layer in a wide variety of materials. This might sound a tedious way of producing something, but it is not only great for prototyping, but it is possible to make things with internal moving parts, things which would be impossible to model using traditional techniques.
Computer aided design has the added advantage of including programming to pick up any structural faults which don't meet ‘real’ three-dimensional criteria, and we can visualise a product in the early stages of design as they can be easily converted into multiple rotating views. We are all aware of the amazing ability of scanners in the medical field to image in 3-D internal parts of our bodies as an essential part of diagnosis.

But practical experiences of handling materials are still important factors in design and innovation as an essential part of the creative process. This was extensively stressed more than 35 years ago by M W Thring & Laithwaite (of Imperial College and Queen Mary College London) in their book "How to Invent" (publ. 1977). They even have a chapter entitled 'Thinking with the Hands’.
who is this > M W Thring

Craftwork

One type of experience that is particularly difficult on a computer is any form of artistic craftwork. The process of using materials to create things which look and feel nice, especially things which have natural variation as a result of the materials used, or which have individuality as a result of hand making processes.

In their article on ‘Pop-Up Design: Computationally Enriched Paper Engineering’ (publ. 2005) Susan Hendrix and Mike Eisenberg comment on the limits of computers and software by comparison with the cultural values inherent in practical craftwork:
"Craft activities have a cognitive dimension - a dimension of tactile experience, working with materials - that is hard or awkward to reproduce in 'pure software' applications. Materials such as paper, string, wire, wood and plastic have essential characteristics (tensile strengths, response to shear forces, crumpling, tearing and so forth) that give tangible, viscerally understood form to fundamental ideas of engineering and design. From the intellectual standpoint, craft activities [can be] a rich source of mathematical or scientific ideas and images…

And beyond all this, there are social [aspects] of craft objects that seem, in some slightly mysterious way, hard to attain in the realm of pure software. Craft objects can be gifts, kept as souvenirs, put on display, grouped into personal collections, cherished and re-examined for months or years. Software artefacts rarely are the objects of this sort of affection or social utility."

resource link > Susan Hendrix: Pop-Up Design

Live counter-computer culture

The happy paradox is that, as an antidote to the artificial nature of computer screen interaction, there is a growing re-evaluation of real live experiences - going to a live concert, taking part in a festival, looking at an art object, cooking, sewing and making things. We seem to be responding more positively and placing higher value on these 'real' interactions.

The distinction between what is on screen and what is directly experienced will be a big factor in future cultural life.

what do we mean - thinking by making?

• there is special knowledge and understanding to be gained by making things

• childhood plays a vital part in this innovative process

a historical perspective

• evidence from the past

• art and decoration

• observation, trial and error

• origins of maths
• patterns and geometry

facing the future

• living in a digital age

• how can this be creative?