[ISEA2000] Paper: ELISA GIACCARDI – INTERCONNECTIVITY AND RELATIONAL EMBODIMENT IN ART AND DESIGN

Abstract (Intro)

In this paper I will argue that, within the scenario of the ever more pervasive use of computers, the aesthetics of user experience and the relational paradigm experimented within interactive arts enable new categories of human-computer interaction to be imagined and investigated and fresh and creative new approaches to design to come up. A non-substantial development of human-computer interaction gives to the design of interactive systems the scope, depth and complexity demanded by a society that will become more and more involved with information technology and network connections.

Envisioning interconnectivity

In a world of inhabitable and wearable computing, made of wireless connections, smart and transparent interfaces and molecular technologies, interconnectivity will bring us towards a reality composed of multiple and connected space/time, materials and entities. Whereas other technologies will change our body (our genetic, physical and perceptual being), the technology of interconnectivity will change the way in which we experience a new ‘natural’ environment, the human social world, and the self. Interconnectivity, modifying our relational mode of being, will change the way in which we enactively produce our world and our consciousness. This paragraph addresses interconnectivity in the light of the scenarios for networked applications enabled by pervasive computing, “environments created when computing power and networked connectivity are embedded in virtually every device humans use”.
According to David Messerschmitt, networked computing can be summarized in the following three trends:

  1.  mobility (computing anywhere)
  2.  ubiquity (computing everywhere)
  3.  embedding (computing within)

Full text (PDF) p. 174-181