So I went to the work in progress show of the RCA’s Design Interactions course on Tuesday. There was nothing to interact with.

It was with a certain amount of bewilderment and disappointment that I left the show. I’ve had my eye on the course for a few years as somewhere that has repeatedly produced exceptional work. From Philip Worthington’s Shadow Monsters to Louise Klinker’s Sketch-A-Move. It appeared to be a place that provided a unique environment in which ideas could blossom. The output was varied and interesting, from high-concept works to extremely well executed tactile toys, and it was a course that I’d considered applying to over the next couple of years, a inclination that was reinforced after reading Bill Moggridge’s Designing Interactions book which contains interviews with a number of their alumni.

I’m aware that the course has changed over the past few years but the extent of this change is quite staggering. There is an overwhelming bias toward the highly conceptual aspect of interaction design, to the extent that it falls outside of what I consider interaction design to be and far more within the realms of art. The work on show was more concerned with the impact of biotechnology on society than on the craft of design and as I mentioned above there was nothing there to actually interact with. For me the interaction is something that should be celebrated, and triumphed on a course such as this - the magic that happens when you are able to act upon an object or service and have it react in a meaningful way. At this show I couldnt help but feel that interaction was considered a dirty word and that execution is irrelevant or uninteresting.

For me, a great design in any field comes when three core components are in tune. The first is a thorough understanding of the problem or area that your design is going to tackle. The second is great idea or concept that is able to elegantly address the requirements. The third is a mastery of the form or the craft in order to produce something that is possible, works well and fulfills the ambitions of the idea entirely. From the output of the show it appears that parts one and three have been jettisoned, and part two is being cultivated entirely independently of the others.

Perhaps I’m biased in that my interests lie much more with the core mechanics of interaction, tactile sensation and more tangible forms of design, but from the conversations I heard at the show, I know I’m not the only one disappointed in this change.

Finally an interesting game on the PSP. Really tasty and original puzzle mechanic - flattening the 3D scene into a 2D orthographic view, which then behaves as if its a standard 2D platformer. Pull out of the view and your location will have changed to the corresponding platform within the 3D scene.

I’m currently reading “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out” by the astounding Richard Feynman. The opening page has a wonderful quote from him, regarding the perception of men of science by solely right-hemisphere dwellers.

I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree, I think. And he says - “you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.” And I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to all other people and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is; but I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time I see much more about the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean its not just a beauty at this dimension of one centimeter, there is also a beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure. Also the processes, the fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting - it means the insects can see the color. It adds a question: Does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which shows that a science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it subtracts.

This draws parallels with a frequent perception of those that create software and games (particularly programmers) as very dry, technical people lacking wonder. For me, I feel the same way as Dr. Feynman, that the study of certain aspects of phenomena that we try to reproduce (whether its the way that light interacts with our environment, or the emergent behavior of ants and other creatures) provides you with an enhanced appreciation of the world around us. In addition it facilitates taking it to the next step, allowing you to apply this understanding of the building blocks of a feature or phenomenon that you have studied to create something entirely new, something alive that you can touch and interact with. Perhaps this applies less to those making hugely abstract software such as spreadsheets, but when you are trying to simulate or create dynamic situations or scenes, or prepare interactive challenges or games, the joy of creation is a wonderful feeling.

I think I may have approached some sort of upper limit on the amount of technology-related material that I’m capable of intaking in a short amount of time. After leaving Sony, I thought that it might be a good idea to brush up on a number of subjects that would be relevant to a path in freelancing/consulting. Somehow this has turned into a mild obsession about wanting to know everything about anything even related to any subject that could be described using the word “digital”, and has now left me mildly sick at the sight of many subjects that were previously of interest. Its led me to the conclusion that gorging on thousands of vacuous blog posts in an attempt to stay entirely on top of new developments may perhaps not be the most constructive way of spending my time.

Many people start their new year with some sort of health-drive or an attempt to consume less food. My belated new years resolution is to attempt to consume less noise. I think I’m going to have to remove some of those pointless and tedious blogs that have crept on my google reader (looking at you engadget and aeropause), and restrict my intake to information-rich, well written blogs. I also plan to spend more time focusing on materials that I genuinely am interested in, particularly books (in a vague attempt to curb the never-ending-surf-tangent).