as we may think

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introduction as we may think organize fdm
20c introduction to digital media lecture
01.04.2004
warren sack / film digital media department /
university of california, santa cruz
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outline

• waiting list
• course objectives
• syllabus and course requirements
• can we take your picture?
• two key points for the course
• discussion what are the politics of technology?
• activities social networks (human) boolean
  circuits
• some questions about todays reading, bushs
  essay as we may think

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waiting list

• principles of ordering
• transfers have preference over non-transfers
• majors have preference over non-majors
• juniors have preference over sophomores
• sophomores have preference over frosh
• those who came the first day of class have
  preference over those who did not
• within categories, people have been randomly
  assigned a position
• important

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waiting list

• waiting list (currently space for top 7)
• Jose Hernandez
• Linda Gie
• Nuri Amanatullah
• Roxanne Pedro
• Samuel Chase
• James Burkart
• Matt McKenna

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waiting list

• waiting list
• 8. Kelley Lutter
• 9. Drew Little
• 10. Colin Reeves-Fortney
• 11. Frank Latt
• 12. Pauline Sales
• 13. Janae Patino
• 14. Dan Kendall
• 15. Kevin Simpson
• 16. Stephen Conway
• 17. David Pene
• 18. David Merino
• 19. Michael Osorio

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waiting list

• waiting list
• 20. Karina Sainz
• 21. Marc Moorer
• 22. Jill Narciso
• 23. Scott Miyamoto
• 24. Kassandra Krause
• 25. Tyler Parkford
• 26. Thomas Mazawa
• 27. John Chou
• 28. Benjamin Manoochehr
• 29. Manfred Lee
• 30. Jonathan Freeman
• 31. Wendy Kordesch

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waiting list

• waiting list
• 32. Sherman Ng
• 33. Andrew Drinnan
• 34. Nicole Kunzik
• 35. Matthew Hermosillo
• 36. Caitlin Gilroy
• 37. Rebecca Reiner
• 38. Sarah McCaig
• 39. Joanna Leung
• 40. Victor John Irwin
• 41. Colin McNany
• 42. Hassan Alyassin
• 43. Brian Whitney

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waiting list

• waiting list
• 44. Ngoc Nguyen
• 45. Susan Yong-Tim
• 46. Noelle Alyassini
• 47. Kerby Olsen
• 48. Daniel Ebrahemi
• 49. Stephen Nesbitt
• 50. Andrew Borrelli
• 51. Igor Zingerman
• 52. Cynthia Sarah Singh

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two key points

• When technologies connect or separate people,
  they become media.
• Technologies embody social, political, cultural,
  economic and philosophical ideas and
  relationships.

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discussion questions

• What are the politics of cars?
• Is a car a medium?

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two things to try in class

• social clustering / social networks
• human boolean circuits

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todays reading

• Who was Vannevar Bush?
• MIT professor, inventor of "differential
  analyzer," science advisor to President
  Roosevelt, leader of the Manhattan Project,
  founder of NSF
• Who was Emanuel Goldberg?
• a chemist, inventor, and industrialist (Zeiss
  Ikon in Dresden, Germany) who contributed to
  almost all aspects of imaging technology in the
  first half of the twentieth century photographic
  sensitometry, reprographics, standardized film
  speeds, color printing (moirC) effect), aerial
  photography, extreme microphotography
  (microdots), optics, camera design (the Contax),
  the first hand-held movie camera, and early
  television technology.

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what is a microfilm selector?

• photoelectric microfilm selector is an electronic
  retrieval technology pioneered by Emanuel Goldberg

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what is the memex?

• The Memex was based on Bush's work during
  1938-1940 developing an improved photoelectric
  microfilm selector.

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questions about as we may think

• what is bush's stated motivation? (see page 37)
• what problem is bush trying to solve? (see page
  38)
• what role do economical considerations play in
  bush's thinking? (see what he has to say about
  leibnitz and see page 43 on the telephone system)
• who sponsors this work?

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questions about as we may think

• who are the key people/types of people bush
  writes about?
• scientists (see page 42)
• men
• girls (see pages 40 43
• secretaries/calculators

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questions about as we may think

• what is thinking and what types of thinking are
  possible according to bush? (see pages 43, 44 and
  45)
• what is creative thought?
• what is intuitive judgement? (page 42)
• what role does arithmetic and logic play? (cf.,
  geogre boole's laws of thought)
• what is selection?
• what is repetitive thought? question 6 what
  is the "essential feature of the memex"? (page
  45 and compare to david hume's philosophy)
  question 7 is the www of today the same
  thing as what bush dreamed of?

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questions about as we may think

• what is the "essential feature of the memex"?
  (page 45 and compare to david hume's philosophy)
• is the www of today the same thing as what bush
  dreamed of?

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next time hypertext

• ted nelson
• douglas engelbart
• hypertext as art / art as hypertext