I just saw Cloverfield last night. It was an interesting an experience, which I’ll reveal why. In terms of the storyline, with minimal spoilers, this is a disaster movie (roughly). People start out having a party, and then all of a sudden, a disaster happens in New York, and we’re (as an audience) left to see what happens through the eyes of an amateur videographer. I found there were some funny parts, even though they weren’t intended. They mostly came through the use of the CG added to the movie and how it added to or took away from the immersion factor. In addition, there were also some good quotes:
It might be a quote I use. But in terms of an experience, here’s my recap. The POV used for the whole movie made it feel like I was playing a mod of Silent Hill, except something tremendously less scary. In addition, the sets were reminiscent of how Doom 3 looked, in terms of there being absolutely no light (or very little) in many of the places. I also found empathy in the cameraman, as he was a pretty cool guy and had lots of color commentary, and spoke like a real person. That was cool. I was frustrated at the fact that these people didn’t know the basics of survival games, in the fact that they went into the worst possible situations and places to try to get away. Example: let’s go into a pitch black subway tunnel and walk on the tracks with absolutely nothing at walking speed. They should have been walking at least with a little speed. To cut this short, and to allow for commentary, I’ll end this with the fact that there was no real denouement. It just sorta stopped at the climax of the action and ended, in a non-traditional ending. Hope to hear from you!
Our professor had an aesthetic experience last week, which we informed about. It wasn’t a positive experience, but it was still aesthetic, and we heard an expression of the experience. His computer decided to die, with the lecture notes on it. Then he went through many different people and ways to try to retrieve the data, only to find the computer able to magically turn on perfectly fine at a much later time. Quite an exasperating expression!
On Csikszentmihalyi & Robinson
These two ethnographers are taking a look at an empirical way to try to figure out what truely is an aesthetic experience. They decided to start by asking: who are good witnesses? what are the best expressions?
They found these answers in museum curators, as they were expert and professional viewers of art. These people also know what makes art special and could have potentially the best insight into what an aesthetic experience might entail. They decided to ask each of these curators to describe a recent aesthetic experience they had, which is different from asking them to define what an aesthetic experience is. This allowed the study to not have any presupposed meaning of this term, or allow the curators to insert any philosophical or normalizing comments into the work. In other words, this is a grounded theory approach, and it allowed the participants to speak for themselves.
This approach is also handy, as it allows one build up a theory without any of the negative aspects mentioned above. It is also handy when one doesn’t know the actual theory behind what one is trying to study, which allows one to get into the research mode and begin to get a grasp on things before entering the fieldwork. So here is what they found:
There are four dimensions to an aesthetic experience: perceptual, emotional, intellectual, communicative
The perceptual dimension shows that an aesthetic experience contains elements related to the information we gain from our senses. For example, from art, information in this dimension would contain information about the physical features, the notion of beauty, craftsmanship, composition, and awareness of production.
The emotional dimension contains aspects related to how we feel from the art, how the artist felt, negative and positive emotions (sometimes mixing), and the seductiveness of the art itself.
The intellectual dimesnion contains aspects related to our thinking, closure/openness we are to the art, the non-inferred history of the art (actually knowing how the art was made), the dynamic nature of our mind as we interpret art, the codebreaking process some try to complete when examining the art, and the tagging (or labelling) art in a certain category.
The communicative dimension involves the integration of the other dimensions and dialogue (communicating an expression of our experience to others), time, the “switching realities” some curators went through, the process of self-definition, and the creation of inferences.
An interesting debate point came up: how can we know if something is intellectual or fitting in the aesthetic realm? An answer we received was due to the fact that without the “correct intellectual apparatus”, one can really never know. This was a topic in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, which helps to show that all four of these dimensions are interlocked and cannot truly be disparate. Here is a clip from this movie, from YouTube:
These dimensions can be used as a means to help understand how we as a culture talk about expressions. But here is an interesting question that I didn’t get to raise: would the same dimension have been found if they analyzed different media? Would there be a different set of labels to these dimensions? I would be curious to see if they asked professional movie critics or video game players these questions and see what results.
From the Mouths of McCarthy and Wright
We also began to start delving into the book Technology as Experience, starting from chapter 3. We learn about a notion called the felt life, which helps to strike at another way of expressing the expressions we have. This concept is different from the mental models of what reality is, which is how we think of reality, but different from the experience.
There are also a couple of great quotes to look at when thinking about this section: on pp54, the authors talk about how experience is personal, it shapes our actions, and it cannot be boiled down. Experience is a complicated amalgamation of (my word here) stuff!
Another good quote in on pp56. This regards intoning, a central concept: intoning is a process in which we make acts our own, with our own interpretations. This helps us to form our own identity, and our own take on events. For example, we can see this in a person’s choice of fashion and the consequences of how we perceive that person and how that person perceives his/her self. This concept made me think of a similar word: imbue. It seems like we imbue our own meanings and interpretations to the events that transpire during one’s experience. Any other thoughts on this?
And Here’s How it All Fits into HCI
Well, maybe this isn’t a complete answer, but it’s a start. We as professionals look at how experience shapes people. We then turn this into important insights we can use in building our designs to help people overcome the problems they run into every day. Remember, this is just a start, but there’s also some other people who can help elaborate:
The concept of the computer as theatre from Laurel. The computer is a type of theatre which allows us to extend our minds and become engaged. Doesn’t this seem similar to the doing and undergoing we are getting used to hearing?
There’s also some insight from Murray: computers utilize immersion, agency, transformation. Again, more of the concept of doing and undergoing, just a different name on it.
Also, we could take a look at how these concepts affect actual people. Turkle has already begun to look at this, represented in the description of different groups of people in the book (e.g. hackers). It’s all fun and games, and the computer is their agent.
The Thought Experiment
So we were then given a thought experiment to end the class – how can we apply the conepts of immersion, agency, and transformation in different media? One example was of the video game. For me, I thought of agency as the avatar(s) one uses when in control of the game (and, to be literal, the controller functions as an agent, and potentially the hardware used to have the an experience on). I also thought of the immersion as totally being into the game as a person, and not realizing hours have gone by. This is true for me in Rock Band and, right now, Final Fantasy XII. In terms of transformation, I feel that a video game should help to transform one’s own outlook through the characters. In addition, one could have a physical transformation as well. Ergocentric games, like DDR have been known to help people reduce much of their weight problems (I lost 70 pounds playing it, and I also like exercise now, too).
A more tough example, which I will muse on, is the case of the operating system. In terms of agency, the operating system is the agent used to interact with all the hardware in the computer. For some, it is also the agent used to get to all the programs stored on one’s computer. In terms of immersion, one usually knows when he/she is dealing with an OS to find whatever is desired. For those who truly love the terminal, this is the ultimate sense of immersion, as the operator is in direct contact and immersed with the most basic of OS operations. For the transformation aspect, an OS could help us to be more productive. Without it, we pretty much don’t have a usable computer. We also don’t have a way to run programs, as well. Also, we can also learn a little bit about ourselves, as if we are Mac or Windows people, and how to deal with either type of people. So what are you thinking?
As a review, with experience, there is always doing, undergoing, fulfillment going on. This is always happening, even if it is hard to perceive. These events, in order to lead up to an aesthetic experience, constitute the purposeful progression.
Voyage to New
A new concept we learned about is an expression. This is any articulation somebody produces, any medium, even body language. In very simplistic terms, it is anything that expresses experience. Expressions have many characteristics to them:
1) Processual Nature – an expression constitutes a process in time. It is a temporal unfolding, and can only be processual when somebody is there
— An example is in sculpture, when someone is thinking about the expression and experiencing it.
— It doesn’t even matter if the expression is static, there is still a processual nature
2) Material and temporality – the expression is made of a material and has a temporal nature. It becomes transformed when it is materialized.
3) Expressions create dialogues, and we can interact through the expressions.
4) There is a performative dimension, which is ritualized (e.g. habits, or the ritual of tickets at theatre), and this how we come up with meaning
Take a look at Bruner pp11, at the bottom: performance of expression and refashion culture. It doesn’t release a preexisting meaning. In other words, there is no one message the artist thinks of, makes art, and waits for somebody to experience the art and find the exact same message. It doesn’t work that way. This is the exact opposite of network theory.
After delving into expressions and find out they can generate meaning, it is important to figure out the meaning of meaning. Meaning is the perception of a relationship. It contains a subjective dimension, from which we all generate meaning differently. This is part of the reason why it is hard to figure out people’s an experiences exactly. We as designers can only get it sufficiently in the ballpark, like in the film industry. This is what they are banking on to get right, so that they can get many people to watch – it’s the shared meaning, the intersubjectivity of meaning. Of course, there will be nuances in individual interpretations, but overall it will be the same.
Also, we started to look at some videos (look below), and started to discuss the aspect of liminality. This is the state of being on a threshold of different conscious states. It’s pretty intense. As one is trying to figure out a new set of meanings and laws in one’s world, we are experiencing fructile chaos. This is quite fruitful, as we get to make new laws for ourselves, but it quite chaotic, as everything is immediately broken and is spread like wildfire.
An Overall Path
So overall, here’s a generalized “path” (for lack of a better term), for what we have been discussing so far:
individual in reality -> experience -> meaning -> interpret -> an experience -> emotions -> significant -> share -> expression (look at these and understand, unfold, structure over time, no single fixed meaning, cultural) -> others experience -> continue the expressions and loop
Video-Rama
Chocolate Skittles
Spirited Away
You can watch the whole movie on YouTube, in parts: here’s where we started:
To Remember
Have fun wanging on the marble – especially if you like sculpture!
We got to learn a lot more about philosophical ramifications about experience and HCI. From Thursday, we received a tip: to use the theory we are discovering to harness the power of experience for our own designs. Then, we can truly use our thinking caps to design critically, and most importantly, create our own (an) experiences to share with others.
An Update on Dewey
So we got to delve further into Dewey, and started to look at how action, behavior, and doing things are related to experience and an experience. While looking at all of this, we also now have a new version of what reality is: it’s different from our perception of what reality is, so reality is everything, regardless of what we perceive it as. That is deep.
So now that we have reality, we now need to know if the (an) experiences we have are well-formed and complete. So how do we know this? Well, since experience is always happening, we have our emotions which help start driving out mental processes. After this is happening and we consciously start to know about what is going on, then the an experience is starting. And at this point certain things we’ll remember, and other aspects of the an experience we won’t.
So if we turn to an example from class, someone had an example of waterskiing. He didn’t remember much other than the feeling and knowing about waterskiing. This is how an experience is remembered by us. Another analogy is a selective mental photo of what happened. We have the overall idea in our head, but certain things will stick out, and others will not. Another example is the marriage proposal (via our professor): depending on the answer we get from our fiance, we’ll remember some things (long line for parking space, the horrible smell of the fish at the table next to us) or other things (the glow on our fiance’s face, the music, and the rest of the restaurant applauding).
So now that we know what a well-formed an experience is and how it is different from experience, we need to know how to characterize what exactly an experience is. An experience could be aesthetic or not. If it is aesthetic (Dewey uses no ‘a’), it roughly translates to the fact that there is a satisfying emotional quality to the an experience. There is also internal integration and fulfillment into one’s consciousness of the an experience. In addition, an experience is also reached through ordered and organized movement of our interpretation of what is going on. Everything is being interpreted: that’s how we know there’s an experience going on. This is how we break up the chaos of experience happening to us and we can then turn the relevant pieces and create relationships and meaning from what has happened to us. The filtering aspect of our brains and interpretation is super-important: it helps to distinguish an experience from experience.
As we moved on, as a personal note, when we are relating our an experience to others, we are reinterpreting it again. I also find there’s a catharsis involved in telling the an experience to others, which may be the satisfying emotional quality, even the an experience is really bad (e.g. my car exploded). When the an experience is being related, there is a satisfying wholeness in the conversation and mental picture that both parties can enjoy.
But then we can dig even further: now that we know how to distinguish an experience and its parts, we need to know about the flow about experience offers us. So here is the flow we discovered (in spectrum format):
aimless succession (one thing happens after another) <- purposeful progression (perfectly balanced) -> mechanical connection (things are related, very mechanistic, not interesting -> stuffing envelopes)
As a note, purposeful progress is the alternation of doing and undergoing (who’s doing the acting) and has a satisfying completion, which is the outcoming’s fulfillment.
So if this flow is always happening, what happens if it ever should stop? These are what we (professionals) call (in our prof’s words) “magic moments of disruption”. This is where something critical happens that prevents flow from continuing (e.g when somebody hits the wrong button and has to rethink about how to complete a task). It’s these points that are of interest, because we can potentially see how people relearn how to approach a task, or can learn how to prevent this disruption from happening to others.
As a mini-summary: we always act on the world. It’s part of the flow of experience. The term ‘aesthetic’ in this case refers to not something added to by experience by art, but rather clarification and intensification of experience through focus. This allows someone to have the an experience experienced in a clarified way. Wow.
This Just In… from Bruner
Bruner helps to make it slightly easier to perceive what Dewey is talking about. Bruner starts to talk about how events are received by consciousness, and this is an important idea to take away. Our field, HCI, cares how something is presented, made available to, and experienced by somebody. In addition, there is a divorce of reality and reality as people perceive it. This is an important piece of information to remember, as our field cares about the latter. We care about people. Our methods help to expose how people perceive what is going on in peoples’ realities.
One good quote to remember is on pp6 [last indent] (the differentiation between reality, experience, and expressions). This is something very vital to know and remember during our own design process, as the interactions we create affect each of these: life as lived, life as experienced, and life as told.
Another critical point to remember during the design process is that if we are observing a user or user group, we physically cannot observe consciousness. Since this trait of people is always through interpretations and mental models, we can only try and get there through our methods and peoples’ expressions, our unit of analysis. BUT, we don’t get a chance to pick these: the people whom we are helping or studying make these up, and it’s our job to be able to recognize these and act upon them. So then, what is an expression? An expression is a material form of experience (e.g. telling a story, blog, pic, movie, interview, etc.) These expressions help to get at deeper meanings of reality for people, like the natives who told the hunting stories. It helped reveal how their an experience of hunting is more about trying to slip out of the predators’ grasp, and turn this event into HUNTING.
A couple other points Bruner helps us out in understanding Dewey is that these expressions are similar to sketches, but with the added quality that the sketch is produced by the consciousness with a purpose. This sketch has gone through the process of editing, since we are always editing. It’s just what we do. There’s nothing we can do to avoid this approximation of an experience to others (since an experience is interpreted in the first place, and others who are exposed to the same experience will walk away with a different an experience). Also, a last point to remember about an experience is that there is a perception of our audience and implied speaker and relationship. Keep this in mind when retelling an experience to others, as we’ll filter to utilize this relationship.
We’re going to keep probing deeper into this on Tuesday and Thursday.
