Response: Stephen Wilson, Chapter 7.4 in Information Arts

Initially, the text seems like a mélange of McLuhan, Marx and Baudrillard.  The computer is described as a device whose history cannot be denied, as it is an integral part of this medium.  It limits imagination because of the values society has attached to it. The type of interaction experienced with most of these technological devices is that of seclusion and "alienation". This resembles capitalist ideals of a productive environment. It is suggested that artists are to be the ultimate saviours of this stagnant situation.  The situations of interactivity between human and machine must be intuitive. That is to say they must resemble physical and natural situations, which our species innately understands.

Many artists use new types of "adaptors" to link bits and bytes with reality. These devices translate the natural into information, which computers can digest. I have created a sensor-based project, which incorporated such devices. The user was encouraged to approach a box equipped with proximity sensor. A light would then illuminate a ball, which had integrated galvanic skin response sensors as well as a tilt sensor. The work expressed the user’s modes of consciousness through clips and text on a screen.  These modes were modelled after Timothy Leary‘s 8 circuits.  The challenge proposed in this text is similar: To create an immersive environment where the lines between computer calculations and natural occurrences are unperceivable by the participant. This is where the greatest difficulty lies. Harnessing the precise algorithms of computers to generate "moderately random" patterns. It is at this point that computers become truly integrated within our lives. 
 
Many artists who confront the subject of information technology discover that the latter only promotes well-organized structures. This inherent binary definition disregards various natural discrepancies. It is natural for a computer to support only two vastly differing values (namely true of false). Artists strive to incorporate the human aspect along with all the anomalies that incur. This becomes an incorporation of the body in machine.
 
Other artists believe that computers and technology are a reflexion of our selves. We use these machines to explain our behaviours, predict them and control them.  Think of the immense computation requirements of a successful advertising campaign. Humans also turn to technology to analyse our composition. This is simply the progress of science. Our quest to find ourselves also explains occurrences like the Facebook phenomenon. This application is truly a simulation, which creates the perfect illusion of interactivity. Users can practice social interaction without fearing harm from the "real" world.
 
Should artists strive to create a successful simulation of the natural? This is the pinnacle of technological interactivity. A dimension where it is difficult or impossible to distinguish between reality and the created world. This would become a creation without interruptions like a mouse. A world with precise, yet natural, control of nature and time. Will we be watching reality or simply shadows on the cave wall?

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