The (pseudo) causal chain

   http://zig.media.mit.edu/Work/G-stalt

In last entry, I considered why a gesture interface like G-stalt is studied in Tangible Media Group. Prof. Ishii says that:

Interfaces that control the computer with a mouse are like a black box, and it's difficult to understand what's going on inside. If gestures are used, however, one can clearly see the causal chain, as with a violinist's response to the conductor's baton. Research into gesture interfaces is attempting to hammer out a new paradigm by seamlessly merging body, objects, and space."

MIT Media Lab Tangible Media Group's Gesture Interfaces: Dynamic Interaction in Hybrid Space in AXIS 2009.8 vol.140

Although G-stalt seamlessly connects body, objects, and space, why the image is not in this relationship? The thing that is moved by the gestures is not the object itself but the image on the display, isn't it? Are 'body, objects, space and images' seamlessly merged in G-stalt? However, Prof. Ishii does not say the image. Why? Maybe, the images have already become the objects in our life. If we think that, I can smoothly connect the gesture interfaces with 'Radical Atoms' which is next vision of TMG. Now, we rarely think that the image is the 'image'. The image is something like the object, so it is tangible. Therefore, we can feel that the image is the object and the objects is the objects at the same time now. This idea makes totally new paradigm. This paradigm may be related with plasticity, I think. 

I want to focus on Prof. Ishii' word " If gestures are used, one can clearly see the causal chain". I consider that the mouse and the cursor on the display make "pseudo-cause-and-effect" between our action which is ruled by physical cause and effect and computer logic which is not ruled by one. Then, The pseudo-cause-and effect changes the images on the display into the 'object [entity]' which is something tangible. Even though the image which we see on the display has already become the 'object', it is supported by the pseudo-cause-and-effect. However, the gesture may interfaces remove  'pseudo' from the pseudo-cause-and-effect because the gesture is closely connected our body. Therefore, Prof. Ishii is maybe right. Our action will be tightly connected with the image on the display because the gesture is very close to our body. In the mouse and cursor, 'to grab and move something' is transformed into  'to point and move something' and this transformation makes the pseudo-cause-and-effect on the display. 'Grab' and 'point' are very general actions for us, then we can do many things with the combinations of these two actions on the display. As result, there is the ambiguous relationship between the image on the display and our action. However, the gesture requires one to one relationship with the image on the display. This one-to-one relationship make us think why an action is connected with the change of image on the display. Connecting our gesture with the image on the display in one to one relationship, the image may be more close to the object. Then, may the ambiguity of our action be reduced in turn?  

Atom → Bit → Pixel → Atom

I feel something strange that Tangible Media Group(TMG) studies the gestural interface which is not like the tangible. And more, TMG leaded by professor Hiroshi Ishii shows a new vision 'Radical Atoms'; Study the interface based on the material which can freely change like the pixel on the display. There is a stream of idea; Atom → Bit → Pixel → Atom. We have touched Atom for a long time. Then, we have to touch Bit like touching Atom. We have to touch Pixel like touching Atom. In the mean time, we have to touch Atom like touching Bit and Pixel. The first Atom does not change. It is just solid material. However, the second Atom can freely change. It is like fluid material. Now, we can change Bit and Pixel at our will but Atom does not. Prof. Ishii feels strange this solid Atom, therefore he give us the vision of 'Radical Atoms' for study the interface based on the idea that we can freely change the Atoms. I think that the second Atom is the new entity based on the appearance of Bit and Pixel which is always changing. Bit and Pixel is freely changing therefore we have to make a new interface in order to correspond them. It is g-stalt. This gestural interface make us re-think our actions to Bit and Pixel. This thought leads us new actions for the new fluid Atom. I think that this is 'Radical Atoms'.  In this way,　I understand why TGM studies the gestural interface like g-stalt.

You are a game controller

Project Natal Xbox 360. "You are a game controller." You don't need any controller. You can control the image on the display via your gestures. Talking of the gesture for game, I have Nintendo Wii which needs Wii remote for playing the game. We normally do actions with something physical like a racket for table tennis or a sword for Kendo. In fact, I can easily play those sports in Wii Sports resort. How about playing them without something physical to keep holding?  I think that I would have the strength for it. Although we hold Wii remote in order to play Wii games, it is different between the feelings for hitting a ball with a racket and for hitting a ball image on the display with  Wii remote which gives us sound and vibration. However, many people do not care this difference and feel as if Wii gives us 'real' feelings. We do not hold anything physical in Natal, therefore we can not feel some vibrations. We have to control our actions based on only the image on the display and sound. The sense of sight and hearing controls our whole body actions.

I consider about the feeling of swishing the air in soccer when I watch demonstration movie of Natal. It is like something empty. When try to kick the ball which is the physical entity, my body gets some tenses for a feedback from the ball.  Then, I miss my kick. Our body tenses can not go to the ball and return to my own body. If I understand that there is nothing physical contact, my body do not get any tenses. As a result, we can do our actions without any body tenses because there is nothing physical feedback in Natal. Maybe, we use our sense of sight and hearing as a substitution for our body tenses to the contact of something physical. Even though we do the actions in Natal as same as the ones in the physical world, how our brain reacts in this situation? If we keep doing this no physical feedback actions, our body will store new kind of experience and what will happen for us.

Writhing this entry, I remember that I did a practice swing without a racket many times when I belong to a tennis club in a junior high school.  Maybe, this practice teaches me 'form' for hitting the ball in the tennis. However, there is the difference between a practice swing with a racket and without racket because our body tenses change for the weight of it. 'Form' reminds me of 'NOU' or Pantomime. Natal and Pantomime. However, there is no 'weight' or physical 'resistance' in Natal in comparison with good pantomime. Anyway, we have to play long time in no physical feedback environment like Natal long time in order to understand its effects for us.

Magic Mouse Scroll with momentum.

Magic Mouse Scroll with momentum. iPhone does the scroll with momentum and it is comfortable for us. Magic Mouse, too. iPhone and Magic Mouse do the same scroll with momentum, therefore our finger action for them and the movement of the image on the display are also the same. However, I feel something different between iPhone and Magic Mouse. With iPhone, our finger move lightly on the smooth glass surface and the image on the display sticks to our finger movement. There is Smooth and Sticky. With Magic Mouse, our finger move along the gently slope on the sticky plastic surface and the image on the display sticks to our finger movement. There is Sticky and Sticky. Firstly, I think that "Smooth and Sticky" and "Sticky and Sticky" are a big different between iPhone and Magic Mouse, then the slow slope of Magic Mouse would be important for use because I feel very comfortable when my index finger go and come along it. However, a biggest different between them is that we touch the image directly in iPhone even though our finger and the image separate  in Magic Mouse.

Anyway, this scroll with momentum brings the momentum law of our physical world into the logical world of the computer, although the momentum in the display is generated from the logic. After going through many world, we feel good when the image on the display represents the law of our physical world which we are familiar with. There is something different, isn't it? The computer can not represent our whole physical world. It just cut out only the momentum from the physical world and gives it to the movement of the image. Moreover, the movement of the image with the momentum is adjusted for us in order to fit our finger action. As a result, we feel that something new happens, even though the image on the display represents just the law of physical world  which we are familiar with.

At first, I consider about a relationship between the scroll with momentum and the shape of surface; the slow slope of Magic Mouse fits our daily action for the slope because we get the momentum for going up the slope and the momentum is given us when we go down the slope. Therefore, the slope of Magic Mouse compensates the sticky plastic surface. However, I don't know whether our body feeling for the slope is reflected in our finger action for the scroll with momentum of Magic Mouse, even though the image on the display fits our finger action with the momentum which is cut out from the physical world. Although the slope of Magic Mouse may be just the shape for easy to grab in practical manner, it is the fact that the plastic surface of Magic Mouse has the slope in comparison with the glass surface of trackpad is flat. Finally, I understand that we cut out the law of physical world in order to bring it the logic world of the computer and the relationship between the material like a plastic or a glass and the shape; The glass - Smooth-Sticky-Flat. The plastic - Sticky-Sticky-Slope.

We are groping around for the courtship action to the digital world which is not able to see and touch

I think that we have aimed to bring our action in the physical world into the virtual world as it stands until now. However, PINCH of iPhone may make us know that we do not necessarily bring our action into the virtual world as it stands. Although PINCH does not make something big or small in the physical world, we control two points of a diagonal line in order to draw a quadrangle in the virtual world like Adobe Illustrator. PINCH makes a movement of diagonal, therefore we may superimpose this hand movement and the movement for drawing a quadrangle in the digital world. As result, we naturally accept the relationship between PINCH and Zoom in and out. I consider that it is big problem to explain what makes us naturally accept the relationship between our gestures and the image action or feel something strange for it. We have to be careful and aware of what our unconscious gestures mean and correspond them to the image movements and actions in the virtual world.

However, it is our contention that gesture ─ certainly descriptive or 'iconic' gesture ─ necessarily involves indexical links to the material world, even though these links are rarely established or explicated in the communicative situation itself. Rather, in conversational contexts that are detached from the talked-about world, participants must fill in encyclopedic knowledge (ranging from universal bodily experiences to highly specific cultural practices) to see and recognize gesture. Phenomenally, there are only motions of the hands. What is perceived, however, is typically not motions but actions and, simultaneously, implied objects acted upon.

Curtis LeBaron, Jürgen Streeck, 'Gestures, knowledge, and the world' In David McNeill(Ed.), Language and Gesture, pp.118-138 (2000)

Finally, I think that a big change will happen because the digital which is no material and shape intervenes in our gesture communication based on the material and shape of our body. To show our will to the digital world. Conversely, the digital world shows its own will to us. I formerly called this correlation 'Display acts' which the image on the display changes corresponding to our actions. Now, I consider that 'display acts' is, connected with 'display' means the bird's action of the courtship, a courtship dance or action between the human and the digital furthermore, the human and the human through the digital. We are groping around for the courtship action to the digital world which is not able to see and touch. I want to feel the touch of the digital world.

Is multi-touch gesture poetic language or prose?

Is multi-touch gesture poetic language or prose? Maybe, it is wrong to ask this question, but I want to consider about it. When the computer came into our world, "metaphor" played an important role: the desktop metaphor. The desktop metaphor arranged the images on the display and the mouse in the order of our body sense. Now we used to use them, then the multi-touch gesture is coming into the world. Is the multi-touch gesture some metaphors for something. The metaphor connects two things which are normally separated. Moreover, it is baed on our body sense according to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. If the mouse as a physical object gives us the feeling of "grabbing" for the images on the display in the desktop metaphor, what does the multi-touch gesture bring into the relationship between the human and the computer. I think that multi-touch gesture makes one-to-one relationship between us and the logical machine, which is like a prosaic sense or a sense of grammar/dictionary. However, my friend pointed out that the multi-touch gesture is like a poetic language. And I felt that his idea is also interesting so I have to re-consider about the multi-touch gesture.

iPhone introduced the PINCH:

With the iPhone multi-touch, zooming in and out of a picture never been easier. Steve Jobs introduces what he called a “pinch”. Bring your thumb and index fingers closer together or move them further apart to scale images.  Have a look at Steve Jobs presenting the feature, the audience is amazed by this.        

http://www.iphonefreak.com/2007/01/iphone_and_stev.html

 This thumb and index fingers action had made nothing to zoom the image or the physical object before the iPhone. Now, we think that our two fingers action have been able to zoom the image on the display from ancient time. This is the problem; Pinch is new action for us but we used to do it. Does iPhone just connect our thumb and index fingers action to zoom the image? Does the human have a sense for this finger action make zoom the image or the object? If there is only artificial connection our fingers action and zoom, this is one-to-one relationship like the dictionary. If we have natural sense for the link between fingers action and zoom, the Apple design and engineer team feel this sense and give it shape. Anyway, this it time that the digital device makes our action rule, therefore we must consider about these new action and its meaning in the long human history. I think that a new language based on our body, the image, and the digital device is arising now. I use "Language" as metaphor. We has changed the our own language in order to adjust our recognition for the environment. In digital age, I think that this change occurs at our body level very calmly.

I think that multi-touch gesture reduces our three-dimensional action to two-dimensional one. In order to reduce that, our body sense for the three-dimensional world have to be discarded. And, Pinch action for zooming the image shows this switchover. Pinch action need just two points of contacts in three-dimentional fingers action in order to zoom the image in the display. Even though we see and feel our own finger action which is three-dimentinal, iPhone need just two points of contact in the its surface. We live in three-dimantional world, so we always feel that our action for iPhone is the three-dimentinal one but the reduction happens there. However, we can not notice this reduction and feel "natural" for Pinch action. Pinch action is the artificial but we feel and make it "natural". The relationship is that "natural : artificial = poetic : prosaic"

"Weight" of Magic Mouse

I tried Apple's Magic Mouse. My first impression is thin and sticky. I consider that we have to grab the mouse in order to use it, therefore I pay attention to the thinness of Magic Mouse. According to Twitter, however, many people don't care it or get used to the thinness of it. Gizmode says that "Compared to ergonomic mice, the Magic Mouse is really low and aerodynamic, which means it doesn't contour to your hand and doesn't give the sensation that the mouse is a part of your hand". In my personal view, I not 'grab' the Magic Mouse but put my hand on it when I use it. Put my hand on it and move my fingers on its surface. So, I think that the surface of Magic Mouse it very important because my fingers can freely move on it. The glossy plastic is looks so smooth that I expect it is nice for my fingers. However, it is stickier for my fingers than MacBook's glass trackpad. This stickiness more bothers me than the thinness of Magic Mouse. As I already wrote, I consider that it is important for the multi-touch gesture to be smooth on the surface for freely finger movement. The smoothness is that our fingers which touch not information but an object don't feel some holds because information doesn't have weight and physical friction. We feel good due to let our fingers freely move on the smooth physical surface at the same time that the image on the display, information moves with our fingers like sticking each other. Although I mentioned this good feeling as 'Smooth and sticky,' we feel that there my be no weight. If our finger sweat, we feel some frictions between the fingers and the plastic surface. This frictions make something strange for us. Moreover, we already know the new standard for the smoothness of glass trackpad, so we feel that the plastic surface is sticker than the glass. This stickiness makes us feel "weight". This "weight" may be not physical but the tension of our muscle. It is like standing ready for controlling the image on the display, in other words, information. This is just my first impression for Magic Mouse, the first multi-touch gesture mouse. Therefore, I have to use it for a long time and gather many user's comments to it in order to consider about the meaning of Magic Mouse and the multi-touch gesture mouse.

A possibility of 10/GUI: Smooth but sticky

A possibility of 10/GUI. 10GUI suggests new interface with multi-touch gesture. We has used the interface with the mouse for over thirty years, so it is the time for change. However, I think that it is important for us to "grab" something physical like the mouse in order to operate the image on the display which we can not grab or hold. I consider that "grabbing" and "touching" are entirely different actions in human history. Therefore, our body may feel "grabbing" the mouse and multi-"touch" when we use the computer. But, I get used to the MacBook's glass trackpad and operate the image on the display like using the mouse. I do not superficially feel incongruity. When I pay deep attention to my body, however, I feel something strange between using the mouse and the trackpad, especially scrolling. Using the mouse, I feel "grabbing" the scroll bar for up and down. With trackpad, I feel that my fingers "stick to" the image on the display. Therefore, I feel odd when the scroll bar moving up and down because I do not "grab" it but just "touch". Although the human has "grabbed" something in order to move it for the long time, our fingers seldom stick to something in order to move it in daily life. I write "Stick to", however, it doesn't work if our fingers actually stick to the trackpad. Consequently, the trackpad must be smooth. I think that Apple made the glass trackpad for multi-touch due to pursuing the smooth and many people enjoy its feelings. While we use the trackpad, our body feel that it is smooth even though sticking to it in the bottom. "Smooth but sticky" makes us curious because of its newness and gives us something pleasant. On the other hand, it may cause the rejection in our body. In my case, touching trackpad is pleasant to my fingers and body in almost time but I sometimes feel something strange.

Back to 10/GUI. 10/GUI is good design for the image on the display in order to operate with our fingers. Therefore, many people interested in it. At first I think that  it is difficult to operate with multi-touch, but many user would get used to do soon. What it the material for 10/GUI's keyboard which is like a big trackpad? Is it the glass like MacBook's one? Our finger has high sensibility for touch, so the material which we directly touch is very important: we need always smooth. However, I don't know from this concept movie.

Moreover, if our body get used to multi-touch, we will get new body sense for the moving image. Once we get this new sense, we don't need to touch something in order to operate the image on the display, in other words, the computer like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Anyway, I'm looking forward that multi-touch gesture open new future for us.

Not to be taken the image from the world, but to pile up the image on the world.

This moving image is an experience of Phillips Design Electric Tattoo. This is more like Media Art than Concept moving image. Watching it, I feel ticklish on my hand. I understand that the image is projected on the hand, however my body may feel that it is directly drawn on the skin. This image is very low resolution, so I must undergo this design work in order to what happens on the skin. But, I have to say that the image will be piled up on our skin and not just 'piled' but 'sticked fast' to our body in the near future. Fujihata Masaki, Media Artist, insists that "we can control the image which is (like) material as if the printings" due to the appearance of the organic electroluminescence(OEL) display. I think that not only OEL but also the projector technology will make the images change the material everywhere. We have taken the image from the world, however will pile up the image on the world. When this would happen, might we feel something material with the image? We "see" the image on the skin and feel ticklish because of seeing. At the same time, our skin may feel nothing. In the future, our body, five senses will be dismembered. Now, our body is becoming loose because we already have watch a lot of images with only touching the plastic mouse. Therefore, a relationship of seeing and touching becomes loose now. However, we can't feel this separation. We have to think why we can't feel that.

To connect our desire to digital technologies

Philips Design Electric Tattoo. When someone touches someone's skin, a tattoo is drawn from the place he/she touches. Phillips design says "Simulated by touch, an Electronic Tattoo traverses across the landscape of the body, navigated by desire." The word "navigated by desire" reminds me of drawing something with my fingers on the beach. When I draws something with my fingers on the beach, I feel more directness than drawing with pencil or pen. I become more free to draw. I don't know what the trained painter think about this, however I feel more direct and free when I draw with my finger on the beach. Finger is not tool like a pencil or pen but a part of my body, therefore this may bring me a fundamental feeling for drawing. Because of the fundamental feeling, I don't care what I draw, I just draw. Although I can't understand what I draw, it is very good feeling. Good or not is the problem for me. When I begin to write about Phillips Design Electronic Tattoo, I consider the above. Now, we have to connect our desire to digital technologies in order to consider about the fundamental relationship between us and our environment for  generating good feeling from our body. If the Electric Tattoo reminds us of the fundamental relationship, the Tattoo which we draw marks on our skin brings us to our ancient feelings in our body. Moreover, the digital technology may make the ancient feelings vivid for us now. Even though We insist on own identity with wearing clothes or hair styles now, the Electric Tattoo will play that role in our life. Not drawing tattoo on our skin, but displaying air tag or something around our body through AR technology play the important role to show own identity.

short and long

Our thinking is becoming shorter and shorter. We write short idea again and again like Twitter. However, this short idea links another our own ideas or someone's one, then the idea becomes longer and longer. Next, this long idea becomes shorter and shorter again. We make new idea from this cycle and our body action like a click or tap make it possible.

Seeing the ‘light-colour’ seduces a new kind of touching

When we use a computer, what do we do? Almost all of us look at some image on an electric display, grab and move a mouse, and type on a keyboard, then our right hand holds the mouse in order to point to an image called an icon on the display. This is very 'natural' for us; if our body makes some actions, then the images on the electric display change. However, this relationship between our body and the image did not exist until the computer, and especially until the Graphical User Interface, appeared. I call this phenomenon 'Display Acts': the action formed by connecting our body action with the change of images on the electric display. (Mizuno, 2009) Through living with the computer, we have acquired new actions in order to inhabit this new image world. In other words, 'Display Acts' is the first step for our new actions in the man-computer world. I have already discussed ‘Display Acts’ on the first computer graphic system, Sketchpad, concerning the action of drawing the image with light. (Mizuno & Motomaya, 2008) However, that study did not show why we touch the image on the electric display.

Now, the electric display, for example iPhone, seduces us to touch the image. Erkki Huhtamo writes that:

While the classical cinema and even television broadcasting still emphasize distanced and physically nonactive forms of spectatorship, video game consoles, mobile phones, laptops, iPod and other >handy< electronic devices have familiarized millions to the >>tactile dimension<< [emphasis in original]. (Huhtamo, 2008, p.130)

In other article, Huhtamo adds, “How those development will affect the realm of tactility as we know it remains to be seen.”(Huhtamo, 2007, p.94) This paper takes over Huhtamo’s suggestion and sees a new realm of tactility which the new technology opens to us.

What do we see in the electric display?

At first, we have to consider how our body reacts the image made from the electric light, because this artificial light has totally changed the world. Marshal Mcluhan wrote that;

In a word, the message of the electric light is total change. It is pure information without any content to restrict its transforming and informing power. (Mcluhan, 2003, p.77)

We should know how the electric light affect us when we see it. Most of us see the electric light from TV or computer display everyday. The electric display came into our life as TV in late 1930s, therefore we may say that the TV is the first electric display we are familiar with. Mcluhan gives TV one chapter in “Understanding Media” because he believes that it opens new world. He points out the nature of the TV as bellow;

The mode of the TV image has nothing in common with film or photo, except that it offers also a nonverbal gestalt or posture of forms. With TV, the viewer is the screen. He is bombarded with light impulses, that James Joyce called the “Charged of the Light Brigade” that imbues his “soulskin with subconscious inklings.” The TV image is visually low in data. The TV image is not a still shot. It is not photo in any sense, but a ceaselessly forming contour of things limned by the scanning-finger. The resulting plastic contour appears by light through, not light on, and the image so formed has the quality of sculpture and icon, rather than of picture. (Mcluhan, 2003, p.413)

Mcluhan’s statement is famous because he tells us that the TV image is made from ‘light-through’ and gives us not visual sensation but tactile sensation. Seeing the contour of ‘light through’ means that we directly see the light source beyond the image. As a result, we see the electric light itself in TV image.

Based on above idea, I will especially focus on this phrase; “A ceaselessly forming contour of things limned by the scanning-finger” in order to examine the nature of the relationship between our body and the electric display. This forming contour makes the apparent motion on the electric display. Nelson Goodman considers about the apparent motion as ‘A Puzzle about Perception’ in his “Ways of Worldmaking”. Goodman writes, “that virtually every clear case of visual motion perception depends upon abrupt shift in color.” (Goodman, 1978, p.88) Goodman shows us that the apparent motion happens due not object-shape but object-colour. Moreover, he continues that;

With visual system taking such leaps in stride, with their indispensability for motion-perception, with object-identity dependent not upon smooth color transition but upon contrast with the background at the contour, the color-jumps in the Kolers experiments seem so inevitable as to leave us wondering how we let a false analogy trick us into expecting anything different. (Goodman, 1978, p.89)

Even though we normally think that smoothly changing the colour of object causes the apparent motion, Goodman focuses on the colour-jumps at the contour between the object and the background. It means that we look at not just the object alone but also the relationship between the object and the background. The contour is the place that the background becomes the object, and the object becomes the background, therefore the contour is the place they are ceaselessly merged in each other of colour. This merge makes the apparent motion.

Now, I want to go back to Mcluhan. He gave important role to the electric light because it has the potential to merge figure and ground. (Mcluhan, 1988, p.194) Therefore, the electric light is best media for the apparent motion, “a ceaselessly forming contour of things” in Mcluhan words. However, Mcluhan misses the colour aspect for the apparent motion that Goodman mentioned while Goodman also misses the aspect of electric light for it that Mcluhan mentioned. Therefore, we have to consider not only the nature of electric light but also the nature of colour formed by the electric light.

‘Light-colour’

When we see the electric display, aesthetician Asao Komachiya says that we see ‘light-colour’. ‘Light-colour’ throws away material information and extract only colour information from the object. Komachiya writes:

“Light has no weight. This is our recognition from the experience of human history. Similarly, light-colour cannot express its weight. However, the object described does have a weight. Therefore, the description of the object conveys the weight feeling for us. Paintings have expressed this. .... However, the image made from light-colour does not essentially fit this principle.” (Komachiya, 1996, pp.95-96)

Furthermore, Komachiya affirms that ‘light colour’ opens new image field due to the nature of no contour. (Komachiya, 1996, p.305) ‘Light-colour’ is mainly made from the electric light which has the potential to merge figure and ground, therefore this new colour does not have its contour. Owing to above natures, ‘light-colour’ looks similar to David Katz’s ‘film colour’. (Katz, 1996, pp.7-17) However, unlike Katz, Komachiya mainly takes directly seeing the electric light into consideration, which is a similar point of view to Mcluhan. I would like to suppose that the human has an innate ability to sense no materiality in the colour like Katz’s ‘film colour’ and the electric light make this our ability go into next step: It is ‘light-colour’

According to Komachiya, the ‘light-colour’ image is, however, beyond control for our sensations because it does not fit our traditional principles. ‘Light-colour’ forms an image but it is no weight and contour. We try to merge this new principle to our familiar one, but this task may be beyond the capacity of our brain. Therefore the brain may ask the body to make a new reality for the ‘light-colour’ Image. This seduces our body to touch the ‘light-colour’ image in order to compensate us for its no weight and contour. However, we have not been able to touch it because we have not made the device for that until now; although we tried to touch the ‘light-colour’ image on TV like “Winky-Dink and you [1953-57]”, even though it was just pretend touching.

‘Light-colour’ with the computer

Now, we have computers in order to control the weightless image formed by the electric light. It may mean that the pure information meets the information machine. In the traditional sense, the light reflected from the material of the world makes the images. Although he realizes ‘TV image’ is made from ‘light-trough’, Mcluhan dare to say ‘TV image’ but it’s not an image in the traditional sense. Moreover, Komachiya shows that ‘light-colour’ cannot tell the nature of weight; therefore it does not show us its own materiality. In short, the image made from the electric light may be just colour information of thing in the traditional sense.

Ron Burnett shows us the unique point about the image in our age. He writes, “The distinction between images and information blurs into pixels, lines, and rates of compression.” (Burnett, 2004, p.47) His point of view about the image is not analogue and digital, which gives us many suggestions. Furthermore, Masaki Fujihata re-defines the colour as a concept because the computer releases the colour from its materiality. (Fujihata, 1997, p.7-11) Although Burnett and Fujihata recognize that the computer gives us the chance to control the information of ‘light colour’, they forget the electric display. In fact, ‘light-colour’ merges the image and the information into one entity on the electric display because of its nature; no weight, no contour. The computer must need the electric display to generate ‘light-colour’ image.

Touching ‘light-colour’ with the smooth materiality = Believing our body

Our seeing of ‘light-colour’ seduces our recent new kind of touching. We have always touched materials which had their own weight. Material like the plastic mouse or the glass of the display do not change by our touch. However, touching the material causes some changes in a weightless entity on the electric display. The human and computer are making a new circuit for dealing with weightless entity made from ‘light-colour’ via the material object which is our body and something like the mouse or trackpad.

Moreover, there is the smooth materiality like the plastic or glass when we pay attention to only contact surface of our fingers and object. For example, Apple writes “to stay smooth and pristine, the new Multi-Touch trackpad is made from wear-resistant etched glass. [Emphasis is added]” (Apple, 2008, online) Why is touching ‘light-colour’ connected to the smooth materiality? ‘Light-colour’ merges figure and ground; therefore there may be something flat, no contour in our vision field. ‘Light-colour’ does not show its own weight, therefore there may be no friction to grab and move in our tactile field. Consequently, the smooth materiality is very close to the reality of ‘light-colour’. Then, we touch the smooth materiality and see the colour-jumps in the ‘light-colour’ image at the same time. However, there is a paradox because we have our own body with some weights and its own contour. We paradoxically feel the heavy density of our body by giving weight and contour to the weightless image via our smooth touching, when we see and touch ‘light-colour‘ entity,

After seeing ‘light-colour’ for a long time, we just begin full-scale investigation for the new realm of tactility with the smooth materiality. David Katz writes, “What has been touched is the true reality that leads to perception. [Emphasis in original]” (Katz, 1989, p.240) We re-train our fingers with the smooth materiality in order to touch and generate new reality of ‘light-colour.’ This demand us to believe our body’s weight and density in the ‘light-colour’ world. And this belief creates new diverse bodily sensations in ‘Display Acts’.

Reference

Apple, 2008: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html (June 14, 2009 access)

Burnett, Ron, 2004. How Images Think, MIT press.

Fujihata, Masaki, 1997. Colour As a Concept, Bijiutsu-Shuppan-sha.

Goodman, Nelson, 1978. Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett publishing company.

Huhtamo, Erkki, 2007. Twin-Touch-Test-Redux in MediaArtHistories, Oliver Grau ed., MIT press, pp.71-101.

Huhtamo, Erkki, 2008. Tactile Temptation: About Contemporary Art, Exhibition, and Tactility in Interface Cultures, Chista Sommere, Laurent Mignonneau, Dorothee King ed., transcript, pp.129-139.

Katz, David, 1989. The World of Touch, translated by L.E. Krueger, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Katz, David, 1996. The World of Colour, translated by R.B. MacLeod and C.W. Fox, Routledge.

Komachiya, Asao, 1996. Chi no me・Sora no me [the human history of vision], Keisou-Shobou.

Mcluhan, Eric & Marshall, 1988. Laws of Media: the new science, University Tronto press.

Mcluhan, Marshall, 2003. Understanding Media: the extensions of man, critical edition, W. Terrence Gordon ed., Gingko press.

Mizuno, Masanori & Motomaya, Kiyofumi, 2008. To see and Touch the Light Source in Proceedings of ISEA2008, pp.329-330.

Mizuno, Masanori, 2009. The formative process of “Display Acts” on the establishment of GUI, Doctor thesis, Nagoya University.

fluid-solid body

We can say that the body as substance is sometimes ‘not there’ in everything smooth. Our body is fluid-solid like a plastic in smooth information flow.

the new realm of tactility with the 'light-colour' entity and the smooth materiality

After seeing 'light-colour' for a long time, we just begin full-scale investigation for the new realm of tactility with the smooth materiality.

David Katz writes, ﾒWhat has been touched is the true reality that leads to perception. [Emphasis in original] (Katz, 1989, p.240)

We re-train our body with the smooth materiality in order to touch and generate new reality of 'light-colour'.

Before, we touch something physical in order to feel the weight (in the flow of cause and effect).

Now, we touch something smooth in order to give the weight to the 'light-colour' entity (for making its smoothness in the information flow).

This demand us to believe our bodyﾕs weight and density in the 'light-colour' world.

And this belief creates new diverse bodily sensations in ﾔDisplay Actsﾕ.

shape is vanished in the electric light

It is very strange situation. When dark, we can't see anything, but the electric display does not matter because it radiates the light.

In the dark room, we can not see everything. But the image made of the electric light, which is the electric display, is vivid for us to see.

Not there. Be there. We can believe 'not there'. We can believe the color without the shape in the electric light. It changes everything.

We have not been able to touch the color until now. Now, we can touch it. Maybe, it is virtual. But we can believe it.

The shape is vanished. It means that the material is vanished. There is no material in the electric light. There is only the color.

We should re-consider the relationship between the color and the shape in the electric light. The color achieve autonomy.

Electric light merges figure and ground, light color, contour, no contour, color and shape, shape is vanished in the electric light.

Light, Plastic, Apparent motion: The ability to recognize the ambiguity of ‘not there/be there’ in the video game

This paper investigates what we experience in the video game. When we play the video game, we not only see the video image on the display but also touch the game controller. Therefore, we need double description of seeing and touching in order to make clear what the video game experience is. In order to make the double description, I focus on the light, the plastic and the apparent motion because they are fundamental components of seeing and touching in the video game; the light makes the video image which we see, the plastic makes the game controller which we touch and the apparent motion makes ‘motion’ in the flashing lights which we see again. The light has no materiality but we feel fresh on the video image. The plastic leads us to the loss of recognition for the material, but there is the shape and color which we can touch and see. The apparent motion has no physical motion but just ‘apparent’ motion. The characteristic common to all these three is ‘presence in absence.’ Therefore, we experience that the light, the plastic and the apparent motion are sometimes ‘not there’ when we play the video game. However, we can believe that there is something to see and touch because the game controller made of the plastic brings the ambiguity of the apparent motion made of the light to the material world. As a result, we have gotten the ability to recognize the ambiguity of ‘not there/be there’ in the video game.

Looking 'Presence in absence' / Touching 'Presence'.

I look Apparent movement on the electric display and move the mouse cursor with holding the plastic mouse or touching the smooth track pad. Looking 'Presence in absence' / Touching 'Presence'.

touch to the glass

It is a new experience to touch the glass because it afford us to only see not touch. However, we begin to touch the glass on the surface of iPhone and Apple's new trackpad.

wikipedia

Glass generally refers to hard, brittle, transparent material, such as those used for windows, many bottles, or eyewear. Examples of such materials include, but are not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, isinglass (Muscovy-glass), or aluminium oxynitride. In the technical sense, glass is an inorganic product of fusion which has been cooled through the glass transition to a rigid condition without crystallizing.[1][2][3][4][5] Many glasses contain silica as their main component and glass former.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass

4th draft for isea 2009

Seeing the ‘light-colour’ seduces a new kind of touching

When we use a computer, what do we do? Almost all of us look at some image on an electric display, grab and move a mouse, and type on a keyboard, then our right hand holds the mouse in order to point to an image called an icon on the display. This is all very 'natural' for us; if our body makes some actions, then the images on the electric display change. However, this relationship between our body and the image did not exist until the computer, and especially until the Graphical User Interface, appeared. I call this phenomenon 'Display Acts': the action formed by connecting our body action with the change of images on the electric display. (Mizuno, 2009) Through living with the computer, we have acquired new actions in order to inhabit this new image world. In other words, 'Display Acts' is the first step for our new actions in the man-computer world. I have already discussed ‘Display Acts’ on the first computer graphic system, Sketchpad, concerning the action of drawing the image with light. (Mizuno & Motomaya, 2008, pp.329-330) However, that study did not show why we touch the image on the electric display.

Now, electric display, for example ipod touch, seduces us to touch the image. Erkki Huhtamo writes that:

While the classical cinema and even television broadcasting still emphasize distanced and physically nonactive forms of spectatorship, video game consoles, mobile phones, laptops, iPod and other >handy< electronic devices have familiarized millions to the >>tactile dimension<< [emphasis in original]. (Huhtamo, 2008, p.130)

In other article, Huhtamo mentions, “How those development will affect the realm of tactility as we know it remains to be seen.”(Huhtamo, 2007, p.94) This paper takes over Huhtamo’s suggestion and sees a new realm of tactility which the new technology opens to us.

What we see in the electric display

At first, we have to consider how our body reacts the image made from the electric light, because this artificial light has totally changed the world. Marshal Mcluhan writes that;

In a word, the message of the electric light is total change. It is pure information without any content to restrict its transforming and informing power. (Mcluhan, 2003, p.77)

We should know ourselves under the electric light. The electric display came into our life as TV in late 1930s, therefore, the TV is the first electric display we are familiar with. Mcluhan sets a high valuation on the TV for opening new world and gives it one chapter in “Understanding Media”. He points out the nature of the TV as bellow;

The mode of the TV image has nothing in common with film or photo, except that it offers also a nonverbal gestalt or posture of forms. With TV, the viewer is the screen. He is bombarded with light impulses, that James Joyce called the “Charged of the Light Brigade” that imbues his “soulskin with subconscious inklings.” The TV image is visually low in data. The TV image is not a still shot. It is not photo in any sense, but a ceaselessly forming contour of things limned by the scanning-finger. The resulting plastic contour appears by light through, not light on, and the image so formed has the quality of sculpture and icon, rather than of picture. (Mcluhan, 2004, p.413)

This Mcluhan’s statement is famous because he tells us that the TV image is made from ‘light-through’ and gives us not visual sensation but tactile sensation. Seeing the contour of ‘light through’ means that we directly the light source beyond the image. As a result, we see the electric light itself in TV image.

Based on above idea, I especially focus this phrase; “A ceaselessly forming contour of things limned by the scanning-finger” in order to examine the nature of the relationship between our body and the electric display. This forming contour makes the apparent motion on the electric display. Nelson Goodman considers about the apparent motion as ‘A Puzzle about Perception’ in his “Ways of Worldmaking”. Goodman writes, “that virtually every clear case of visual motion perception depends upon abrupt shift in color.” (Goodman, 1978, p.86) Goodman shows us that the apparent motion happens due not object-shape but object-colour. Moreover, he continues that;

With visual system taking such leaps in stride, with their indispensability for motion-perception, with object-identity dependent not upon smooth color transition but upon contrast with the background at the contour, the color-jumps in the Kolers experiments seem so inevitable as to leave us wondering how we let a false analogy trick us into expecting anything different. (Goodman, 1978, p.86)

Even though we normally think that smoothly changing the colour of object causes the apparent motion, Goodman focuses the colour-jumps at the contour between the object and the background. It means that we look at not just the object alone but also the relationship between the object and the background. The contour is the place that the background becomes the object, and the object becomes the background, therefore the contour is the place they are ceaselessly merged in their colours. This merge makes the apparent motion.

Now, I want to go back to Mcluhan. He gives important role to the electric light because it has the potential to merge figure and ground. (Mcluhan, 1988, p.194) Therefore, the electric light in best media for the apparent motion, “a ceaselessly forming contour of things” in Mcluhan words. However, Mcluhan misses the colour aspect for the apparent motion that Goodman mentioned while Goodman also misses the aspect of electric light for it that Mcluhan mentioned. Therefore, we have to consider not only the nature of electric light but also the nature of colour formed by the electric light.

Light-colour

When we see the electric display, aesthetician Asao Komachiya says that we see ‘light-colours’. ‘Light-colours’ throw away material information and extract only colour information from the object. Komachiya writes:

“Light has no weight. This is our recognition from the experience of human history. Similarly, light-colour cannot express its weight. However, the object described does have a weight. Therefore, the description of the object conveys the weight feeling for us. Paintings have expressed this. .... However, the image made from light-colour does not essentially fit this principle.” (Komachiya, 1996, pp.95-96)

Furthermore, Komachiya affirms ‘light colour’ as new media for opening new image field due that the nature of no contour. (Komachiya, 1996, p.305) ‘Light-colour’ is mainly made from the electric light which has the potential to merge figure and ground, therefore this new colour does not have the contour. Owing to above natures, ‘light-colour’ looks similar to David Katz’s ‘film colour’. (Katz, 1996, pp.7-17) However, 　 unlike Katz, Komachiya mainly takes the experience of directly looking at the electric light into consideration, which is a similar point of view to Mcluhan. I would like to suppose that the human has an innate ability to sense no materiality in the color like Katz’s ‘film colour’ and the electric light make this our ability go into next step.

According to Komachiya, the ‘light-colour’ image is, however, beyond control for our sensations because it does not fit our traditional principles. ‘Light-colour’ forms an image but it is no weight and contour. We try to merge this new principle to our familiar one, but this task may be beyond the capacity of our brain. Therefore the brain asks the body to make new a reality for the ‘light-colour’ Image. This seduces our body to touch the ‘light-colour’ image in order to compensate us for its no weight and contour. However, we have not been able to touch it because we have not made the device for that until now. However, we tried to touch the ‘light-colour’ image on TV like “Winky-Dink and you [1953-57]”, even though it was just pretend to touch it.

Light-colour with the computer

Now, we have computers in order to control the weightless image formed by the electric light. It may mean that the pure information meets the information machine. In traditional sense, the light reflected from the material of the world makes the images. Although he realizes ‘TV image’ is made from ‘light-trough’, Mcluhan dare to say ‘TV image’ but it’s not the image in traditional sense. Moreover, Komachiya shows that ‘light-colour’ cannot tell the nature of weight; therefore it does not show us its own materiality. In short, the image made from the electric light may be just colour information of thing in traditional sense.

Ron Burnett shows us the unique point about the image in our age. He writes, “The distinction between images and information blurs into pixels, lines, and rates of compression.” (Burnett, 2004, p.47) His point of view about the image is not analogue and digital, which gives us lot suggestions. ‘Light colour’ merge the image and the information into the electric display because of its nature; no weight, no contour. Furthermore, Masaki Fujihata re-defines the colour as a concept because the computer releases the colour from its materiality. (Fujihata, 1997, p.7-11) Nevertheless, Burnett and Fujihata are half right; the computer must needs the electric display to generate ‘light-colour’ image.

Touching ‘light colour’ with the smooth materiality = Believing our body

Our seeing of ‘light-colour’ seduces our recent a new kind of touching. We have always touched materials which had their own weight. Material like the plastic mouse or the glass of the display do not change by our touch. However, now our touch to the material causes some changes in a weightless object on the electric display. The human and computer are making a new circuit for dealing with weightless objects made from ‘light-colour’ via the material object which is our body and something like the mouse or trackpad. Moreover, there is the smooth materiality like the plastic or glass when we pay attention to only contact surface of our fingers and object. For example, Apple writes “to stay smooth and pristine, the new Multi-Touch trackpad is made from wear-resistant etched glass. [Emphasis is added]” (Apple, 2008, online)

Why is touching ‘light-colour’ connected to the smooth materiality? ‘Light-colour’ merges figure and ground; therefore there may be something flat, no contour in our vision field. ‘Light-colour’ does not show its own weight, therefore there may be no friction to hold and move in our tactile field. Consequently, the smooth materiality is very close to the reality of ‘light-colour’. Then, we touch the smooth materiality and see the colour-jumps in the ‘light-colour’ image at the same time. There is a paradox. Therefore, when we see and touch ‘light-colour‘ image, we paradoxically feel the heavy density of our body by giving weight and contour to the weightless image via our smooth touching.

After seeing ‘light-colour’ for a long time, we just begin full-scale investigation for the new realm of tactile with the smooth materiality. David Katz writes, “What has been touched is the true reality that leads to perception. [Emphasis in original]” (Katz, 1989, p.240) We re-train our fingers with the smooth materiality in order to touch and generate new reality of light-colour. This demand us to believe our body’s weight and density in the ‘light-colour’ world. And this belief creates new diverse bodily sensations in ‘Display Acts’.

Reference

Apple, 2008: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html (June 14, 2009 access)

Burnett, Ron, 2004. How Images Think, MIT press.

Fujihata, Masaki, 1997. Colour As a Concept, Bijiutsu-Shuppan-sha.

Goodman, Nelson, 1978. Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett publishing company.

Huhtamo, Erkki, 2007. Twin-Touch-Test-Redux in MediaArtHistories, Oliver Grau ed., MIT press, pp.71-101.

Huhtamo, Erkki, 2008. Tactile Temptation: About Contemporary Art, Exhibition, and Tactility in Interface Cultures, Chista Sommere, Laurent Mignonneau, Dorothee King ed., transcript, pp.129-139.

Katz, David, 1989. The World of Touch, translated by L.E. Krueger, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Katz, David, 1996. The World of Colour, translated by R.B. MacLeod and C.W. Fox, Routledge.

Komachiya, Asao, 1996. Chi no me・Sora no me [the human history of vision], Keisou-Shobou.

Mcluhan, Eric & Marshall, 1988. Laws of Media: the new science, University Tronto press.

Mcluhan, Marshall, 2003. Understanding Media: the extensions of man, critical edition, W. Terrence Gordon ed., Gingko press.

Mizuno, Masanori & Motomaya, Kiyofumi, 2008. To see and Touch the Light Source in Proceedings of ISEA2008, pp.329-330.

Mizuno, Masanori, 2009. The formative process of “Display Acts” on the establishment of GUI, Doctor thesis, Nagoya University.

Second draft for isea 2009

Seeing the ‘light-color’ seduces a new kind of touching  

When we use a computer, what do we do? Almost all of us look at some image on an electric display, grab and move a mouse, and type on a keyboard, then our right hand holds the mouse in order to point to an image called an icon on the display. This is all very 'natural' for us; if our body makes some actions, then the images on the computer display change. However, this relationship between our body and the image did not exist until the computer, and especially until the Graphical User Interface, appeared.  I call this phenomenon 'Display Acts': the action formed by connecting our body action with the change of images on the electric display. Through living with the computer, we have acquired new actions in order to inhabit this new image world.  In other words, 'Display Acts' is the first step for our new actions in the man-computer world. I have already discussed ‘Display Acts’ on the first computer graphic system, Sketchpad, concerning the action of drawing with light. However, that study did not show why we touch the light on the electric display. Now, electric display, for example ipod touch, seduces us to touch the light. Erkki Huhtamo writes that:

While the classical cinema and even television broadcasting still emphasize distanced and physically nonactive forms of spectatorship, video game consoles, mobile phones, laptops, iPod and other >handy< electronic devices have familiarized millions to the >>tactile dimension<<.

In other article, Huhtamo shows us “a media-archeological approach to “touching art” as a contribution to a wider cultural mapping of interactive media”, however, his approach can not answer why we want to touch the image on the electric display “now”.

Although we have seen the electric light for a long time, why we want to touch the image on the electric display “now” ? The technology is, of course, enough developed for touching it. However, the mature technology is not enough, I believe, to explain why we touch it now. We have to consider how our body reacts the image made from the electric light, because this artificial light has totally changed the world: Marshal Macluhan writes that “In a word, the message of the electric light is total change. It is pure information without any content to restrict its transforming and informing power.” We should know ourself under the electric light. Therefore, this presentation will focus on the relationship between our body and the electric light.

What we see in the electric display

The electric display came into our life as TV in late 1930s, therefore, the TV is the first electric display we are familiar with. Marshal Macluhan sets a high valuation on the TV for opening new world and gives it one chapter in “Understanding Media”. He points out the nature of the TV as bellow;

The mode of the TV image has nothing in common with film or photo, except that it offers also a nonverbal gestalt or posture of forms. With TV, the viewer is the screen. He is bombarded with light impulses, that James Joyce called the “Charged of the Light Brigade” that imbues his “soulskin with subconscious inklings.” The TV image is visually low in data. The TV image is not a still shot. It is not photo in any sense, but a ceaselessly forming contour of things limned by the scanning-finger. The resulting plastic contour appears by light through, not light on, and the image so formed has the quality of sculpture and icon, rather than of picture. The TV image offers some three million dots per second to the receiver. From these he accepts only a few dozen each instant, from which to make an image.

This Mcluhan’s statement is famous because he tells us that the TV image is made from ‘light-through’ and gives us not visual sensation but tactile sensation. Seeing the contour of light through means that we directly the light source beyond the image. As a result, we see the electric light itself in TV image. Based on this idea, I especially focus the word “contour” and “finger” in his statement in order to examine the nature of the relationship between our body and the electric display. Why does Mcluhan use the word “finger” as metaphor for expressing a scanning line?

“A ceaselessly forming contour of things limned by the scanning-finger” makes the apparent motion on the electric display. Nelson Goodman considers about the apparent motion as ‘a puzzele about Perception’ in his “Ways of Worldmaking”. Goodman writes “that virtually every clear case of visual motion perception depends upon abrupt shift in color. (p.88)” Goodman shows us that the apparent motion happens due not object-shape but object-color. Moreover, he continues that;

With visual system taking such leaps in stride, with their indispensability for motion-perception, with object-identity dependent not upon smooth color transition but upon contrast with the background at the contour, the color-jumps in the Kolers experiments seem so inevitable as to leave us wondering how we let a false analogy trick us into expecting anything different. (p.89)

Even though we normally think that changing the color of object smoothly causes the apparent motion, Goodman focuses on the contour between the object and the background. It means that we look at not just the object alone but the relationship between the object and the background. The contour is the place that the background becomes the object, and the object becomes the background, therefore the contour is the place they are merged. This merge makes the apparent motion.

Now, I want to go back to Mcluhan. He gives important role to the electric light because it has the potential to merge figure and ground. This merge make the electric light to the pure information. Therefore, the electric light in best media for the apparent motion, “a ceaselessly forming contour of things” in Mcluhan words. However, Mcluhan misses the color aspect for the apparent motion that Goodman mentioned while Goodman also misses the aspect of electric light for it that Mcluhan mentioned.

Barbra Maria Stafford realizes the power of color and electric light in Dan Flavin’s work, and writes that;

Take Dan Flavin’s discovery of the dark corner, rarely used by other artists before him. By dint of pressing a single eight-foot fixture into that cavernous angle, or leaning fluorescent light into the triangular penumbra, or lacing it with chromatic grid, he reveals the inaccessible depths of the background while flooding the foreground to expose its unsuspected tunnel of color. (p.459)

In her statement. we are aware that the electric light has its own color and this electric light color has the power to merges figure and ground into the space. Therefore, we have to consider not only the nature of electric light but also the nature of color formed by the electric light.

Light-color

When we see the electric display, aesthetician Asao Komachiya says that we see ‘light-colors’. ‘Light-colors’ throw away material information and extract only color information from the object. Komachiya writes:

“light has no weight. This is our recognition from the experience of human history. Similarly, light-color can not express its weight. However, the object described does have a weight. Therefore, the description of the object conveys the weight feeling for us. Paintings have expressed this. .... However, the image made from light-color does not essentially fit this principle.”

Although it does not fit our traditional sensations, Komachiya affirms ‘light color’. He thinks that ‘light color’ is new media for opening new image field due to the nature of ‘light color’; No contour.

According to Komachiya, the ‘light-color’ image is, however, beyond control for our sensations because it does not fit our traditional principles. ‘Light-color’ forms an image but it is weightless and no contour. We try to merge this new principle to our familiar one, but, this task may be beyond the capacity of our brain. Therefore the brain asks the body to make new a reality for the ‘light-color’ iamge. This seduces our body to touch the ‘light-color’ image in order to get its own contour and weight. Mcluhan’s metaphor; “scanning-finger” tells us this desire from not our body but the image on the electric display. The ‘light color’ image wants to be touched us, so it reachs for us. However, we have not been able to touch it because we have not made the device for that until now. However, we tried to touch the ‘light-color’ image on TV like “Winky-Dink and you (1953)”, even though it was just pretend to touch it.

Light-color with computer

Now, we have computers in order to control the weightless image formed by the electric light. It means that the pure information meets the information machine. In traditional sense, the light reflected from the material of the world maks the images. Although he realizes ‘TV image’ is made from ‘light-trough’, Mcluhan dare to say ‘TV image’ but its not the image in traditional sense. According to Komachiya, ‘light-color’ can not tell the nature of weight, which means it does not show us own materiality. It is just the color information of thing.

Ron Bernette shows us the unique point about the image in our age. He writes “the distinction between images and information blurs into pixels, lines, and rates of compression”. His point of view about the image is not analogue and digital, which gives us a lot suggestions. ‘Light color’ merge the image and the information on the electric display because of its nature: no contour, no weight. Furthermore, Masaki Fujihata re-defines the color as a concept because the computer releases the color from its materiality in order to adjust the color to the information age. Bernette and Fujihata are half right since only the compter can not release that. The computer needs the electric display to do that.

Touching no weight = Believing our body

Go to the problem of the smooth materiality

Smooth but diverse.

Our seeing of ‘light-color’ seduces our recent a new kind of touching. We have always touched materials which had their own weight. Material like the plastic mouse or the glass of the display do not change by our touch. However, now our touch to the material causes some changes in a weightless object on the electric display. The human and computer are making a new circuit for dealing with weightless objects made from ‘light-color’ via the material object which is our body and something like the mouse and trackpad. Moreover, there is something smooth when we pay attention to only contact of our fingers and object.

Touching ‘light-color’ is connected to the smooth materiality. ‘Light-color’ merges figure and ground, therefore there may be something flat, no contour. ‘Light-color’ does not shows its own weight, therefore there may be no friction to hold and move. Consequently, the smooth materiality represents ‘light-color’. The connection of light-color and the smooth materiality makes diverse bodily sensations on the electric display. In basic level, ‘light-color’ and the smooth materiality are connected, even though the images made from ‘light-color’ shows something heavy or rough.

To control the ‘light-color’ object, touching nothing is ideal like Tom Cruise’s air gesture in front of the electric display in Minority Report. However, our traditional sensation can not adopt it yet. Now we train and study our new sensation for ‘light-color’ image with the smooth materiality. When we see and touch ‘light-color‘ image, we paradoxically feel the heavy density of our body by giving some weight to the weightless image via our smooth touching.

This is the time for answer: why we want to touch the image on the electric display “now” ? David Katz compares the touch and vision and points out the role of the sense of touch as below;

The sense of touch (in which, for simplicity of exposition, we also include kinesthesis) indeed does not provide all of the subtle nuances available in vision. Also, remote sensitivity, which has reached full development in vision, is found in only rudimentary from in touch. Even so, from a perceptual viewpoint we must give precedence to touch over all other senses because its perceptions have the most compelling character of reality. Touch plays a far greater role than do the other senses in the development of belief in the reality of the external world. Nothing convinces us as much of the world’s existence, as well as the reality of our own body, as the (often painful) collisions that occur between the body and its environment. What has been touched is the true reality that leads to perception; no reality pertains to the mirrored image, the mirage that applies itself to the eye.

Our finger try to touch something smooth in no-weight world. We re-train our fingers with the smooth materiality in order to explore and generate new reality. This demand us to believe our body’s weight and density in the ‘light-color’, weightless world. And this belief creates new ‘Display Acts’ for our action and diverse bodily sensations.