The Genesys system, developed by Dr. Ron Baecker in MIT's Lincoln Laboratory from 1967-69, was one of the world's first interactive systems for real-time animation. Genesys utilizes an interactive animation that exploits the potentialities of direct graphical interaction. Because every last picture in the animation sequence drives algorithms to generate the next one (so-called "dynamic display"), the process is referred to as "picture-driven animation".
It would be hard to imagine a contemporary media user enjoying the interaction with the same graphic interface and experiencing the same joyful immersion, as that young illustrator in the movie did. Realization that you can control the imagery in such a new way must have triggered the feeling that suddenly, a completely new space for explorations opened up right in front of you.
From the times of Ch.Babbage, explorations in the fields of automated computing and cybernetics were carried out mostly by professionals, *
[* In contemporary techno-cultural lingo, the analogue for "professional" is "geek." It is interesting to notice, that the connotations of "geek" over the period from 60s until the "noughtees," followed a peculiar dynamics: from negative (sociopathic, asexual, "smart-ass", "programmer") to positive (social, sexual, successful, "CEO"). ]at least until the 1990s, when "realistic" graphic interface became popular — i.e., became a norm. The representations in the computer screen became "real enough" to be enjoyed by everyone, not just programmers.
As we know, this realistic turn was met with explosion of enjoyment, in direct proportion to global computer sales. A radical change in the world-wide economy of enjoyment, and a general facelift to the interfaces: keyboard, drawing pad and e-pen, monitor. They remained intact, without any changes on a fundamental level. Obviously, there must have been reasons for that, and the "enjoyment" factor is not to be missed here. The screen — and not the "margins" around the screen: monitor, input/output devices — received the most of attention. The joy of watching, seeing, looking, gazing, peering, staring, glancing, glaring, peeping. It would be only natural to say, that the "picture-driven animation" was, indeed, also an "enjoyment-driven animation" (and "progress").
There was no reason to change the concept of the rectangular computer screen as a "window" metaphor, or to change the concept of a drawing pad as a metaphor of "paper," or the concept of an e-pen as a "pen." The factors of familiarity, convenience, and cognitive accessibility can still guarantee their dominance.
If the first stage (mode? level?) of enjoyment in the 50s-70s was "the joy of recognition," then the second stage — the one which still lasts (more or less) — could ne named "the joy of immersion." It is hard to ignore, that both of them suggest a progression to "the joy of acting." The joy of acting after the new media have been recognized, and after they have been embedded in our being, in our Dasein. Acting under the influence of the new media with Heideggerian "you are what you do" in mind.
If there is a direction to the movement of enjoyment, then it is the ideology of representational realism which determins it. The "joy of acting" must be tied with the realism of robotic action. That is a good topic, which requires a separate, more elaborate discussion, and I'll put this aside for now.
Returning to my initial surprise, what is actually surprising to see (or, rather, to witness again, to remember), it is how enjoyable the early "computer graphic systems" were at their time. Computer-generated visualizations were highly abstract and symbolic (those dotted lines even bare some semblance with aboriginal art), reduced to still recognizable minimum, bound to the aesthetics of visual economy. And in the aesthetical totality, the imagery has a certain raw quality, in the sense of raw imagery of the cinema avantgarde in 1900-30s...
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