Her (2013), the Sci-fie Reflection of Computer Interaction.

Her (2013) is the latest movie that talks about the complex interaction and relationships between humans and computers. Like many science fiction movies before it, notably the Matrix (1999) and AI (2001), Her brings around a futurist and hypothetical approach of how the humans can interact with computers. This movie includes a lot of virtual realities. Through out the movie for example, the main character, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), plays a console game where the animations appear in 3D in his living room, and he is the game's main character. The game uses gesture recognition, and for Theodore to walk in the game, he has to move his hands in an advancing motion. He talks to the other characters in the game, and they answer him. In the movie, people have a technology similar to smartphones, but a little more advanced and futuristic, giving a form of augmented reality of the world around them. The main theme of the movie is the creation of an Operating System, OS, that is manufactured for each individual. The interaction then becomes very personal, since the OS is tailored to get along with their "owner". As per in today's real life, the movie's characters have different views on the OS, and how real or virtual they are. For some, such as Theodore, the OS becomes part of their everyday life: they can read emails or talk about problems in the middle of the night. For others, such as Theodore's ex-wife, the idea of having a close relationship with an OS is inconceivable. His ex-wife says in the movie: "you always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of dealing with anything real," which confuses Theodore in regards to how real interactions with a computer are. This movie absolutely relate to Dourish's idea of embedded computing as it "reflects the fact that computation can be usefully harnessed for more than just traditional desktop computing" (p.2). Theodore can talk to is OS, Samantha, by putting an ear plug as an additional part of his body, or through various tablets, generating an extended mind. The platforms in the movie are not as important as the interaction happening between Theodore and his OS. The director shows that at the end of the day many people are walking in the street talking to themselves, showing some sort of human isolation, but yet the level of interaction is so high with their OS or computers in general, that they are never really alone either.The idea of tangible computing is also very interesting in the movie, as Theodore and Samantha cannot have any physical contacts although they would like to. They try to use a surrogate, a woman who plays the role of Samantha, but Theodore rejects the contact. Overall, this movie is a great reflection on real/virtual relationships, and enhance many philosophical debates that have started with the rise of human-computer interaction.

Dourish, Paul (2004) 'A History of Interaction', in Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 1-23.

Future Modelling

Models are anything that give shape to ideas. May it be a reproduction of a car, or the communication models I have sketched at the bottom of this page. Modelling, as Andrew Murphie taught, serves to express, explain, and control. During times of war, each party will model their attack to control their troupes. Media will divulge the message to every party, by telegraph, telephone or messengers. Modelling can also be used for good, to organise a person's life and help them expand their day's potential. Making a to do list is a very common way to model a day in advance. This idea of trying to organise the future is taken by Chris Frith who expresses that "we are constantly modelling future events." Digital media aim to help us do that more and more. Smartphones applications help budgeting, saving, reminding and making to do lists. With all this mediatic effort put into organising the future, it is hard to live in the present. An example would be the TripViewLite for smartphones, where one can track their buses at all time from their small screens. In the past, people used to go to the bus stop, see when the next one is coming and potentially wait for quite a while. Today, a tap of a button can tell you to the minute when your next bus or train is coming, and how late or early it will be. This creates a big change to planning the future, and modelling one's future according to when their transport will arrive. It is made very easy to look into the future with applications such as this one. Memory is as well not nearly as needed as it used to be. Someone can aim to remember at what time their bus is going to come, but it is no longer necessary; so why bother? Plato explained that by not using our memory and exteriorising, through writing or lists, what we should remember, we lose knowledge. He called it hypomnesis. Before cell phone existed, one had to type in someone's phone number every time they needed to call them. After a few times, it was easy to remember by heart one's number. Nowadays, there is no need to do so, and people might not know by heart the phone number of the people they call the most.

Gregory Bateson & Communication -The Ecology of Mind

Bateson has really expended the definition of communication by challenging the common thought that communication consisted only of two or more people speaking or writing to each other. For him, the world is full of communication processes, between every kind of human being. Nature greatly communicates with humans: one of the most know communication the earth made with the human development is the melting of icebergs raising the sea levels around the world. It was a simple communication process: through industrialisation, men have increased the climate temperature, and the earth has responded consequently. Communication between men and animals as well has been undermined. A random person talking to a dog will not have the same outcome as the dog owner talking to him. If his owner asks him to sit, he will follow the order, but might ignore someone else telling him to sit. This example can also relate to the element of metacommunication. Metacommunication is adding up the communication process to the relationship between the two members communicating. In a group of friend, a person can make a joke, start a communication process, but how each person will respond to the joke will depend on their relationship with that person, which is the metacommunication process. It might be an inside joke between two members of the group and they may laugh, and someone new to the group who does know any members might not find it funny. The relationship between a dog and his owner is the same case. For Bateson, the world is full of relationships and communication relies on all those different connected nots. In addition, Bateson explains that changeability is key in the communication world. Then again, the same joke thrown in a group of people can be taken differently said a month later. The world is ever changing, and Kate Milberry expresses in Media Ecology that the “focus [should be] on the interaction of communication, culture, and consciousness as a dynamic process rather than on communication technology as the singular and driving force of social transformation” (Milberry 2012).

Reference:

Kate Milberry 2012, Media Ecology, Oxford Bibliographies, accessed 21 March 2014, <http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0054.xml>.

Evolution of Communication (with the help of media)

Let us start with the traditional:

With the concept of infotention, introduced by Howard Rheingold, noises have created a new communication path:












With the rise of active audience, the communication model had another evolution:

As this last model shows, communication is now an endless cycle between sources (or companies) and their varied publics. The different media as well as how they evolve make things even more complex. Some will agree with McLuhan that "the medium is the message," and will pay less attention to how the message is brought about.  Others might go further and agree with Baudrillard who thinks that people are obsessed with the communication model as a whole, taking the attention away from the message.

Putting communication and media altogether might amphasized the two theories:

If we add to the lastest model Andrew Murphie's twelve pathways of media communication, many more factors could also be taken into account. The most important one that could not have been well enough represented in the mind map is the social take up of the message. Although there are multiple decoding possibilities depending on how well targetted the audiences are, multiple branches can then be drawn depending on the personal level under which they will perceive the message. The fifth path, media ecology has been lightly represented through the different connections that have been made between each point. The non-human has also not been represented even though it is part of our current communication model as the amphisis of the mind map was on the correlation between media as the middle of the communication pathways.