Technology vs Nature has come back to haunt me!
My lecture today with claudia was pretty interesting, even though it was a lecture meant for our last project!, but never the less it was useful looking at the mapping and the different interfaces for the World Wide Web. wat really caught my eye was the Seadragon software from microsoft, absolutely amazing (you will find it at www.ted.com) It was then discussion arose about breaking the rules we conform to in. We have conventions in our culture that are foundations of our language and how we do things, like for example reading from left to right when we read a book or any text. So websites generally conform to these rules but to argue it is for our benefit. It may seem technology has not progressed however it is all for our benefit, we are constantly making ways of understanding things. Some websites have created an interface where the interent is shown though a virtual city, where the bigger buildings are the most important and poopular of websites. However this intereface is not a good representation of the World Wide Web, as there is infinite space, and to try and create or map a world where anywhere and anything is accessed in an instant is …well…impossible as i know of anyway. Maybe one day someone will create and very intelligent way of navigating the World Wide Web better than the very plain 2d version we use. However this is what i cannot get my head around, yes we understand things better through using what we already know, so like technology personified, or interpreted through nature or everyday for us to understand. There are metaphors everywhere in technology, bookmarks, ’surfing the web’, ‘browsing’. Even the virtual world we have created conforms to the rules of our reality. Why do we not accept the virtual world as something new, learn it as we do a new language? i dunno what to really think about this because i could argue both sides of this argument, as this virtual world is i guess a reflection of this world, is it not? hmmmmm
