PowerPoint Presentation Lecture

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computer-supported cooperative work fdm 20c
introduction to digital media lecture
08.05.2003
warren sack / film digital media department /
university of california, santa cruz
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last time

• what is a cyborg?
• a comparison of identity and cyborg politics
• who is donna haraway?
• a video haraway on paper tiger television
• a reading of the cyborg manifesto

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outline

• computer-supported cooperative work
• design games and language games
• architectural design
• physical architecture
• architecture of cyberspace
• maps/diagrams of discussion forums
• architecture performance

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computer-supported cooperative work

• computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is a
  field of research and design.
• researchers in this field investigate how people
  work together in groups and design
  computer-systems and networks to enable or
  facilitate group work.
• CSCW is considered to a part of a larger field
  known as CHI or HCI human-computer interaction
  (HCI) design, evaluation, implementation, and
  study of interactive computing systems for human
  use.
• Practitioners include Lucy Suchman, Terry
  Winograd, Fernando Flores, Pelle Ehn and Morten
  Kyng (as well as several hunder others in
  university and corporate researh laboratories).

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readings

• Winograd and Flores present a methodology for
  CSCW analysis and design. This methodology is
  commonly known as the language/action
  perspective.
• Ehn and Kyng present a methodology of analysis
  and design now commonly known as participatory
  design (abbreviated as PD)
• Suchman led the work practice group at PARC.
  Her methodology is sometimes called a situated
  action perspective. It combines elements of
  ethnomethodology and various prototyping
  techniques.

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methodologies

• language/action
• participatory design
• situated action
• each of these methodologies is different, but
  there exist some interesting overlaps consider,
  for example, ...

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games

• the imitation game
• video games
• design games
• might these all be considered different kinds of
  role playing games?

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wittengenstein a philosophy of games

• ...the term 'language game' is meant to bring
  into prominence the fact that the 'speaking' of
  language is part of an activity, or form of
  life. 23 of Philosophical Investigations (by
  Ludwig Wittgenstein)
• In the practice of the use of language (2) one
  party calls out the words, the other acts on
  them. 7 of PI

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an example language game

• ....Let us imagine a language ...The language is
  meant to serve for communication between a
  builder A and an assistant B. A is building with
  building-stones there are blocks, pillars, slabs
  and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in
  the order in which A needs them. For this purpose
  they use a language consisting of the words
  'block', 'pillar', 'slab', 'beam'. A calls them
  out --B brings the stone which he has learnt to
  bring at such-and-such a call. -- Conceive of
  this as a complete primitive language ...a
  language game 2 of PI

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compare turings imitation game

• The new form of the problem can be described' in
  terms of a game which we call the 'imitation
  game'. It is played with three people, a man (A),
  a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be
  of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room
  apart from the other two. The object of the game
  for the interrogator is to determine which of the
  other two is the man and which is the woman. ...
  from Turing, 1950

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compare winograd and flores conversation for
action
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design as conversation construction

• any organization is constituted as a network of
  recurrent conversations
• conversations are linked in regular patterns of
  triggering and breakdown
• in creating tools we are designing new
  conversations and connections
• computers are a tool for conducting the network
  of conversations
• Winograd and Flores

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similarities with architecture

• For example, The Social Logic of Space (1990)
• by Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson
• This book presents a general theory of how people
  relate to space in built environments.

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a floor plan from hillier and hanson
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the social logic of the floor plan
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a city plan from hillier and hanson
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the social logic of the city plan
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what is the social logic of this classroom?
consider the thread of our discussion how
dependent is the shape of the thread of our
discussion dependent upon (1) the architecture
of the room? (2) the rules of conversation? (3)
the performance of our roles?
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what is the architecture of cyberspace?

• consider the hardware and software that links
  together (or separates) groups of people
• e.g., the bandwidth of a network
• e.g., is it as easy to upload a file as it is to
  download a file?
• e.g., the network protocols (like HTTP or FTP or
  SMTP or NNTP, etc.)
• e.g., with which protocols can one GET and PUT
  files?
• e.g., what are the meanings of GET and PUT in
  different protocols?
• e.g., document and link formats
• e.g., threads i.e., links between email
  messages

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thread forms of online discussions
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thread forms of an online discussion
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the rules of conversation

• what is the language game of your discussion
  forum?

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maps/diagrams of discussion rules
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the role of roles

• who/what is A and who is B?
• for Turings imitation game?
• for Wittengensteins builder/assistant game?
• for Winograd and Flores conversations for
  actions?
• for Ehn and Kyngs design games?

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the role of performance

• rules and architecture are not everything what
  we do, how we perform is equally as important in
  shaping a new medium
• Winston Churchill said, "We shape our buildings
  and afterwards our buildings shape us." quoted in
  Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn, 1994
• ...the world determines what we can do and what
  we do determines our world. Winograd and Flores,
  p. 559
• Communication is not a process of transmitting
  information or symbols, but one of commitment and
  interpretation. (p. 559)

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next time

• machines as machinations
• reading bruno latour