Personal Media

An interesting thing to figure out is how we ourselves have been using ICT in different times? We may also ask why we are using it in the way we are? The objective of this session is to portray personal histories and encourage you to think about your relationship to the tools and mediums you are working with.

Machine for the rest of us

by Pekka Salonen

The presentation provides a personal view into the development of some of the Apple computer technologies I have grown with. The discussion will focus in examples of key innovations developed in the company, and the implications of them for the development of the field. Some old archaeological artefacts will be on display to make some of the points relevant and at hand. Plenty of anecdotes and personal hands-on experience will be provided.

The evolution of user interface paradigms

by Markku Reunanen

This presentation contains a walkthrough of the development of user interfaces. Starting from the fifties' punch cards we proceed to textual input methods, graphical user interfaces and finally take a quick peek at some current trends such as tangible interfaces and virtual reality. In addition to the concepts and devices you will get to know the influential people behind the discoveries.

Institutional Histories: The Xerox PARC Case

by Andrea Botero

In 1970 the Xerox Corporation set up a special research unit in Palo Alto to explore some of the future technologies that the company could exploit. The case of this research center is very peculiar as a node that collected a group of scientist, designers and developers that have shaped important aspects of our current views about computers, software and the ways we comunicate and create through them. These include the concepts of personal computers (PC), the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and Windows/Icons/Menus/Pointers (WIMP) paradigm along with other basic technologies. The main focus on this session will be to analyse some of the implications of this type of activities and its influence in the development of the New Media field.

Some of the developments, and cross influences will be explained thought the trayectory of people (and their ideas) such as Alan Kay, Adele Goldberg and others. To exemply this, we ask you to read this revailing vision of the "Dynabook" in the article "Personal Dynamic Media" [download PDF] written in 1977. The version of this article is available form the New Media Reader website.

From click´n go to interactive dramas, brief history of multimedia. .

by Marjo Mäenpää

The history of multimedia is mostly written (or programmed) with Tool-book or Director to cd-rom. In the beginning of 90´s cd-rom technology together with multimedia programming promised a wonderful future for interactive narration. Multimedia was seen as a serious competitor for literary fiction, written history and science, as well as education and television entertainment. What happened to the revolutionary new media?

Marjo has worked as a multimedia critic in Helsingin Sanomat in recent ten years. She will present some nice examples of multimedia from 1994 to 2000.

Links

Collected by Andrea Botero

Xerox.com
[http://www.xerox.com]
Xerox - the document company, as they describe themselves, and their research center. Has the metaphor of a "document" shape our thinking of digital tools?

Cronology of Personal Computers
[http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/)]
This brief summary includes many of the essential happenings that shaped the development form an "industrial" point of view. What other frameworks are there?

Tools for Thought
[http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/]
An exercise in retrospective futurism by Howard Rheingold

Bill Atkinson
[http://www.billatkinson.com/Homepage.pl]
An Apple Fellow who took part in the developement of the original Macintosh user interface and wrote the original QuickDraw, MacPaint and HyperCard software. Currently a "photographer" - an expert of color management taking photos.

Susan Kare
[http://www.kare.com/]
Interface graphic designer. The mother of both, classical Mac and Windows 3.0 icons.

Sketchpad
[http://www.sun.com/960710/feature3/sketchpad.html#sketch]
About the Ph.D. Thesis of the Mass. Institute of Technology (MIT) from the year 1963 introducing the first application for interactive computer graphics.

Paradoxes of Digital Photography
[http://jupiter.ucsd.edu/~manovich/text/digital_photo.html]
Media Artist Lev Manovich's article about the evolution of digital photography.

Portable Network Graphics
[http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/]
A image compression format developed for network environments. Open standard with no patent (compare to GIF).