Q1:

From Mark Weiser’s “The Computer for the 21st Century”:

Weiser goes into great detail about the ‘task oriented’ applications of ubiquitous computing, and how it would improve the workplace, but does not to the same degree explore/address the more ‘leisure-based’ usage of the computer (that would greatly expand after the time of this writing). How does this affect his cited ‘benefits’ of ubiquitous computing (less of a barrier for human interaction, speed and efficiency, etc.)?

Q2:

Furthermore, I am unclear as to how ubiquity would eliminate/decline ‘computer addiction’; if, like radio (as per his analogy), computing becomes/became neigh universally accessible, then the element of human interaction would still encourage ‘addicts’ to use it for more and more purposes as they develop and advance. I’m therefore unsure if this connection is valid or not, as radio is a largely one-way system, whereas modern computers are by nature far more interactive with the user.

Q3:

From Anthony Dunne’s “The Electronic as Post-optimal Object”:

As many examples of ‘post-optimization’ involve the redefinition of objects through semiotics, seems to lead to the continuous creation of ‘new unforeseen needs’, and in turn the subsequent creation of solutions for these new needs. Is there a limit to this phenomena, or will this somehow perpetuate infinitely?

01_Weiser_pg78

“Whenever people learn something sufficiently well, they cease to be aware of it”

An individual is only aware of a fraction of what is in front of them at any given time; whether that is looking at a MacBook, which seeks to hide the technology that powers it, or at a breaker box with wires running all over the place. Yes, to the expert, the individual things that make these items up make sense and are apparent, but to the casual observer, the interface in front of them is the extent of their understanding.

Is the sense of ubiquitous computing to hide technology, and the tools it powers, from view and perception? or is it just as well that the inner workings are exposed, even if they aren’t understood?

02_Weiser_pg80

“Ubiquitous computers will also come in different sizes, each suited to a particular task.”

Diving into the details of the infrastructure of ubiquitous computing, I think this idea speaks to what would become the Internet of Things, where everything is connected to the network. While the idea of everything being connected seems beneficial at first, to what extent do we really need to connect everything. Case in point, the $400 Juicero, which makes juice.

$400, IoT juicer

There is an obvious benefit to connecting things together, and adding computation into objects and tools that are used for productivity, but should this expand to items that are meant for leisure? Does it actually enhance these experiences or does it remove something from them?

03_Dunne_

Im still confused as to what the exact definition of a Post-Optimal Object really is. Is it when you add technology into an already optimized object? Is it post-optimal when the design can change without affecting performance, suggesting the the object can never truly be optimal?

Computer for the 21st Century

1_ Ubiquitous computation. Weiser mentions how technology/ “Computers” are successful when they are in the background. ” They serve their purpose for the time being and disappear (which we are all used to by know/ things eventually fade out and or get updated) This can be argued that this is what makes technology successful, the ability of human expression that only projects/propels humanity as a whole (which is agreeable) but Weiser mentions in the passage that “computers” have become distractions, that computers are not fading into the background because the users (humans) are relying and depending on these technologies too much. We think they are at our mercy but when we take a step back we realize that it is vice versa. This comes back to the idea of convenience. we strive for our technologies to make things easier for us and be manageable but I want to argue that these technologies cannot be and will not be in our life backgrounds. It’s the “elephant in the room”, It sticks out like a sore thumb, To hide something of this magnitude is just blind ignorance. Ignorance is bliss. instead of putting technologies/ computers in the background maybe we should incorporate them as mutual?

Weiser mentions how even traditional paper is going to be replaced by pads. maybe in a sense paper is a ubiquitous technology which is being fazed out by the new meta-pater a tab. Progression is inevitable.

  “One-time use DVD”

2_Weiser mentions in the passage “C.I. enhances every room/space. Does this statement hold true of how architects, designers, engineers, design spaces today? before we even start saturating our spaces with C.I., should we ask ourselves “have we stressed all aspects of a space preface to C.I. introduction? or have we exhausted all aspects of a space and C.I. is the next step/ direction to alter spaces and enhance them? (meta-space) This I think pertains to our research group “situated technologies” on the behalf that eventually the world will be in a state of total C.I. and us designers will have to incorporate these technologies into our designs. I think to go against it is not as productive.

3_Weiser goes into the subject of storage. He talks about how computers nowadays have come along way from 1MB storage to 1TB of storage. He also mentions how it is important to delete unused information and work but my question is what happens if we do not get rid of all that information? Will there be an overload where there is not enough storage? could saving all information be used for useful archive purposes or do we have to purge not important information to save space. Do we just have to organize our information more strategically?

4_Dunne. In the passage Dunne talks about how smart materials are being explored for functionality more than actual aesthetic expression and design, How do we begin exploring the world of next materials when it is obviously seen that functionality is more important at the moment? Does it always have to follow this pattern of functionality first and exploration next?

The Electronic as Post Optimal object. – Anthony Dunne

This passage explains the conundrum of how to design electronic devices which have two distinct parts, the actual electronic device and the skin it has which makes it presentable/usable/safe for humanity. While the text explains a few different ways of developing this problem (Packages, Fusion, Dematerialization,or Juxtoposition) which do we as architects see as the most effective? As technology becomes more prevasive as elements of the built environment and not just as objects which are brought in after-the-fact (as furniture or handheld devices) how do we integrate those elements in?

The computer for the 21st century – Mark Weiser

This passage describes Weiser’s approach of dematerializing the technology to be so pervasive in a space that we stop noticing it. As he describes the levels of objects (tab, pad, and board) and how different technology would respond to our movements through our lives. One issue he glances over is privacy (pg 89), as these objects become more prevalant this is an important note. As our phones and other devices travel with us, how much privacy have we already given up? Marketing firms already track our online activity, and GPS tagging our locations is something we do ourselves quite frequently. (checking in, for example). As technology becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, can it actually help with privacy by allowing for more “body tied” security checks (a personal RFID badge vs a password for security).

• As an example, a lot of more secure work spaces require RFID badges which allow access to buildings or areas which are secure.

Recombinant Architecture – William Mitchell

As architects, we have to adapt to changing technology and integrate new social functions into the existing discourse of architecture. As Mitchell describes how each typology of architecture is heavily affected by this new network of online databases and access points, how will the role of designing built spaces shift? Will there be less large scale builds? Or will the preoccupation be on integrating technology so that the focus is on spaces to congregate and less on storage, infrastructure, etc. How will the new hardware for this network merely shift our design of these auxilary spaces (an online library might mean a book isn’t taking up much space, but a server farm for an online library can be a massive spacial undertaking.)

Example for questions 2&3

Amazon grocery store

Recombinant Architecture:

‘All that is solid melts in air.’

With the networked age, tangible attributes of interaction and connectedness are getting replaced by the fluid nature of bits and information. It is interesting to explore how this has shifted the idea of accessibility. For example, the accessibility of a service is no longer tied to its physical location or spatial parameters but on how easy it is to access the website, giving a new meaning to prime location on an urban landscape. Now prime location is the domain name where the website is hosted. So the ‘physical site’ is replaced by ‘website’, that means the site of the place on web.

The case where BMW refused to sell the domain name ‘alphabet.com’ to google is an example of this transition. link.

The Electronic as Post-Optimal object:

‘Design research should explore a new role of the electronic object, one that facilitates more poetic modes of habitation’

Considering our dependence on ‘the electronic objects’ on an everyday basis, would we really want a specific aesthetic meaning associated with each of these objects? For example, amazon dash button, is an attempt to explore the materiality of the button with the product sticker, placed in context and can be used as actual tags that attempt to make re-ordering of the subscribed product easy. If for a moment, the low aesthetic value it possess can be ignored, does the material existence of the button add any value for the user?

‘Designers have not exploited the aesthetic dimension of new materials with the same energy that engineers have exploited their functional possibilities. Dunne also mentions that design is used as package for technology in electronic objects.’

Technology is seen as a savior for complex problems, and focuses highly on efficiency and performance. Thus the object that embody technology also suffer a focus on efficiency and usability over meaning and semiotics or language of the form. When ’Smart’ has become a lazy term to describe better technology, explorations in design of these objects follow the same route by becoming better packages like smart watch, smart television and smart cities.

It is interesting to explore what could be the new conceptual models of objects with evolving technology and what process of design could be followed for the same?

1 – The Computer for the 21st Century – This reading discusses the possible future of computer technology becoming so interwoven with everyday life that it becomes virtually unnoticed, as it blends into the fabric of life. Weiser describes a future where computers are comparable to loose leaf papers, found everywhere and equally disposable. He even uses the term “scrap computer” comparing to scrap paper. Weiser talks about ” tabs, pads and boards” representing computer sizes which would be found throughout the house (similar to the existing iphone and ipad idea).

Q: But when comparing these technologies to the portable computer, he says (pg85) “the pad that must be carried from place to place is a failure.” Why must this technology not travel with a person? i understand that he wants computers to be so fused with the household that they become one and the same, but a technology that can travel with a person seems a virtue (as the smart phone as proven to be). Maybe Weiser was underestimating how far we would go, in terms of condensing so much power and information into such a small, portable computer?

Q: If Weisers ideas of the home filled with computers on every surface is to come true, how will this effect the role of the architect? Additionally at firms where consultants are brought in for light, bath, kitchen fixtures, there would now be someone coming as the tech consultant giving price options for different pads and tabs to be designed into the space.

2 – Electronics as Post-Optimal Object –

Q: How do we place the electronic object within Material culture? It seems in this reading that Dunne is using the term “material culture” in a anthropocentric way, where the electronic object is an artifact of modern times, and he is struggling how to give it identity. They pose the dilemma  but do not fully give an answer, possibly because there is not one found yet?

(pg20) “Beyond a certain, relatively low price (low compared with other times in history) the rich cannot buy a better camera, home computer, tea kettle, television or video recorder than you or I. What they can do, and what sophisticated retailers do, is add unnecessary“stuff” to the object. You can have your camera gold plated”

Q: While Dunne is talking more about production of objects and their relative price, this idea makes me wonder about technology catching up with humans need for technology. Will technology eventually hit an “end”, as there is only so much a machine can do to simplify tasks and create leisure/entertainment?

1. Weiser’s article, about 5 years before the internet was a household name, set about to ask that technology become invisible, and through that he goes on to define ubiquitous computing. A world that is filled with technological wonders that constantly engage us at every turn. he writes about the pen and tablet as if they were a natural thing, as if we were born with them in our hands. However, the use of these tools was learned. Similarly, there;s a learning curve that comes with all technologies. Certainly use would be easier if the design allowed for things to fade into the background, but even that takes a long time to acclimate to. While many of the tools he refers to exist today, I wonder what, if anything, is a natural interface for a computer or electronic device? Is it the nature of the tools that they manifest in any shape and size we can imagine, or is there a basic quality (like the fulcrum action of a hammer) that can be exploited to truly belnd it into our lives.
2. Mitchell writes of the potentials of telecommunication as it related to architectural spaces, and how network technology has transformed our sense of space. It’s striking to me that so many of his examples still rely on the screen as a primary interface, when there’s a lot of ambient information that can be used in these same designs that can also inform us of where others are, and what their spaces are like. Instead of treating information as data, we can think of it as a way of more deeply connecting through the mediation of a network. At the end of the article, he gets into some of the potential pitfalls in the utopian scenario he lays out, but it seems like an afterthought. It all comes across as something that Aldous Huxley would have written. There’s more cybernetic streaks in here as well, particularly when discussing department stores dispatching sale clerks to places where there are customers waiting. While much of this has come to pass, perhaps not exactly in the way he described but close enough, what happens to the spaces that were formerly optimized for particular purposes?  Does the former bank with a large vaulted ceiling become a warehouse for distributing food to people’s homes from online orders? Does the bookstore become a UPS store? Beyond the immediate reuse of spaces, how does the community react? Those whom are displaced?
3. I’d just like to kick back some of Dunne’s statements about a lack of artists and designers engaging with technology. In the late 1960s, as digital technologies, particularly the computer, was starting to gain traction in public consciousness, Bell Labs sponsored Experiments in Art and Technology, a series of events that brought artists together with engineers to try their hand at making works that leveraged emerging tools in an effort to make technology more accessible to the larger population. While these petered out in the early 70s, a precedent was set for experimentation. However, until recently, there are not a many widely publicized scenarios like EAT. New places that encourage this hybrid mode of thinking through new media as a means of generating knowledge are worth mentioning. The School for Poetic Computation in New York City (their motto is “more poetry, less demo”) is one such example, another is the School of Machines, Making and Make-believe in Berlin. What specific ways can we reintroduce wonder,mystery, and art into tools that are by their very nature designed for control. Is it through the hardware, software, application, or an inflection point of all three?

This project was mentioned by Dunne. I love it.

The Electronic as Post-Optimal Object

1.“…a new approach to the relationship between human being and object, the analysis will be one of the individual’s connection with the material support underlying the new culture of immateriality” What is the new culture of immateriality? With the idea later in the article “Design without object” and”info-eco”, it seems that the new culture of immateriality is about the information. Perhaps it is the network culture.

2. What is s Post-Optimal Object? Entire article, the word post-optimal only appeared 3 times. How can we define post-optimal object? “… a form of social research to integrate aesthetic experience with everyday life through conceptual products.” Can these conceptual products become post-optimal objects?

The Computer for the 21^st Century

By pushing computer into the background, embodied virtuality will make individual more aware of the people on the other ends of their computer links. This development may reverse the unhealthy centripetal forces that conventional personal computers have introduced into life and the workplace.” Is this true? Maybe it is right but I am questioning the ideal of the transparent connections will bring communities closer together, both communication and interaction.

Recombinant Architecture, by William Mitchell

1. Mitchell goes through a number of typologies and societal programs/functions, theorizing how each of them would eventually be transformed by the onset of pervasive computing. But central to each of his hypotheses is the idea that everything could essentially be done remotely as a result of our growing connectivity to networks, and most of the typologies he describes, if not all, could be completely done away with in the physical sense. One example that stuck out the most in my mind was that of the traditional Bank. My question deals with the importance of the Home in a society where everything can be done remotely; how crucial does the Home become? If everything can be done from the comfort of our living rooms, why leave at all? Where would we go? He touches upon this idea when he says “The domestic living room is emerging as a major site at which digitally displaced activities are recombining and re-grounding themselves in the physical world.”

The Computer for the 21st Century, by Mark Weiser

1. When describing the concept of ubiquitous computing, Mark Weiser discusses three types of  devices that serve to facilitate the merging of technology into every day life, and says “The real power of the concept comes not from any one of these devices – it emerges from the interaction of all of them. The hundreds of processors and displays are not a “user interface” like a mouse and windows, just a pleasant and effective “place” to get things done.” This quote reminds me of the idea of code/space from Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge’s essay, which describes a space that is mutually constituted with its software or technology, meaning that they each are produced through one another and one can’t exist without the other. My question is in a world where the network defines the functionality of a space, and a space can take on multiple functions at once, how does the relationship between space and program change? If a living room can potentially be the “space” in which work and play (and potentially many other functions) take place, does it still maintain a relationship between its function and its design?

The Electronic as Post-Optimal Object, Anthony Dunne

1. I found it interesting when Anthony Dunne recognizes that, from a material culture’s perspective, the concept of dematerialization can never completely dismiss the physical, because “Behind every outward image or symbol lies mechanical support…” This quote makes me think of a projector projecting an image: while the image may be “immaterial” it is still produced through a material process inside the projector. So what does this mean for ubiquitous computing, if the goal is to hide or integrate technology into every day material objects? Or is the idea of ubiquitous computing more oriented toward the idea of “designing without an object,” in which technology becomes so pervasive that it disassociates itself from any material object? But to what extent is this possible if we agree that every technology is a result of a physical process?

1
Theorizing the electronic object, Anthony Dune elaborates on the differences between the semiotic and the material culture perspective. The understanding of the object as a sign, Dune writes, is tightly connected to its commodification.  Challenging the effects of consumerism and marketing strategies on the real, Baudrillard argues that the sign overrides the object itself, crafting a simulation level where it ceases to have any relation to reality. Here, Dune seems to consider material culture as a counter-measure to this condition. Contrary to Baudrilliards’ simulacras, objects approached through a material culture “are firmly grounded in everyday life” (pp.7).

If “the electronic object is (…) on the threshold of materiality” (pp.11) could it actually be an integral part of the simulation? Dune is delineating several design strategies to emphasize its physicality, beyond semiotic or aesthetic considerations. He focuses on the cultural advantages, but does not consider any political implications. In the chapter “Strategy for the Real”, Baudrillard analyzes a common practice of institutions of power, that of “reinjecting realness and referentiality everywhere”(Baudrillard 1981, 374) to make the simulation feel real. In what ways could the reconnect of the electronic object to the world of everyday life be institutionalized and used as a means of control?

2
Mark Weiser describes ubiquitous computing as a condition of embodied virtuality, where our interaction with digital information is “brought out in the physical world” (pp.80). Such an experimental embodied virtuality revolves around the individual. It is not just the computer that is liberated from the confines of the desk, but also the body. It may move freely in space, and the space will ‘automagically’ accommodate it – doors will open, coffee will be made, files will pop up on the meeting screen.

Key prerequisite is for us to establish a degree of familiarity with the tools and processes so that they disappear, literally and metaphorically, in the background. How would we become accustomed to such a strict structure of efficiency and automation? Is really just a matter of effortless repetition and common sense, or does it require technological literacy that can only be achieved through lifelong learning?

It was striking that Weiser considered Artificial Intelligence as irrelevant in ubi-comp (pp.85). How would the environment be always tuned to the needs of each individual, if it is not programmed to sense and learn?

3
William Mitchell dwells on the dematerialization of space as an effect of ICTs. He argues that digitally compressed information makes space irrelevant or unnecessary, as the activities that were traditionally dependent on the production and distribution of printed media become fragments dispersed in the network. In his own words, “all that is solid melts in air” (pp.57).

On the other hand, Dune believes that dematerialization is a contingent phenomenon and that, in any case, “the physical can never be completely dismissed” (pp.13). In this light, what role does the architect still have in the material manifestation of information? For instance, if books can be “downloaded to a scholar’s personal workstation in a minute or two” (pp.56) making Vannevar Bush’s memex desk an everyday condition, what relevance does the typology of the library still hold? Is MVRDV’s new library [/link] meaningful in any way, when books are merely treated as means to a form? Note that when form makes the books’ retrieval impossible, the upper shelves are just plastered with images of books.

On the other hand, a prime example of Mitchell’s “virtual museum” that redefines the role of the actual museum, is Cooper Hewitt’s pen [/link].

The materiality of information, as envisioned by Vannevar Bush in 1945:

… and Winy Maas in 2017: