Professor Karen Cham FRSA

Visual communications that are digitally interactive in this way are participatory, navigable in a nonlinear manner and/or open to user generated content and require different design methodologies. This paper argues that the designer must successfully integrate visual communication design, information architecture and usability by purposefully designing for semiotic autopoesis ; a fundamental dialectic between structure and function must be designed into the system and its use.
This… Show more

Visual communications that are digitally interactive in this way are participatory, navigable in a nonlinear manner and/or open to user generated content and require different design methodologies. This paper argues that the designer must successfully integrate visual communication design, information architecture and usability by purposefully designing for semiotic autopoesis ; a fundamental dialectic between structure and function must be designed into the system and its use.
This proposal requires good UX designers to design diachronic grammatical structures that can adapt and evolve whilst consistently providing a coherent synchronic experience under multitudinous variables. Good user experience design for digital media visual communication systems requires designers to paint with language and leave it wet.
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.. As a dialectical method it has provided useful paradigms for
addressing our conceptual interaction with, and interpretation of, diverse art,
design & media visualisations. However, it is limited in effectively accounting for the
significant interaction between the abstractions that are media images and actual
behaviours as practices ‘outstrips theoretical understanding of the relationship
between the sign and the signified, the simulation and the social, the model and the… Show more

.. As a dialectical method it has provided useful paradigms for
addressing our conceptual interaction with, and interpretation of, diverse art,
design & media visualisations. However, it is limited in effectively accounting for the
significant interaction between the abstractions that are media images and actual
behaviours as practices ‘outstrips theoretical understanding of the relationship
between the sign and the signified, the simulation and the social, the model and the real’1.

In the sciences, it is ‘systems thinking’ that emphasizes a concern with relationships,
systems and networks. Here, ‘emergent behaviour’ is accounted for as a
recognizable characteristic of ‘complexity’; a new type of science concerning
systems that are sufficiently complex as to display a capacity for ‘autopoiesis’ or ‘self making’2.

The author has previously proposed that a convergence of post structuralism and
complexity may allow some greater understanding of the generative feedback loop
between the conceptual, computational and very real ‘semantic behaviours’ of
digital culture.

Here she elaborates that as the abstractions of synergetic brand architectures and
designed identity systems are used more and more to underpin user experiences,
this type of distributed, networked, ‘cloud semantics’ can be recognised as the soft
engineering of participatory semantic systems where the emergent actual
behaviours are the intentional result of generating metaphoric ‘virtual’ avatars for
us all to involuntarily inhabit as part of the natural ‘autopoetics’3 of the digital age.
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What is unique about the computational arts is the capacity for interaction, either in production or in use, and there are numerous divergent theories about digital interactivity across an entire spectrum. However, creating a work of computational art always involves the either the use or design of some sort of rule based system that can be implemented beyond the conceptual. Artistic compositions of dynamic systems that can be tangibly implemented finds its roots in the participatory… Show more

What is unique about the computational arts is the capacity for interaction, either in production or in use, and there are numerous divergent theories about digital interactivity across an entire spectrum. However, creating a work of computational art always involves the either the use or design of some sort of rule based system that can be implemented beyond the conceptual. Artistic compositions of dynamic systems that can be tangibly implemented finds its roots in the participatory performances and installations of systems art, yet in digitally interactive artifacts, there is also a virtually
tangible, live mediated exchange of elements which constitutes both an entirely new medium and an entirely new form of systems art.
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….Conventionally, it seems aesthetic knowledge and the use of metaphor has been undervalued, despite the key artistic process of drawing being well established as a means of problem solving in the most ‘scientific’ of the arts such as architecture and engineering. Intuitive thinking and aesthetic metaphor has long been established as a cogent part of rational processes,; indeed Einsteins concept of intuition included modes of mental imagery and there is convincing evidence of the role of… Show more

….Conventionally, it seems aesthetic knowledge and the use of metaphor has been undervalued, despite the key artistic process of drawing being well established as a means of problem solving in the most ‘scientific’ of the arts such as architecture and engineering. Intuitive thinking and aesthetic metaphor has long been established as a cogent part of rational processes,; indeed Einsteins concept of intuition included modes of mental imagery and there is convincing evidence of the role of intuition in many scientific discoveries.

It is argued here that it is unsurprisingly within art theory that paradigms on aesthetic processes, practices and methodologies can be found to inform the development of pluralist ontologies and complex adaptive methodologies necessary to develop the art of complex systems science. This paper aims to set out the proposal that a post structuralist approach can deliver ontological bases that will provide complex systems science not simply with diagrams and maps, nor even with the workable metaphors of visualisation, simulation and embodiment but with visualisability; that most elusive and 'scientific' of representations that shares a generative semantic relation with that which it represents.
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….there are as yet, no established paradigms stemming from this methodological approach to allow the reflexive practitioner to address the nature of digital interactivity; neither in virtual reality through a graphical user interface, nor in the augmented reality and embodied interfaces of interactive art installations and participatory performances. The design of structural relations rather than closed objects or finds its roots in the participatory performance and installations of systems… Show more

….there are as yet, no established paradigms stemming from this methodological approach to allow the reflexive practitioner to address the nature of digital interactivity; neither in virtual reality through a graphical user interface, nor in the augmented reality and embodied interfaces of interactive art installations and participatory performances. The design of structural relations rather than closed objects or finds its roots in the participatory performance and installations of systems art, yet the dynamic capacity of digitally interactive systems in use, places digital interactivity well within the realm of complex systems science. A digital interface may, for example, allow multiple ‘authors’ and multiple ‘readers’ to participate in a simultaneous and instantaneous reproduction and dissemination of their divergent interpretations of an artifact as part of a networked participatory process; such a process demonstrates self organisation and emergent behaviours, which are key attributes of complex systems. This paper proposes a ‘reconstruction theory’ as a design methodology for the ‘space of possibility’ in such ‘complex media’ in order to underpin critical practice in digital media arts. Such a proposal would also provide the foundations of a much sought after theoretical continuum from established art, design & media theory to the divergent manifestations of digital culture by establishing the common relations between structuralism, systems theory and systems art, to post structuralism, complex systems science and the digitally interactive arts. Show less

This proposal concerns design methods for aesthetic user experiences in intelligent environments. Drawing upon over twenty years of practice as an installation artist and digital designer, I set out the case for a ‘systems aesthetic’ approach to the multidisciplinary field of designing intelligent environments. Whilst differing characteristics such as ‘frequency, loudness, direction, power’ etc may induce physical responses and attendant emotions in the user, human perception of music, art… Show more

This proposal concerns design methods for aesthetic user experiences in intelligent environments. Drawing upon over twenty years of practice as an installation artist and digital designer, I set out the case for a ‘systems aesthetic’ approach to the multidisciplinary field of designing intelligent environments. Whilst differing characteristics such as ‘frequency, loudness, direction, power’ etc may induce physical responses and attendant emotions in the user, human perception of music, art, choreography etc is complex and anchored in the thorny issue of aesthetics. Whilst this subject has been notoriously difficult to address as it is by its nature, anchored in subjectivity, all art, performance, and creative work are expressly designed to address subjectivities and all artists’ works go some way towards ‘predicting spectators' reactions, influencing and affecting ‘peoples' views, mind, life, and the future’ by means of aesthetic engagement. In the most engaging work, art practice and creative processes are strategic, refined and focused even if not entirely tangible. Key concepts from art and design theory can help us apprehend these practices and are some are integrated here. Indeed, in the commercial practices of marketing & advertising we can perceive a causal link between design, engagement in aesthetics and future behaviors. This proposal argues that ‘to positively and therapeutically influence users’ life style, health, and spirit’ we must do it by design. Show less

Experience Design is a contemporary form of design, which appertains to the field of interaction design. In relation to Interactive art environments, it suggests that potentialities are actualized by those actively participating within physical, virtual and mixed works. It could be argued that every design approach is a dynamic process of making experiences; nonetheless we do not 'design experiences' we design for them. An experience emerges from a variety of potentialities, a significant part… Show more

Experience Design is a contemporary form of design, which appertains to the field of interaction design. In relation to Interactive art environments, it suggests that potentialities are actualized by those actively participating within physical, virtual and mixed works. It could be argued that every design approach is a dynamic process of making experiences; nonetheless we do not 'design experiences' we design for them. An experience emerges from a variety of potentialities, a significant part of which cannot be organized and predetermined by the design procedure; the outcome is considerably depended on matters beyond its design. In the frames of digitally interactive artworks people interact and actively participate in the course of an event. It is Aristotle that introduces becoming as a concept that describes our experience of interaction with the world, expressing the notion of change in the course of life, the ceaseless evolution in space and time. Consensus as to what constitutes effective experience design, this paper argues that understanding both design and experience as verbs, rather than nouns, could help our understanding of the practice. This paper transcends the boundaries of art and design theory; it puts emphasis on the fact that becoming cannot be predetermined, and how the notions of design, art, experience, becoming and space are intertwined in the subjective experience of artworks. Show less

Norbert Weiners original definition of cybernetics as ‘messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine’ places interactive digital media practices at the heart of cyberculture. Whilst by this definition, interacting with machines in any way is a cybernetic act in itself, it is here proposed that interacting with machine based media , is a demonstration of virtual consciousness beyond the brain. For McLuhan of course, any medium is indeed “any… Show more

Norbert Weiners original definition of cybernetics as ‘messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine’ places interactive digital media practices at the heart of cyberculture. Whilst by this definition, interacting with machines in any way is a cybernetic act in itself, it is here proposed that interacting with machine based media , is a demonstration of virtual consciousness beyond the brain. For McLuhan of course, any medium is indeed “any extension of ourselves” and this author herself has previously argued that signification is a dynamic intermediate realm between the real and the imaginary which must be understood as a realm of invocation.

This paper argues that if we can understand interactive digital media as a cybernetic interface where human consciousness and the machine are integrating, we may be then able to take more control over what we feedback in to our neurology. It is worth considering that even into old age, environmental signals trigger changes in the epigenome itself, allowing cells to respond dynamically to the outside world. In this light any proposal for ‘self meta programming’ may appear more virtually tangible than ever before by means of a cybernetic interface to the human bio computer Show less