Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art and the Myth of Transparency

JAY DAVID BOLTER AND DIANE GROMALA WINDOWS AND MIRRORS INTERACTION DESIGN, DIGITAL ART AND THE MYTH OF TRANSPARENCY Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003 ISBN 0-262-02545-0, 182 pages, softbound, black and white illustrations, $17.95 Buzz surrounding new concepts, techniques and computer applications is hard to escape. Making sense of it requires some time to elapse so that a perspective is possible. Bolter and Gromala have a perspective and they share it in Windows and Mirrors, a book that is part polemic and part history of dichotomous positions regarding digital development. First, let's look at the polemics. Using Siggraph's 2000 digital art show as a device with which to illustrate positions and developments, the authors focus primarily on the myth of transparency. A favorite theme of structuralists, who rationally organize interface, navigation and interaction so these elements fade into the background leaving only engagement with the user's task at hand, Bolter and Gromala expose transparency as a myth belonging to a long line of reductive approaches to communication and design. "Text Rain," an interactive physical interface, is the Siggraph exemplar for the counter position in which awareness of and interaction with digital mechanics as pleasurable and essential to the experience. In similar fashion, artificial intelligence (Al) is put into perspective as a big idea that has not delivered on its promises despite its continued exploration in computer science and science fiction cinema. Virtual reality (VR) is also challenged as the supreme focus of the developmental future as Western culture repairs its mind-body split (see Lakoff and Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh for more on this). Interestingly, Eastern culture never suffered this fragmentation in the first place (see Nisbett's Geography of Thought). VR's role in simulation (for pilots or surgeons for example) is acknowledged, but its potential role in daily life is questionable. Augmented reality (AR) is understood as a more useful mediation between physical or psychological reality with focused feedback based on sensors and sensory stimulation. The exemplar for (AR) is Gromala's own "Meditation Chamber" that provides real-time feedback based on bodily signals (respiration, galvanic skin response, etc.). second, the other structural element of the book is history. This is woven through the pages to put the various digital developmental perspectives into context. The history is interesting in terms of the growth of scientific knowledge regarding human cognition and the technological developments that drive change. …