Buxton: "Design for the Wild" and "Case Study: Apple, Design, and Business"
First I must say that the timing of reading the Apple case study in relation to the death of Steve Jobs last week was surreal but incredibly appropriate. Buxton's case study of how Jobs encouraged a design focused environment at Apple was a wonderful way to remember his contributions. I hope that Apple doesn't lose that vision as it moves forward.
When I finished these chapters I didn't want to put the book down. I wouldn't have but for a busy reading schedule of other assignments. I very much respect and appreciate how Buxton provides real life examples (avalanche rescue and arctic navigation of the Inuit) to tie into his points about design in the business world. Wonderful connections. He also mixes visuals well with the text. The figures he's chosen to include helped me understand the point he was making. They, in fact, enhanced his point. It's a well written book that keeps the reader's attention in mind. Buxton definitely considered his users when writing this book, and I truly appreciate that.
Buxton's point that "the representational power of the tool is meaningful only within the larger social and physical context within which it is situated" (33) resonated with me. His use of the 3-D wooden maps to support this point was excellent. Technology can't always be replied upon, as Buxton showed in contrasting the cell phone and computer maps with the Ammassalik's wooden maps. As Buxton notes, "Without informed design, technology is more likely to be bad than good" (38). Don't underestimate the power or research. Know the context in which the design will be used. This led in perfectly the Apple case study. (Something tells me Kolko would appreciate this case study.) I was most drawn to the focus on the iPod's evolution. I hadn't realized it'd taken 4 generations for the iPod to "tip" even though I lived through it. This draws you right into the environment and understanding the context. The user's feel and experience was continually improved because "Le bon Dieu est dans le détail" (51). Meanwhile the social environment dictated a great deal about the iPod--getting people to buy songs when they expected to download them for free. That Jobs also thought to turn the Gillette model on its head was another wonderful leveraging innovation, one that understood the context that people wouldn't pay large amounts for music. In regard to applying this to my social media analysis, I plan to make sure that the tool or recommendations I make to the library encompass the context.
Bolter and Grusin
"Our culture wants both to multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation: ideally, it wants to erase its media in the very act of multiply them" (Bolter & Grusin 5). It is a double logic that took awhile to fully wrap my mind around. Elaboration and the examples provided for immediacy and hypermediacy helped to illustrate this point. Interestingly, they continue to apply as the media employed by advances in technology evolve. I would like to hear how Bolter and Grusin would approach changes to media since writing this article and how each uses immediacy and hypermediacy. YouTube? Smartphones? These two examples alone contribute to the act of multiplying media while erasing mediation, especially from the amateur perspective.
I also feel that Bolter and Grusin's distinction about how immediacy removes the programmer/creator from the image is something to note. Its sets the tone well for the approach they take that sets up photography, film, virtual reality, etc. for transparency. After studying and analyzing the myth of photographic truth in ENGL 853 and reconciling with the idea that truths from photographs are constructed by the photographer with her choice of framing, with what images from a series of takes are shown, etc. it was quite a contrast to read that Bolter and Grusin approach photographs as reality, as transparent. Bolter and Grusin use the example of Alberti's On Painting to illustrate this point well. "'On the surface on which I am going to paint, I draw a rectangle of whatever size I want, which I regard as an open window through which the subject to be painted is seen.' If executed properly, the surface of the painting dissolved and presented to the viewer the scene beyond" (25). I can see why they make the argument that these examples of media achieve the real. Denying mediation, however, seems like something I will no longer be able to do. Truth in images is the truth that the creator is allowing viewers to see. Things will be eliminated. The entire context is not present. If a photographer takes 12 frames of one situation, in choosing one of the 12 to publish or share, they're in a way manipulating the truth the viewer can see. The same applies to film and computer programming. Thus Bolter and Grusin were unable to fully convince me that immediacy achieves placing viewers in the truth of reality. I will agree with them that "Mediation is the remediation of reality because media themselves are real and because the experience is the subject of remediation" (59). It is real, but I don't believe that it allows for a pure truth or pure reality--with what creators choose to show and not show truth is manipulated.
While reading Bolter and Grusin I tried to think how their findings might be relevant to my upcoming cyberpoem. I can't say that I'll strive for complete immediacy or that I'll be fully able to achieve the sense that the medium will disappear entirely. Hypermediacy will certainly be employed; my cyberpoem will encompass multiple acts of representation. Since I haven't finalized everything, I can't yet say if I'll make use of sound, but I hope to consider and experiment with it. That of course will be paired with animation and the words forming the lines of my poem. There will be mediation among the various elements brought together to achieve the cyberpoem. I find that my finished cyberpoem may end up illustrating how remediation helps us interpret other forms of media. As Bolter and Grusin note "No medium...can now function independently and establish its own separate and purified space of cultural meaning" (55).
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