Reading the article Man-Computer Symbiosis is just like reading a prediction from decades ago. I was thinking about ipad when it mentioned input and output should be the same surface, and the thought of “this is siri!” appearing in my mind when it suggested the speech production and recognition. Is it means in some way, we are already live in the era of man-computer symbiosis today? Hence, the question “Do we really need the ubiquitous computer dominates our daily life?”comes. It also reminded me the cyborg thing we have discussed last semester, and in some way the “man-computer symbiosis” is exactly cyborg.

In the second article Responsive Environments, it is focus in the “real time” programmed interaction. In fact we are interacting with our natural environment everyday when we try to step on the fallen autumn leaves to make it sounds crispy or throw a piece of ice into the frozen pond but those interaction aren’t predicable because the nature isn’t programmed. How we translate the human’s behaviour into patterns and design a correspond interaction would be the challenge, and I feel it makes sense when the author addressed the responsive environment should not be evaluated by its contents: the sound is not equal to music, the graphic is not equal to drawing either. A good example is a successful game is not only because its music and graphic. Games, apps and responsive environments are more than simple a piece of art.

“More than a piece of art or machine” is my feeling after reading the article Architecture Machine. I don’t think we do need a machine to create painting, sculpture, music or poem. Art is a reflection of human demand and desire, so do architecture. Furthermore, architecture is more complicated than fine art because it also has function to response humans physical and psychological needs. If we don’t need a machine to produce poems and paintings, why do we need a machine to read our design methodology to create architecture (and there are rarely aura in the machine produced architecture)?