who was also teaching at University of Utah) was already using 3D graphics for flight simulators –
essentially pioneering the type of new media that can be called “navigable 3D virtual space.”
xx
The reason I decided to focus on Kay is his theoretical formulations that place computers in relation to
other media and media history. While Vannevar Bush, J.C. Lindlicker and Douglas Englebart were primary
concerned with augmentation of intellectual and in particular scientific work, Kay was equally interested
in computers as “a medium of expression through drawing, painting, animating pictures, and composing
and generating music.”
xxi
Therefore if we really want to understand how and why computers were
redefined as a cultural media, and how the new computational media is different from earlier physical
media, I think that Kay provides us with the best perspective. At the end of the 1977 article that served
as the basis for our discussion, he and Goldberg summarize their arguments in the phrase, which in my
view is a best formulation we have so far of what computational media is artistically and culturally. They
call computer “a metamedium” whose content is “a wide range of already-existing and not-yet-invented
media.” In another article published in 1984 Kay unfolds this definition. As a way of conclusion, I would
like to quote this longer definition which is as accurate and inspiring today as it was when Kay wrote it
more than twenty years ago:
It [a computer] is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including
media that cannot exist physically. It is not a tool, though it can act like many tools. It is the first
metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before
encountered and as yet barely investigated.
xxii
i
Kay has expressed his ideas in a few articles and a large number of interviews and public lectures. The following have
been my main primary sources: Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, Personal Dynamic Media, IEEE Computer. Vol. 10 No. 3
(March), 1977; my quotes are from the reprint of this article in New Media Reader, eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick
Montfort (The MIT Press, 2003); Alan Kay, “The Early History of Smalltalk, ” (HOPL-II/4/93/MA, 1993); Alan Kay, “A
Personal Computer for Children of All Ages,” Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, Boston, August 1972; Alan
Kay, Doing with Images Makes Symbols (University Video Communications, 1987), videotape (available at
www.archive.org); Alan Kay, Alan Kay, “User Interface: A Personal View,” p. 193. in The Art of Human-Computer
Interface Design, 191-207. Ed. Brenda Laurel. Reading, Mass,” Addison-Wesley, 1990.; David Canfield Smith at al.,
“Designing the Star user Interface,” Byte, issue 4 (1982).
ii
Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, “Personal Dynamic Media,” in New Media Reader, Eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick
Montfort (The MIT Press, 2003), 399.
iii
Ibid., 393. The emphasis in this and all following quotes from this article in mine – L.M.
iv
Ibid., 394.
v
This elevation of the techniques of particular media to a status of general interface conventions can be understood as
the further unfolding of the principles developed at PARC in the 1970s. Firstly, the PARC team specifically wanted to
have a unified interface for all new applications. Secondly, they developed the idea of “universal commands” such as
“move,” “copy,” and “delete.” As described by the designers of Xerox Star personal computer released in 1981, “MOVE
is the most powerful command in the system. It is used during text editing to rearrange letters in a word, words in a
sentence, sentences in a paragraph, and paragraphs in a document. It is used during graphics editing to move picture
elements, such as lines and rectangles, around in an illustration. It is used during formula editing to move
mathematical structures, such as summations and integrals, around in an equation.” David Canfield Smith et al.,
“Designing the Star User Interface,” Byte, issue 4/1982, pp. 242-282.
vi
Ibid., 399.
vii
Ibid., 395. Emphasis mine – L.M.
viii
Alan Kay, “User Interface: A Personal View,” p. 199.
ix
Alan Kay, Doing with Images Makes Symbols (University Video Communications, 1987), videotaped lecture (available
at
www.archive.org).
x
Alan Kay, “User Interface: A Personal View,” 192-193.
xi
Aan Kay, “User Interface: A Personal View,” p. 200.
xii
Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Monford, Introduction to Tim Berners-Lee et al., “The World-Wide Web” (1994),
reprinted in New Media Reader.
xiii
Ibid., 394.
xiv
Ibid., 393.
xv
Alan Kay, “User Interface: A Personal View,” p. 193. in The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, 191-207. Ed.
Brenda Laurel. Reading, Mass, Addison-Wesley, 1990. The emphasis is in the original.
Art in the Age of Technological Seduction, media-N, Fall 2006, v.02, n.03
www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n03
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