The ‘thinness’ is given to the plane: A study of the ‘plane’ in Masaki Fujihata’s works

This article examines what the ‘plane’ in Masaki Fujihata’s works is. Although Fujihata is known as one of the most famous media artists, the work Unformed Symbols is not that well known—just an animation work which Fujihata started his artistic career from. In making this, and other works—i.e., the ‘sculpture,’ Forbidden Fruits and interactive art works like Beyond Pages—however, he discovered, for himself, the possibility of computer graphics, and, as I explore in this paper, came to tackle the problem of the plane with, for perhaps the first time, the computer.

I consider three of Fujihata’s works in order to consider this handling of the plane as it exists in his works. First, I compare the plane in Forbidden Fruits with Leo Steinberg’s the flatbed picture plane. This consideration makes clear that the plane is no longer the privileged role for the image in a collection of data. Secondly, I make a comparison between the interactive work Beyond Pages and the Graphical User Interface in order to show that the plane in the computer, through both artwork and utilitarian feature, becomes too thin to grasp with our hands. Thirdly, I ponder why the animation Unformed Symbols overlaps the image with the real, showing that there is no difference between the plane and the solid in this ‘thin’ world. Accordingly, I conclude that Fujihata may have created a new plane itself by creating a ‘thinness’ which causes a ‘switchover between dimensions’ to that of the plane.

Incidentally, the architect Junya Ishigami’s Table, which has a very thin tabletop shows some similarities to Fujihata’s ‘thin’ plane. And furthermore, in his architectural critique, Taro Igarashi refers to the tabletop of Table as Superflat. Thus, I finally point out that Fujihata’s ‘thin’ plane shares a homology with Superflat, which, as proposed by the artist Takashi Murakami and developed into the discussion about information by the philosopher Hiroki Azuma, has come to be fundamental concept for modern Japanese art, and also suggest this ‘switchover between dimensions’.

'In-between,' 'hover,' 'unfixed.'

'In-between,' 'hover,' 'unfixed.' These words remind me the cursor on the display. I took up them from the book about "Window｜Interface." We often consider about what the window is, but we have to consider about what the cursor is. I think that the cursor is the representation of our age, especially latest 30years,1980-2010.

The absolute thin electric device

I'm interested in the absolute thin for the electric device, especially touch interface one like iPhone. What is the thin for the interface? The thin is not the plane but the object. For example, even though the card is the plane when we look at it, it changes to the object when we touch it. Can we decide the point between the plane and the object? The electrical device becomes thinner and thinner, at last it will get absolute thinness. What will we feel this absolute thin electrical device? Is it the plane or the object? Is it only the display or not? Is it the only image or not?

First draft: The cursor is the switchover entity between the real and the virtual: Two works about the cursor by exonemo

This article examines the representation of the cursor in the Graphical User Interface. We often look the cursor as an expanding of our hand or the double of the pointing device like the mouse. Although the cursor on the display has been familier with us since the desktop metaphor, ‘↑’ has no correspondance with the real thing, such as the file or folder. Moreover, the cursor does not obey the physical law because it is in the cyber space. Therefore, we are familier with the cursor, but we don’t know anything about ‘↑’.

exonemo receives the unidentifiable of the cursor and considers the cursor as a halfway being: This means that the cursor is A, also it is B. This idea leads us to new understand of the cursor, therefore I focus on their two works, DanmatsuMouse (2007) and ↑ (2010) in order to explain what an essence of the cursor is. These two works make clear that the cursor is the switchover entity which makes the ‘between’ the real world and the virtual world, then switches from the real to the virtual, or vice versa.

First draft:A ‘plane’ on Masaki Fujihata’s works: Gravity/Projection/Overlapping

Masaki Fujihata is know as one the famous media artist. Although almost all people think that Fujihata’s work is interactive, Unformed Symbols (2006) is not an interactive work, just an animation one. Fujihata’s early work Forbidden Fruites is a ‘sculpture’, it is not the interactive, either. I would like focus on not an ‘interactive’ aspect of Fujihata’s work but a ‘plane‘ one because he often refer the planeness about his works.

Fujihata discover an unique field in the computer where there is no difference between the plane and solid. Forbidden Fruites are made by the Stereolithography which makes a solid from pilling many planes up. Fujihata used this technique in order to directly take out a shape of data form the computer. In Forbidden Fruites, the planes become the solid. I will compare the plane in Forbidden Fruits with Leo Steinberg’s the flatbed picture plane in order to make clear the meaning of the plane in the data.

Beyond Pages is the most famous in Fujihata’s work because it is the interactive one. Although Fujihata points out that Beyond Pages propose new semiotic issues, I consider that this work also give a question; What is the plane in Graphical User Interface age. GUI shows a new two-dimensional surface due to that it is not two-dimensional but looks two-dimensional. Beyond Pages projects the image of pages onto the table, then we regard it as the book. However we can not grab the book on the table because it too thin to catch it. There is overlapping very thin image plane on the desktop. Beyond Pages show us that every planes in GUI is too thin to grasp with our hand.

Unformed Symbols overlaps the image trumps with the real trumps. Fujihata does not use the computer in this work, therefore this is not interactive one. However, this overlapping makes new thin world on the table top, then we experience more complex interaction in the physical law than the computer does. Jyunya Ishigami makes a big thin table. This table’s thinness is very strange which is very similar with Unformed Symbols. These works do not use the computer. However, more complex interaction happens in two works because of their own thin plane. The plane is not only the plane, but also the solid. We already meet this situation on the computer, but Fujihata’s Unformed Symbols and Ishigami’s Table make no gravity field in the real gravitational world. In this thin world, there is no difference between the plane and the solid.

I would like to call Fujihata an architect of the plane. Of course, Fujihata is an artist but I dare to say he is the architect in the superflat age. Fujihata anticipates the architects in the superflat movement. The superflat is the idea of Takashi Murakami in order to export the Japanese art into the world wide art market. Although the superflat comes from the Japanese subculture, this idea is also related with the computer’s flat world like GUI. We start to refer to computer engineers as IT architects, therefore I call Masaki Fujihata who knows the essence of the computer as the architect of the plane.

An intersubjective image

Software works make a situation; not 'it used to be there' but 'this is here now.' It is summoned to appear in the display by the computer.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13298957788

The computer gives us our second language in order to communicate between the human and itself.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13318381249

There is a possibility for new second language for the man and computer communication.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13318619176

The picture and movie are the first visual language. The image based on the data which the computer makes is the second visual language.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13318763196

The first visual language has only two categories: subjective image and objective one.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13318901336

The second one has three categories: subjective image, objective image and intersubjective image which opens new thought.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13318966373

An intersubjective image which is between individuals [human and human]: the photo and the movie.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13351803960

An intersubjective image which is between spaces [human and computer]: the image based on the data.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13351812840

This is a wrong question whether the computer is rational one or not.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13352012710

This is a right question whether the image on the display made by the computer is rational one or not.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13352044867

The computer need the image in order to make a thought.
http://twitter.com/mmmemoe/status/13352080365

Re-thinking the interface: What is the meaning of Alan Kay's"Doing with Images makes Symbols"

Alan Kay created a slogan for development of user interfaces: Doing with Images makes Symbols. This reveals the essence of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) which millions of people now use all over the world. This paper examines how GUI, based on Kay's slogan, has changed our communication with the computer. In order to explore this topic, I focus on Azuma and Turkle’s argument of "interface value" intuit for thinking about the relationship between our action and new sign surfaces. Next, Kay’s slogan is considered from the viewpoint of its formation process. Finally, I refer to Sperber and Wilson's Relevance theory. I conclude that GUI demands that we, along with computers, act for ostensive-inferential communication in a mutual cognitive environment.

What You See Is What You Touch? Double description of seeing and touching in ‘Display Acts’

What you see is what you touch?

View more presentations from Masanori MIzuno.

There is, in fact, almost no formal theory dealing with analogue communication and, in particular, no equivalent of Information Theory or Logical Type Theory. This gap in formal knowledge is inconvenient when we leave the rarified world of logic and mathematics and come face to face with the phenomena of natural history. In the natural world, communication is rarely either purely digital or purely analogic.1

This is Gregory Bateson’s words. I consider that user interface has the same problem. Computer is digital. Computer is controlled by formal theory. However, We, human, is not purely digital. We, are analogic rather than digital. Therefore, user interface should be the place where purely digital computer becomes analogic one, and analogic human becomes digital one in order to communicate each other.

Display Acts

When we use a computer, what do we do? Almost all of us look at some images 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 with a plastic object, 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 (GUI), appeared. I call this phenomenon 'Display Acts': action which is formed by connecting our body action with the change of images on the electric display.2 However, we do not understand this action well because we have only separately studied body actions and images in man-computer communication.

In order to make clear the relationship between our body action and images in the man-computer world, this presentation focuses on the cursor in the electric display and the mouse in the real world. We see the cursor in the electric display: The cursor is "a small mark on a computer screen that can be moved and that shows the position on the screen, where, for example, text will be added."3 Moreover, the shape of cursor is almost arrow (→) which is "used to show direction or position."4 We just see the arrow cursor in order to know where it is and point some images on the display. Then, we also hold the mouse.

Exemplification

What does the cursor show us? It shows us the position and direction, however, the cursor often points nothing. When the arrow cursor points nothing, it does not work. We don't care this. Why? Because we not only see the images in the display, but also grabbing the mouse. What is a relationship between seeing and grabbing? In order to make clear this relationship between the cursor and mouse, I refer to Nelson Goodman’s idea; Exemplification. According to Goodman;

Exemplification, though one of the most frequent and important functions of works of art, is the least noticed and understood. Not only some troubles about style but many futile debates over the symbolic character of art can be blamed on ignoring the lessons, readily learned from everyday cases of the relation of being-a-sample-of, that mere possession of a property does not amount to exemplification, that exemplification involves reference by what possesses to the property possessed, and thus that exemplification though obviously different from denotation (or description or representation) is no less a species of reference.5

Possession means that some samples show us their own properties, and we interpret their properties for our interests. The user interface is not work of art, but I consider that the images in the electrical images with the mouse or other input devices show us almost same functions of work of art.

We see the shape of cursor as a sample in order to know functions of cursor. We get a pointing function from the arrow shape, therefore, we label this pointing function to the arrow cursor. However, the arrow cursor points nothing. As a result, we think this arrow possess another functions; Maybe it is moving for pointing because the arrow is shape for pointing. Only when we see the electric display, we can understand that the functions of the cursor is only pointing. However, user interface has the mouse. We touch and grab the mouse, then we see that the cursor moves and point the image. This touching is another function of the cursor because the cursor is designed for connecting with the mouse in order to work in the display. Only when we see the display, we can just know pointing and moving functions of the cursor (fig. 1). Only when we touch the mouse, we can understand the cursor is able to touch the image and change images in the display (fig. 2). Only pointing can not change anything in the display. Changing needs touching. In short, we not only see the images on the display, but also grabbing the mouse when we use the computer. Therefore, we have to consider what a relationship between seeing and touching is.

　　　　　　　　　　　　fig.1

　　　　　　　　　　　　fig. 2

Moreover, the arrow cursor sometimes suddenly changes into the spinning wait cursor or something else. When we see transformations of the cursor's shape, the mouse we grasp does not change. However, the moment the arrow cursor changes into the spinning wait cursor, our action with the mouse changes. Before transformation, we use the arrow cursor and the mouse in order to point to an image on the display, and therefore the cursor exemplifies the function of pointing and our body action with the mouse is formed for pointing. After transformation, the spinning wait cursor exemplifies the function of, not pointing, but showing the computer status. As a result, our action with the mouse is not formed for pointing. After a moment, we realize that what we can do with the mouse in hand is just moving the cursor in the electric display. The spinning wait cursor exemplifies that the computer is still working, but it does not leave us alone; the cursor and the mouse are connecting, please wait. Throughout the whole process, we grasp the same plastic object, even though the cursor's shape is changing.

Double Description

In user interface, the image we see is changing while the object we touch is not changing. Moreover, this transformation of image is sometimes out of our control. But we naturally accept this phenomena. In order to make it clear, I refer Bateson’s Double Description. He quotes Shakespeare’s Macbeth and says that:

This literary example will serve for all those cases of double description in which data from two or more different senses are combined. Macbeth “proves” that the dagger is only an hallucination by checking with his sense of touch, but even that is not enough. Perhaps his eyes are “worth all the rest.” It is only when “gouts of blood” appear on the hallucinated dagger that he can dismiss the whole matter: “There’s no such thing.” 6

We need Double Description of seeing and touching in order to consider and prove what the user interface is. However, user interface mainly focuses on seeing. For example, What You See Is What You Get; WYSIWYG. From Wikipedia, the main attraction of WYSIWYG is the ability of the user to be visualize what he or she is producing.7 Here, ‘to be visualize’ is emphasized. One more example. Ben Shneiderman proposed a very important idea for user interface: Direct Manipulation. From Shneiderman, Direct Manipulation’s central idea is to be visibility of object of interest.8 Here, only visibility is emphasized.

I want to focus on Direct Manipulation from anther point of view. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Direct Manipulation leads us not only seeing but also touching because we see and touch the object in order to create something. And they say that the Direct Manipulation makes the concept of CAUSATION.9 Furthermore, Søren Pold connects GUI with the concept of CAUSATION. He says that WYSIWYG interface has many buttons, and buttons are essential part of controls in GUI10 and also continues that:

When pushing a button in a interface ─ that is, by movement of the mouse, directing the representation of one’s hand onto the representation of a button in the interface and activating a script by clicking or double-clicking ─ we somehow know we are in fact manipulating several layers of symbolic representation and,…… It is a software simulation of a function, and this simulation aims to hide its mediated character and acts as if the function were natural or mechanical in a straight cause-and-effect relation.11

According to Pold, pushing button in the user interface makes a straight cause-and-effect relation in the electric display, although this cause-and effect appears by hiding manipulating several layers of symbolic representation.

Another view of the cursor and mouse. A media artist, Masaki Fujihata says computer does not have a question of materiality.12 This means that computer has different principle from us because we live in the material world. Fujihata considers that if the repeated experience are provided us, through interactive experience, Images are made into object.13 According to artist’s intuition, we go through new phenomena: Image are made into object.

What You See Is What You Touch?

However, this ‘object’ in the display is not real object. According to Pold, this ‘object’ in the display shows us cause-and-effect, therefore, we feel as if we directly manipulate it by our own hands. On the other side, Fujihata says that the ‘object’ does not have its own materiality. We, of course, see the ‘object’ but can we touch it? Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. I consider that this ‘object’ is something like “switch” as Bateson defined;

We do not notice that the concept “switch” is of quite a different order from the concepts “stone,” “table,” and the like. Closer examination shows that the switch, considered as a part of an electric circuit, does not exist when it is in the on position. From the point of view of the circuit, it is not different from the conducting wire which leads to it and the wire which leads away from it. It is merely “more conductor.” Conversely, but similarly when the switch is off, it does not exist from the point of view of the circuit. It is nothing, a gap between two conductors which, themselves exist only as conductors when the switch is on. In other words, the switch is not except at the moments of its change of setting, and the concept “switch” has thus a special relation to time. It is related to the notion “change” rather than to the notion “object.” 14

Like the concept ‘switch’, the ‘object’ is related to the notion “change” rather than to the notion “object”. The cursor is given a special relation to time by the mouse.

Why is this happen? Because the computer is purely logic machine which is made by analogic human in cause-and-effect world; “the if ... then of logic in the syllogism is very different from the if ... then of cause and effect.” 15 Bateson makes a question: Can logic simulate all sequences of cause-and-effect? His answer is maybe no.16 The reason is that “the if ... then of causality contains time, but the if ... then of logic is timeless. It follows that logic is an incomplete model of causality.”17 However, we want to re-made the computer as cause-and-effect machine via Double Description of seeing and touching. Introducing the special relation to time with the mouse, user interface makes new images with coupling cause-and-effect and logic in the electric display. We are making pseudo-cause-and-effect with logic in the user interface. Therefore, we touch the same plastic object, even though the ‘object’ in the display is changing.

                                             fig.3

Returning to the cursor and the mouse. The cursor looks like showing cause-and-effect, however, it stands for the logic in the computer: there is no time. But, we live in time: cause-and-effect world. Pold tells us that the user interface make us believe there is a straight cause-and-effect relation, even though this cause-and effect appears by hiding manipulating several layers of symbolic representation. On the other hand, Fujihata says that if we see cause-and-effect behind the image, then we can touch it. Almost all us do not understand what the logic in the computer is, but we use it with the display, the keyboard, the mouse, and something else. The reason is that we believe that the computer is not only logic, nor only cause-and-effect, but just ‘something’. Therefore, when we consider about user interface, we should not confuse ‘if ... then of logic’ with ‘if ... then of cause-and-effect’. We see the change of image in the electric display; it shows us the logic in the computer but we feel something like cause-and-effect, which is made from computer’s pure logic. We touch the same object while the image is changing: our grasping mouse introduces the special relation of time to the computer and makes pseudo-cause-and-effect in the computer (fig. 3). Therefore, only seeing is not enough and only touching is neither. In order to made clear ‘something’; the pseudo-cause-and-effect with logic, we have to consider the double description of seeing and touching in the user interface. In short, the computer has changed the relationship between our seeing and touching. It means that the computer changes our notion and experience for touching object: Touching not “object” but “change”.

References
1 Gregory Bateson, “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”, The University of Chicago Press, 2000, p.291.
2 Masanori Mizuno, “The formative process of “Display Acts” on the establishment of GUI”, Doctor Thesis,2009, p.3.
3 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (electric version), Oxford University Press, 2000
4 Ibid.
5 Nelson Goodman, “Way of Worldmaking”, Hackett Publishing Company, 1978, p.32.
6 Gregory Bateson, “Mind and Nature”, Wildwood House, 1979, p.73.
7 Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG (9, April 2009 access).
8 Ben Shneiderman, ‘Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Languages’ in Noah Wardrip-Fruin
and Nick Montfort ed., “The New Media Reader”, MIT Press, 2003, p.486.
9 George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, “Metaphor We Live By”, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp.75-76.
10 Søren Pold, ‘Button’ in Matthew Fuller ed., “Software Studies: a lexicon”, MIT Press, 2008, p.31.
11 ibid., p.33.
12 Masaki Fujihata, “Masaki Fujihata: The Conquest of Imperfection ─ New Realities Created with Images and Media”, Center for Contemporary Graphic Art, 2007, p.178.
13 ibid., p.178.
14 Bateson (1979), pp.108-109.
15 ibid., p.58.
16 ibid., p.58.
17 ibid., p.59.

Origina text: Proceedings of 4th International Symposium on Multi-Sensory Design

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.