Interrelated modes
Briefly the requirement
appears to be that users should be offered the possibility of:
The main purpose
of this facility is to enable users to "hang" significant data elements onto
memorable artistic representations which can be massaged and augmented over time to carry
higher levels of ordered complexity. Features could be developed to enhance the ability of the
user to reflect selected relational links between data elements into the features of the artistic
representation. The software itself might be used to offer options to the user for "hanging"
a
range of data elements (files, programmes, relationships, images, etc) on an aesthetically
dimensioned display.
Open environment
The package envisaged
is not intended as a closed or over- defined environment. Rather it is a
tool that grows and adapts according to the development of the user's artistic and conceptual
skills over the years. In a sense the artistic representations are selected and crafted by the user
into a personalized knowledge display in order to embody the full range of issues with which he
is dealing. Aesthetic priorities would be used to configure together apparently incommensurable
insights, where any conventional classification would be unable to provide such integration.
Clearly those with
less artistic competence may draw on libraries of complex artistic figures (or
have them specially crafted by specialists). These may be used as such or modified at will (as in
many standard packages). Information may however be "fed" into (or onto) them by the user
(possibly with the assistance of a consultant specialist -- a future role in the knowledge ordering
sciences).
Over time the user
would effectively be equipped with a highly personalized interface to the
complex of data elements with which he deals -- effectively a personal "insight mirror". Personal
preferences and challenges would govern whether this interface, like the decoration of a room
or house, changed frequently or seldom. The package would not confine the user to a single
representation. The same data might be hung onto one or more alternate artistic
representations, each with their own advantages.
Conceptual keystones
Many documents
of fundamental importance to patterns of collaboration within societies,
organizations and groups (or even to an individual's creative processes) are based on sets of
principles, values, qualities, policies, initiatives or other points (eg declarations, charters,
action plans). These are usually listed out as a numbered sequence, possibly with nested sub-
points. The conventional method of producing such documents favours (and reinforces) linear
thinking at a time when non-linear, contextually- oriented approaches are often believed to be
more appropriate to ensure higher levels of integration amongst the elements of the set.
The software required
would aim to facilitate the ability to envisage viable configurations of
functions based on structures more complex than those reinforced by hierarchical organization
charts and the like. It responds to the need for potential collaborators to design "conceptual
keystones" essential to the coherence and viability of unforeseen coalition possibilities in
difficult situations of governance. This contrasts with the functions of hypertext which in no way
aspires to offering integrative insights into the map of hypertext relations, even if this can be
displayed.
The assumption
made is that aesthetic representations may prove to have considerable
advantages over conventional approaches to organization of knowledge in offering
understanding of such keystones. But the relationship to such conventional representations may
be preserved. New significance might even be given to the notion of an "artifact", without
needing to coin an ugly neologism such as "artyfact".
Conceptual scaffolding
The key feature
sought from this package might be described by phrases such as "conceptual
scaffolding" and "insight capture". The progressively refined artistic representation
would serve
as a form of scaffolding for an evolving pattern of insight. The artistic dimensions provide a form
of order through many patterns of associations which may be of a most tentative and even
playful quality. Understanding and creativity are supported and challenged by the relation
between the representation and the data held by it.
As with the construction
of any building, there is a basic need for "scaffolding" to hold the
conceptual and organizational elements in place, especially during the early phases of
"imaginative, interdisciplinary" interconnection. It may be argued that it is the lack
of this
scaffolding feature which prevents many potentially useful initiatives from "getting off the
ground" -- and staying up. And the more complex the psych-social structure, and the more
communication space it spans, the greater the need for more complex scaffolding.
A typical function
of scaffolding in a conference is to provide a framework within which
complementary perspectives can be articulated, especially when there is a major tension
between them. For example, when Concept A is formulated, the scaffolding holds a space for
Concept B to counter-balance it. Such scaffolding is even more essential when more than two
concepts have to be held in balance. As with buildings, the scaffolding provides a protection
against disruptive forces in the conference process. A typical disruptive force in a
contemporary conference might focus narrowly on "industry is exploitative", when the larger
issue is to provide a sustainable framework in which to balance the exploitative characteristics
of industry against the socio- economic benefits that it provides in the light of environmental
constraints. The more complex the balance, the more vulnerable is the conference to disruptive
forces.
The challenge
is how to allow different category structures, and the groups advocating
them, to mesh before their incompatibilities tear each other apart. This is a major issue
when dealing with the strong, creative, and often idiosyncratic, personalities (and groups)
whose collaboration is ideally required. It is seen in its most dramatic form in the Middle East
peace process and in negotiations among the warring parties in Bosnia. The apparently
disproportionate importance attached to "table layout" in any negotiation procedure is a
physical indication of the nature of the conceptual challenge.
Failure to respond
to this issue leads to project outputs whose only real integrative feature is the
physical binding of a document containing unrelateable "integrative" contributions -- however
skilfully worded the introduction may be (In German: Buchbindersynthese!).
The scaffolding
required not only has implications for elaboration of new structures. It also
supports the learning processes through which others subsequently come to grasp the scope
of such structures as viable alternatives to the simpler conventional patterns that have proven so
inadequate to the challenges of the times.
Providing means
for higher and subtler degrees of order to be carried by aesthetically organized
displays, allows otherwise incommensurable positions in conferences to be related in ways
which the present hierarchical and legalistical approaches to order render impossible. This is
also true for any emergent agreements and communication protocols. Ironically this recalls
some of the underlying functions of heraldic devices and seals that still carry significance in
secret societies.
Whether for a coalition
of forces or for an individual, the computer-held aesthetic display could
become a fundamental asset as intellectual property. It is potentially of greater value than
patents or copyright because it is effectively the generative aesthetic (or template) that holds the
pattern of insights through which products of lower order are created.
Where different
coalitions represent their respective ordering through contrasting aesthetic
displays, many opportunities then attach to the significance of the transformational pathways
between them (eg through morphing). This is of special relevance to any negotiation process.
Users
A package of this
kind would be most attractive to those who have a broad range of
interrelated interests. Typically it would respond to the needs of those who are ill-served by
normal filing systems and databases - - and find themselves constantly striving for some more
significant pattern to order the complexity with which they are dealing. It would offer few
advantages to those whose tasks are already well- defined by sets of files and conventional
relational databases.
From an "arts"
perspective the package would be most appreciated by those experimenting
with new forms with which they seek to challenge conventional approaches to organization. It
would provide an arena or bridge that would explicitly establish the relevance of the arts to the
organization and comprehension of knowledge. But clearly it would be of very limited interest
to those who are well- satisfied by more conventional software packages for artists. However it
would incidentally allow those more concerned with providing commentary on details of
specific works of art (eg symbolism) to attach text comments to any portions of a picture for
later user interrogation.
Diversity of user preferences
It should not be
expected that users would in general favour one art form over another. For the
package to be of value it would have to respond to the needs of users with quite different
artistic tastes -- including individuals who might alternate between different forms. Five
extremes might be considered as examples:
-
(a) Free form:
Here the user would employ an idiosyncratically composed
combination of shapes and colours (typical of any novice user of drawing packages).
Relatively little would be invested in a particular figure, and frequent changes and
adjustments would be expected in order to contain the range of data elements. As with
maps of a fantasy land, features would be added or eliminated as required. Emphasis is
placed on the familiarity the user acquires from having made it himself.
- (b) Classic designs: Here the user
would typically make use of a well-known, or
favourite, painting as a template onto which to hang the data elements. Existing
software tools (including "morphing") could be applied to enable the user to transform
the image in different ways, but with the expectation that the relationships between the
attached data elements would be maintained through the transformation.
- (c) Geometric symmetry: Here the
user would select from a library of geometric
forms in two (polygons), three (polyhedra), or more dimensions. A form of adequate
complexity would be offered and/or chosen as a function of the number of data
elements to be held in relationship. Typically these would be associated with differently
coloured points, lines, areas, possibly with particular attention to symmetry features
(great circles, poles, etc). Advantage might be taken of the inter- transformability of
symmetric polyhedra to explore zooming between different levels of complexity, with
the data clustered more coarsely or more finely according to level of complexity (on the
associated polyhedron).
- (d) Rotatable spherical surface:
For example, data might be distributed over the
surface of a sphere articulated into (coloured) zones by the projection of a symmetric
polyhedron onto it. The concept is very simple. The globe is cut up into segments by
lines (possibly based on regularly polyhedral projections onto the sphere). The user
then simply links lines, intersections or areas to directories or files, possibly zooming
into parts of the surface to get more structural detail onto which to hang such links.
Clicking onto any part of the surface then brings up file name and/or content. The
advantage of this approach is that the user is responsible for the "geography" of the
surface and can redesign it according to need or fantasy -- even using freehand islands
and continents. The globe then holds the full range of the user's concerns. The user is
free to introduce as many integrative and mnemonic dimensions as seem appropriate.
This seems very do-able and way ahead of the way users are all obliged to structure
our many areas of interest in computer files. Hierarchical sets of directories and sub -
directories become severely counter-productive after a certain point. The user can
rotate the sphere, zooming between alternate polyhedral projections, to focus in on the
location of details. The use of such a device can perhaps be understood as "pigeon-
holes" distributed in a non- linear but organized fashion over the surface of sphere.
Each feature offers the ability to store data, but the modifiable non-linear geometry of
the whole offers new ways to contextualize and understand the relationship between
such data elements. Known systemic feedback loops might for example be associated
with pathways around the surface.
- (e) Music: The above cases all rely
on essentially static forms. It is probable that some
forms of complexity can only be effectively understood through a dynamic relationship
between artistic forms subject to cyclic transformation over time. In this sense music
introduces a fourth, and possibly fifth, dimension -- whilst maintaining the
comprehensibility of the whole.
Related frames of reference
The envisaged package
may be seen as combining initiatives already explored and justified in
other contexts:
-
(a) Computer-aided
design (CAD): There is much experience with CAD packages
which have many features of interest to this new initiative. However CAD packages
treat artistic features as a consequence of design rather than as essential to the
comprehension of the whole. Although skilled at manipulating complex forms and
linking them to databases (on materials, suppliers, etc), complexity is essentially
handled by machine rather than calling for new approaches to comprehension.
- (b) Spatial metaphors in computer environments:
This is a central concern to some
features of software development and interface design as is illustrated by a recent
ACM-ECHT workshop on spatial metaphors for information systems (Edinburgh,
1994).
- (c) Multi-media: It is unnecessary
to make detailed comments on the way in which
these techniques are now developing rapidly, or on the arguments made for them. It is
however necessary to point out that the approach advocated here emphasizes
"embedding" one form of representation within another rather than relying on the
association or juxtaposition of text with relevant illustrations (or sound) as in multi-
media. Indeed the "illustration" selected by a user in this project may have absolutely no
subtantive relationship to the content that it holds. Although its underlying pattern may
be fundamental, as a metaphor, to any higher conceptual integration of the elements so
related.
- (d) "Memory palaces":
There is a long tradition of mnemonic aids (Luria, Spence,
Yates). The mnemonic challenge has been obscured in recent decades because of
increasing reliance on paper and computer environments. The challenge of holding
configurations of information in memory, as a platform for higher orders of creativity,
nevertheless remains where the linear context needs to be transcended. Embedding
information onto memorable surfaces is an old skill which has been most recently
studied in relation to those with unusual memory and calculating skills (notably idiot
savants).
- (e) Symmetry: Major cross-disciplinary
studies have shown symmetry to be both
ubiquitous and fundamental to organization in many areas. Work on this topic has not
yet been related through computers to that of the organization of knowledge.
- (f) Computer games: Considerable
resources are currently invested in sophisticated
computer games - - far more than in any innovative use of computers for knowledge
organization. Many of these games endeavour to offer the exploration of complex,
multi- plane, realities that require the solution of challenging conceptual and symbolic
puzzles. The newer ones increasingly place considerable emphasis on artistic quality (eg
Myst). A common feature is the ability of the user to "interrogate" parts of any image
(symbols, drawers, etc) for clues enabling the user to then continue his exploration. The
interrogation may result in the display of text or symbols. The architecture may be
decorated so as to offer clues as to where such interrogation may be fruitfully made.
- (g) Virtual reality environments:
Although of immediate relevance to standalone-PC
and Internet environments, it is clear that a package of this kind is equally relevant to
virtual reality environments. Indeed it is the special combination of artistic and database
information that could make such a package of unique importance in opening up new
virtual reality applications -- for a technology that is more likely to be constrained by
lack of applications than other constraints.
The similarity to virtual reality applications under development may be seen
from a
recent UK innovation which converts engineering drawings of oil rigs into a walk-
through virtual reality environment. At any point in the walk-through, portions of the
architectural display may be interrogated to bring up technical information.
But again the emphasis in the required package is on the ability to "walk
through"
conceptual environments whose complexity is such that it can only be approximated by
creative visualization using the full riches of the arts. This is way beyond the scope of
mechanistic configurations of piping -- and yet as a piece of "art" such a configuration
could indeed serve to "carry" much knowledge that might be quite unrelated to the
pipework.
Range of applications
The major emphasis
in each of the following cases is to enable the user to articulate a complex
pattern whilst maintaining a sense of coherence and ensuring a configuration of functional
checks and balances.
1. Constraints
