Communing in networked space

We often imagine a network as a channel for moving information which works much like a ball in a pachinko machine a chunk of immutable stuff rolling from place to place but the network society is not just about moving information: as the information channel broadens, it is increasingly about sharing feelings and experiences, about empathizing on a mass scale. Network aesthetics is not high culture, but the experience and quality of sharing everyday experiences.
Mariko Sakai, a former documentary producer and currently a researcher at the Museum of Science and Innovation, describes a shift in the values of a networked society. The types of exhibits most popular at the museum reveal a telling shift: people want tangible, tactile representations of processes that are usually invisible. In the networked society we want understand the system, see what's happening behind the visible, and we are attracted to opportunities to touch and manipulate abstract information in tangible representations.
Kari-Hans Kommonen describes the shift in our communication experience from one that is based on direct interaction with other people to one that is increasingly mediated through a network of software programs. As hardware we use to access the network becomes reprogrammable and able to emulate multiple devices, he believes that the physical devices governing our access to the world of networked information will become increasingly generic. The aesthetic value of these devices will be based on elegant and powerful software that is designed in collaboration with the end user.

Raising Content to Meet Design

Stefan Sagmeister begins by telling us that this is a pet topic of his. His history with this topic began in New Orleans six years ago, at a design conference, where there was the usual "Professional Fluff", as he calls it. Read "Professional Fluff" as the assorted goody bags, paper samples, pamphlets, and other ephemera commonly found wherever designers gather. "Professional Fluff" exists, Sagmeister tells us, because so few designers have strong beliefs.
Sagmeister than leads us through examples of art, design, illustration and film that touched him throughout his life. His examples ranged from childhood fairytales to album covers. These pieces inspired him to list the characteristics that make design able to touch people: New Perspectives, Trigger of Memories, Guts and Passion, Surprise, Virtuosity, Revisitability, and last but not least, Beauty. He gives us a tour of his own work, both before and after he was trying to touch people. His recent work includes the campaign for the Move On organization, and a charming piece to help his friend meet women in NYC. (Apparently, it was successful.) Sagmeister concludes by noting that touching people with design is not formulaic, that in the end it must come from the heart. (NR)

Writer:Kosuke Ikehata/Norimitsu Korekata/Junko Sakamoto/Nobuko Shimuta/Naoko Hasegawa/Osamu Hisanaga/Sakurako Muto/Naho Yoshioka/Maggie Hohle/Brian Palmer, Jacque Lange(ICOGRADA)/Nicole Rechia/Trysh Wahlig/Gitte Waldman/Robert Zolna
Photographer:Yoshimitsu Asai/Yasuhiko Katsuta/Fumihiko Mizutani