Paper Value
A Norwegian researcher, Anne Mangen, wrote an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions – clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads – take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.
Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’
http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2009/06/19/paper_vs_computer_screen/
The materiality of paper takes on a extended meaning due to its experience. The knowledge that is contained with in a book is not singularly wrapped up in the words on the page. From psychology class in college at Colorado State University, I remember my teacher telling us that our brains formulate knowledge and recall through repeating similar experiences under which that knowledge was learned. For example if you are juiced up on coffee while you study for a test you should be juiced up on coffee during the test because the brain associates the experience of the learning along with the recall of that information. Similarly you might be able to recall a story in a book more vividly when the same circumstances are repeated. The engagement of content influences our learning and subsequent recall. Therefore the reading of a book is learned through the experience of the pages. Knowledge that is engaged in the physicality of pages is then linked with that experience. Pages then become essential to formulation of knowledge within a book.
Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered – not yet.’’
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3562724/Hamlets-Blackberry-Why-Paper-Is-Eternal
The digital medium has been attempting to replace the piece of paper and it has been around the corner in terms of technology since technology began. Now what if the digital medium and the physical medium where equal? When paper and computer work together seamlessly then paper takes on an added functionality with the computer.
The digital textbook?
With students doing so much of their reading assignments through the screen instead of on book or paper formats, it’s important for educators to determine how the shift is altering their habits and learning. The research is just beginning, but it’s getting deeper, an article in the Journal of Research in Reading (2008, pp. 404-419) by Anne Mangen, “Hypertext fiction reading: haptics and immersion.” Mangen notes the growing sub-field of screen reading studies, but finds that the “intangibility and volatility of the digital text” remain under-examined. She focuses first, then, on the material nature of digital and non-digital reading experiences. “Unlike print texts,” she writes, “digital texts are ontologically intangible and detached from the physical and mechanical dimension of their material support, namely, their computer or e-book (or other devices, such as the PDA, the iPod or the mobile phone” (405).
This is important, she argues, because “materiality matters.” The reading experience includes manual activities and haptic perceptions (what the skin and muscles and joints register), and so as activities and perceptions of that kind are changed from one kind of reading experience to another because of the object, the reading experience, too, will change.
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Screen-ReadingPrint-Re/8551/
So if materiality matters in the delivery of content especially reading material, then it would be arguable that to remove the materiality of paper from the reading experience would fundamentally alter that exchange. Screen engagement has become a reality in modern times but the advantages of the screen have forced its usability right next to the book forcing them to go head to head. I have chosen to regard these experience as different and explore a way to bridge the difference between experiences. As use of screen based devices increases, the need for physical interaction with objects like books will become essential in the recombination of content delivery. I believe users should not have to exchange one experience for the other in order to engage in the content the way they would like. Many things in this world have multiple experiences and with the linking physical and digital is opens up a strategy and platform for making printed content and digital content work together.
John Locke said, “reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” Thinking can be greatly enhanced through digital means of networking so making paper and computer work together will greatly enhance the opportunity to make reading our again.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Touch Interaction
November 16th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Engaging users with an interaction is a difficult process. I am attempting to engage users in natural mapped interactions through iconography the associats a particular action of touch. Natural mapping is a term for the proper and natural arrangements for the relations between controls and their movements to the outcome from such action into the world. Like that of a door knob or a book.The real function of natural mappings is to reduce the need for any information from a user’s memory to perform a task. This term is widely used in the areas of human-computer interaction (HCI) and interactive design discussed in Donald Norman’s book : The design of Everyday Things.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Interaction Experiments
November 16th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Through out my experimentation with conductive inks and screen printing, I have started to try and engage the user in interaction with the tangible printed artifact. Paper and ephemeral material is inherently tangible and physical you can bend it, tear it, crinkle it, touch it plus it has a texture a quality and a materiality very unique to its form. Unique to the conductive inks is there ability to engage a user. The current experiment is a test to see if certain form structures are inherently engage-able. With out any signage does a user know to touch the paper and interact with the strips. This experiment utilizes the nature the higher contact equals a brighter light.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Circuit Dipper
November 9th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
Now the conductive inks that I have made work, I have started to dive into breaking the perception of what a circuit should be and should look like. With the addition of user interaction, turning a light on becomes more interesting and engaging. The earlier experiments are mostly a process of seeing and thinking about paper differently, this is a experiment into giving paper an added interaction through the conductive ink and the simple switches. The form of the conductive lines are skewing the efficiency ideas associated with circuit board design, and the interaction allows the user to piece together the shapes of both the form and of the shape the lights make.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Conductive Form
November 8th, 2009 § 33 comments § permalink
Now that I have gotten an ink that can conduct an current over a relatively decient distance, I have started to play with the notion of what can a circuit look like. Can it be anything you want it to be as long as there is a positive and negative in and out. Can the form start to speak about it functionality, can the forms be unique and artistic rather than function based. Most circuitry disappears and becomes invisible. To most who use electronics and understanding of the work, skill, craft, and planning that has gone into a majority of the things they operate on a daily basis is pretty minimal. Electronics work and we rarely pay attention until they stop working. An interest in involving conductive ink is to challenge the expectation and visibility of otherwise invisible things. The mixed media piece of conductive ink, copper tape on paper is an experiment into changing and evaluating the expectations of electronic conductivity and use.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Conductive Stuff
November 5th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
“It’s just stuff on a piece of paper, or canvas” – Tony Zepeda.
My Printmaking teacher Tony Zepeda likes to explain that ink, paint, chemicals, materials etc is all just stuff the interest is where that stuff makes meaning. The artist and designers role is to use the materiality, ink, image, typography, and meaning space.
Ink is just stuff, it can become a paint, or a printer ink, or a screenprinting ink, or a pen ink, or a drawing ink the final form outcome is less import than the fact that it possesses a new and unique quality that before in making and design inks have otherwise not and that is the ability to conduct and be linked and connected to its technological brethren.
The intent of using and experimenting with conductive materials and inks was not to create a new ink, rather it is giving me the space and advantage of working with stuff to might make new meaning where other wise there hasn’t been. I see the potential of thinking about paper and the ink that gives it meaning a larger breath of influence. Paper has been divided from its digital counterpart but what if we starting to mold them together?
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Interactive Circuit
November 2nd, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
As I research and explore the ideas of conductive circuitry that could start to engage print media as a platform for interactive based computational experiences, I have started to explore the ideas of interactivity and affordance.
Interaction is based on the assumption that a user understands the applied action to accomplish a task. Something as simple as turning a light on can be made incredible complex by not hinting at learned and understood experiences. In Donald Norman’s book – “the design of everyday things” http://www.jnd.org/ he talks at length about the importance of visible interfaces and interaction parts know as natural mapping which comes from proper and natural arrangements for the relations between controls and their movements to the outcome from such action into the world. The real function of natural mapping is to reduce the need for any information from a user’s memory to perform a task. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_mapping) Essentially when a user participates in a task that action is the out come of a plethora of learned, cultural and socio-economic process that have been ingrained into the users understanding. The idea of natural mapping techniques allow things to be perceived as being intuitive. Objects that need no prior instruction. With contemporary electronics the cultural and social economic inundation of computation has started to become learned and performed by cultures at an extremely high rate and at younger and younger ages. The importance of this technology revolution is that artifacts like the cell phone etc have started to be perceived as naturally mapped artifacts with interactions not that unfamiliar to a user than the interaction of a door or a tea kettle.
The question is are the interactions that we engage with our computational electronics the right interactions? Can we engage naturally mapped ideas from culture to engage new and innovative products that rather than force the user learn a new system, are engaged to the perceived natural mapped system?
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Ideas: Layering Screenprint
October 15th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Screen printing has a unique affordance involved in the making process, since ink is pulled through a screen rather that placed or sprayed by a machine printer, the maker can decided to layer aspects of the composition. Depending on the opacity of the ink used during the printing process, the blending of layers allows for designers/printmakers to utilize the ability to make a 2 color composition a 3 color through blending and overlapping.
In my experiments with conductive ink for screen printing, it made me think of the possibility of having the conductive aspect of my experiments only work when they are layered or overlapping? could my inks when layered have a chemical connection that would render it conductive.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Process: Material Experiments
October 14th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
An exploration of materials that are potentially conductive. A sketch book of process and notes that indicate the use, screen print possibility, cost, and aesthetic quality of the material plus whether or not it can conduct electricity. An on-going exploration into mixing conductive powders and materials with inks, paints and glues that could be used for paint or be pulled through a screen. Initial material choices was dictated by whether or not I thought it might have some conductive aspects. I essentially started with shiny and metallic inks, paints, and glues in the hope that some of them would possess conductive qualities. The process has helped me have a greater understanding of the electric qualities of materials and also the aspects of experimenting to make new hybrid inks.
I have found that powdered graphite will conduct electricity but is a variable resistor so a concentration of powder in ink at the right amounts is essential to making it work. Also I have been debunked by copper and silver powders mixed with gesso or clear base screenprinting ink.
These experiments drive at the idea that designers understand the world through making so my experiments in making conductive ink have given me an understanding of conductive material and its potential use in media especially print media.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Ideas: Conductive Ink
October 14th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
Conductive Ink
A series of experiments documented in my process is my attempt to make, learn, and understand conductive inks and electronic circuitry. Through exploration in a number on materials from graphite to gold leafing, I have started to gain an understanding of the principles of conductivity. My assumptions that things that are shiny should conduct has been refuted and my background in science understanding and learning has been challenged.
This series of experiments was made successful through mixing graphite drawing powder and clear acrylic gesso for painting canvas. The concentration in the graphite is as a high enough percentage that the electric current from the 9 volt battery is not dispated over the span. Graphite ink is being used as a test model to help me move my usage for paper that has a computational affordance.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
