Themes for 1996-1997	
							Sha Xin Wei
							23 September 1996

Dear Larry, Tim, Ann, Ben, Niklas-in-spirit,

(Tim, Larry and I met last Friday to talk about the IMG this year.
After mulling everything over and recalling discussions with other folk
over the past year, here are some thoughts and suggestions.   Please tell 
me what you think.)

I am sympathetic to the criticism that some theorists who study 
technology tend to cart around some old theoretical apparatus that got 
them tenure and simply appropriate impressionistic factoids about 
technology to ornament their Big Theory.    This applies much more 
strongly to well-established Names than to enterprising  graduate 
students and dare-devil faculty who want to put out ideas under their 
own name.      Of course I want to attract those young lions who are 
willing to ground their analysis on a real familiarity with the object 
of their critique.    And the larger goal that I share with Tim and 
Niklas, and presumably Gumbrecht, is to promote a radically new form of 
media studies inside the academy.  This is all fine.   Hugs and kisses 
all around.

Now, the tougher part.   I have no time nor inclination to survey random 
cases of software the way we've been doing it for the last year.   I 
have a research agenda -- which is to understand computational media, 
and how to make them malleable for humane purposes.   And I have been 
nursing some notions that I need to work out in a circle of friendly but 
*theoretically* sharp critics. In fact, coming from the sci-tech side, 
my interest is obverse to the theoretically-minded humanist's, perhaps; 
I need more exposure to some critical, analytical theoretical tools that 
will help me reflect upon the design of future technologies.  Certainly 
I intend to choose examples from technology, but they're chosen to fit 
the arc of this conceptual agenda.  (Maybe my "arc" corresponds to what 
Larry means by a "problematics."[NOTE 1])

I have no faith that surveying a sequence of technology "objects" will 
lead to any coherent, interesting arc of questions.   This is not just 
my belief, but also the nearly uniform impression I got from 
interviewing profs and grad students over the last year as I went around 
Stanford and elsewhere drumming up interest in the IMG.   We need a 
small number (< three/term) of themes or guiding questions.   I propose 
that we try to make the seminar more attractive and coherent by 
structuring discussions under a few themes, not individual technology 
objects.    Each theme should be fairly broad, to accomodate many 
different takes, but grounded by very concrete and specific objects of 
technology AND by one or two core readings.   (I don't like the word 
"core," because, agreeing with Tim, I think there are no core texts in 
this new frontier.)   Without a set of readings, the IMG will seem like 
yet another round of playing with toys.[NOTE 2]

Tim's remark that we're still quite early in the game, so that a proto-
Baconian methodology is what's appropriate, seems correct for the 
history and lit. establishments.   But here, with the IMG, we have a 
chance to work with a select group of tough- and flexibly-minded people 
who are ready to study closely these new media.   That's why, this year, 
I want to start first with by finding some good people, and then build 
themes around what they want to study, as long as there's at least a 
loose coupling to the terms: interaction and media.   This certainly 
fits the Humanities Center's charter of providing safe places for people 
to work out risky new research programs.    I spent the last year 
talking to people about IMG-related issues, some of whom could not 
attend because of other commitments, or because of reservations about 
the IMG's approach. Tim, Niklas Damiris, Ann Weinstone and Ben Robinson 
are willing to give it a try this Fall.   I would feel lucky to be able 
to read and study with these people.

So, compromising between structuring the IMG around core readings or 
around techno-objects, here's a suggested set of themes.   For 
concreteness, for each theme I named a Moderator (x number of  sessions), 
Objects of study, and Readings.   The moderator's responsibility will be to 

(1) give an overview talk in the first session
(2) lead off follow-on sessions and synthesize discussions

and maybe

(3) facilitate discussion to ensure people get fair air-time

[If (3) doesn't work, then someone other than the moderator
should facilitate.]

Of course, I'm committing only myself and my own 
readings.   I'd like to lead a series of seminars in Winter quarter, 
expanding on my idea-germs from two summers ago and from Schnapp's 
seminar.    Tim and Ben independently suggested that I do it in Fall, 
but (1) I'm not ready, and (2) I'm already committed to other work this 
term.   The other commitments I managed to obtain for the year are Helgi 
Schweizer, and Niklas Damiris.[NOTE 4]  Please forgive me for mashing 
tentative interests into such an orderly order, but it may be better to 
vary an agenda than to have no agenda at all.


-------------------------
THEMES, briefly:
-------------------------



FALL: (I) Networks1996?
	(II) Synthetic image, synthetic perception -- Tim, SXW
	(III) Biological and pseudo-biological interactivity -- Schweizer, Ann?

WINTER: (I) Virtuality -- Tim, SXW
	(II)  Computational media/performable writing -- SXW.

SPRING: (I) Social Media and Social Interaction -- Niklas Damiris, Ben?, Ann?
		(II) Cyber-Subjectivity -- Ann?

-------------------------
THEMES, in more detail:
-------------------------

FALL

	I. Networks1996 -- Larry?, SXW?, x 2? [NOTE 3] 
		(contrasting Really Existing Networks w/ the Hum. Center's 
			Kittlerian seminar: "discourse@networks2000")
		A. Objects of study
			* Email (text, MIME)
			* Andrew File System (AFS) and MacLeland
		B. Readings and discussion
			* Khanna, Distributed Network Administration, ch 1.
			* UNIX mail handler documentation
	
	II. Synthetic image, synthetic perception -- Tim x 3?
		A. Objects of study
			* (a scientific visualization system, eg. AVS, Explorer)
			* (medical imaging)
		B Readings and discussion
			* Scientific visualization -- ?/SXW
			* Computer graphics -- ?/SXW
			* Malik, Perception chapter (in Russell & NorwigÕs  
				_Artificial Intelligence_ 1996) 

	III.  Biological and pseudo-biological interactivity (Schweizer x 2)
			[Note 4]
		A. Objects of study:
			* ConwayÕs Game of Life -- SXW
			* Adaptive networks -- SXW
				* AppleÕs Speech recognition/synthesis system OR
				* Napkin, a gesture recognition for architectural sketching
		B. Readings and discussion
			* Maturana and Varela -- Ann?
			* Drexler, nanotechnology -- Ann?
			* Intro to dynamical systems -- SXW?
			* Neurophysiological bases of rhythm and interaction -- Schweizer

WINTER

	I. Virtuality  -- Tim x ?  [Note 5]
		A. Objects of study
			* Habitat
			* Sim-City
			* SUNSoft 3D graphics editor?
			* SGI SoftImage?
			* VRML 2.0 (Moving Worlds) sites
		B Readings and discussion
			* See Tim's lists

	II. Computational media/performable writing. -- SXW x 4, Tim? x 1
		A. Objects of study:
			* Mathematica, a pattern-based programming environment
			* mTropolis, an object-oriented multimedia performable 
				scripting system
		B. Readings and discussion
			* Questions
				* How are computational media different from traditional 
					media?
				* Why and how are current digital systems brittle?
				* What is a computational object?
				* How do people ascribe meeaning and intent to computational 
					objects?
				* How can we distinguish linguistic from non-linguistic 
					structures, discrete from non-discrete models?
				* What are alternatives to discrete and linguistic 
					structures for interactive media?
			* Peirce
			* Husserl -- Tim or Ben?
			* Whitehead, Concept of Nature
			* Janich, Topology

SPRING

	I Social Media and Social Interaction -- Niklas x 4?, Ben?
		A. Object of Study
			* VR communities
			* 
		B. Readings and discussion
			* Niklas Damiris -- Social capital; liquid space (from the 
				material to the computational)
			* Rosenblueth, Wiener, Bigelow. "Behavior, Purpose and 
				Teleology." Philosophy of Science  10(1943) 18-24.
			* Wiener. Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the 
					Animal and the Machine.
			* Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. General System Theory
			* John O'Neill. "Horror Autotoxicus." in _Zone Incorporations_

	II. Cyber-Subjectivity -- Ann?
		A. Object of Study
		B. Readings and discussion
			* S. Turkle. _The Second Self_.
			* A.R. (Sandy) Stone. _The War of Desire and Technology_.
			* The Cyborg Handbook



-------------------------
NOTES
------------------------- 

[1] In the ideal case, if we had infinite time, we could paddle about 
for yet another year or two, and see if any problematics or arcs of 
questions emerge from the minestrone of technology.  But the IMG's 
experience over the past two years convinced me that I can't wait for 
this to happen.   If there are people who already have some problematics 
in mind for a dissertation, or a paper (and they do exist), then let's 
make the IMG seminar a place for a few of them to present these 
developing ideas.   Nothing excludes the likelihood that these 
problematics will evolve.

[2] As an aside, I must emphasize that "concrete technology" does not 
mean just software applications like Netscape or Eudora.   As Larry 
noted, discovering the network protocols underlying email opens up a 
vertiginous world of plumbing under the smooth surface of the "text" 
editor.  Technology also includes artifacts like the Java and 
Mathematica programming languages, media encoding standards like 
VRML/WWW, and mathematical methods like ray-tracing algorithms (which 
encode epistemic assumptions about how we see and negotiate the visual 
world).   If we're going to get a grip on some critical problems of 
technology, may I suggest some grips that give us real purchase?  Twenty 
years of diverse computing gives one a good sense of which technology 
objects are worth dissecting, and which we can profitably flush down the 
toilet.

[3] In my frank opinion, this would be incredibly boring, and is a 
good way to turn people off.  That's why I suggested the "networked 
desktop" as the familiar artifact, compromising. But even this would be
only marginally more interesting without a context, a reading such  
as Coyne's book on Postmod. Info. Design, which we read last spring.

The clincher is that the hot practical and theoretical issues are not
networks per se, but the cosmologies and affordances that Distributed
Computing enables.   Email is too narrow a keyhole into the DC
problematics, and dangerously skews the analysis toward plaintext. Amen.
The problematics are quite interesting, but too hard without spending
weeks studying EE/CS.   To do this requires experience not with Macs
or PC's, but UNIX and multi-tasking or distributed computing, which is
too far from humanists' experience.


[4] The one fixed constraint is Helgi Schweizer, who I invited to come 
out from Austria to give a lecture and lead a discussion on Dec. 4 and 
11.   His work should provide a grounded, neurophysiological, approach 
to "interaction."   Since he needed to know ASAP to make arrangements, I 
went ahead and said come on over as soon as the Hum. Center announced it 
was re-funding us.

Niklas Damiris (bio-physics, Xerox PARC, etc.) tentatively agreed to 
give a series of talks in the Spring based on his work with information 
and media, what he calls social capital, and liquid spaces.   This fits 
into the social aspects of interaction and media, which is (finally) 
becoming a serious issue in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-
Supported Collaborative Work.

[5] Tim will teach a Sophomore Dialogue on this topic in Winter quarter.