Philip van Allen

The “bullet-time” scene in The Matrix dramatically slows down time while the camera pans around Neo, allowing us to see how he expertly avoids bullets as they fly by. It seems to me that, at it’s best, interactive media can be like this, with the important addition of user control. Rich, productive interaction enables the user to freeze things, examine the topic in detail, move through the content, and have control over what they perceive–time, perspective, focus, sight, sound, juxtaposition, etc. Further, having taken control of perception, the user can move and change elements, affecting the meaning directly, and creating a personally meaningful version of the work.

I’m not arguing that interaction should be cinematic, as Steven Spielberg recently suggested to students at USC’s program in gaming. Film is one medium, interaction is another with it’s own grammar, character, and means of communication. What I am suggesting is that interaction designers should provide users with the sense of magic, power, and real-time manipulation implied by the bullet-time technique.

Designers often struggle with the distinction between design and art. Perhaps one is instrumental and the other is not. Or design is for a client, and art is for oneself. I’m beginning to see the two more as points on a continuum. Early filmaker and theorist Dziga Vertov wrote that the possibility for film was “making the invisible visible, the unclear clear, the hidden manifest, the disguised overt, the acted non-acted; making falsehood into truth…” I think that this is the goal of both art and design, but that the emphasis is different for each. We could look at art and design along these lines:

art: making the invisible felt
design: making the invisible known

Of course, art and design strive towards each other in varying degrees. A landscape painting reveals a truth in a known as well as a felt manner. And a poster design reveals its topic in both an explicit and felt way. But I think it’s fair to say that the emphasis in art is the felt, and the emphasis in design is the known.

Recent alum of the Grad ID program and former IOS student Sean Sullivan died in a tubing accident on the Kern River last weekend. There will be a memorial service for Sean this coming Sunday (Aug 28th) at the “War Memorial” in Pasadena from 2 PM to 4PM — War Memorial Hall, 435 S. Fair Oaks Ave., South Pasadena, CA

Sean was a highly creative student who always found his own path. He came up with a fantastically evocative project in IOS. We miss him already.

Another sad passing occured this weekend when Bob Moog died of brain cancer at the age of 71. Moog introduced the Moog Modular Synthesizer in 1964, and forever changed the face of popular music. He was happily still involved in music, and was at the recent NAMM show in Anaheim last January. More on him can be found at www.moogmusic.com

It’s official, we have a sponsored course for this fall. The New Ecology of Things will be funded by Sun Microsystems Labs. The class will address design issues in the coming environment when every object and space has a life of its own. Submit your applications by Wednesday, July 27th.

The New Ecology of Things
Thursdays, 1-5, Design Based Learning Lab, South Campus

Update: Following this course, the Media Design Program initiated a transmedia publication on the topic of The New Ecology of Things. The official website for this publication is newecologyofthings.net.

More info & application