Mannovich/Experience Design

Like others, I really liked this idea of the 'takeaway'. I hadn't really put much detailed thought into the longevity of digital works. The hierarchy of experience presented is quite useful as well, data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. To create something worth taking away, you must hope to effect a persons wisdom, to allow that person to connect their knowledge in meaningful ways.

The question had been asked as to whether any of us had experienced a digital 'take-away', and I think I have perhaps had such an experience. It's a rather pedestrian thing, but it was while video-chatting with my brother. He is living in Tai Pei, and while chatting with him, he took his camera and panned it to the surrounding buildings near his apartment. Early Spring/Late winter brings some of the best weather to Tai Pei. The air is clear and not heavy with humidity and pollution. There was this beautiful blue sky with those perfect fluffy clouds hanging about, which due to the time change contrasted greatly with the rainy night we had on the pacific northwest. The image quality wasn't great, the technology really wasn't new at all, but it was still pretty amazing to me.

Mannovich I think helped reaffirm something I mentioned in one of our discussion sections. He discusses new media as two layers, the human and computer layer. My view of cybernetics at this point is that it is our experience of the world through technology; the sort of hyper-existence technology allows, going above and beyond what we are naturally capable of. Given the increased merger of computer processes in every daily activity, the layers Mannovich mention become prevalent in virtually everything. As artists, to not have some understanding of the computer layer, our work will suffer as it ignores a growing part of our existence.