“INTERFACES OF THE REAL”: SEMANTIC DISCOURSE OF OBJECT AND

CONSUMPTION IN INTERACTIVE PRODUCT DESIGN 1

R. Ateş GÜRŞİMŞEK
Haliç University (Res. Asst.), İstanbul-Turkey
İstanbul Technical University (Msc. Student), İstanbul-Turkey
e-mail: agursimsek@gmail.com

Abstract

Semantic investigations of the contemporary product forms (which are generally mentioned as the outcomes of
computerized culture), evolution of design processes with reference to these new forms, and the reflections of
these paradigms on the cultural structure create promising expansions for the researcher as emerging fields of
design research. The development of information technologies and social interaction apparatuses have been a
strong motive behind the formation of modern consumer culture, since information itself has become a new
consumption utility. Thus, the structural and semantic shift from physical object to representation, from product-
systems to information architecture and from user (consumer) to co-author has also reallocated the role of
designer.

This article explores the major promises and contributions of interactive new media applications to design
research field by focusing on three key concepts of design: product, designer and user - the recent connotations
of which require the involvement of metaphorical and representational associations with the conventional social
structure. However, these connotations may also refer to diverse signifiers within this original context in order to
form a genuine language of new media. It is intended to figure out the evolutionary patterns of the alteration in
their semantic conditions; by investigating the distinguishing features of computerized media and virtual object-
systems, identifying their involvement in the product design field and outlining the consequences of this
identification on socially structured system of values.

Keywords: Product Design, New Media, Interaction Design, Object, Product, Consumption, User,
Representation, Semantics

Introduction

Virtual spaces, digital binary-coded objects and interactive media applications became
increasingly popular topics of discussion within popular culture, and of academic discourse
within various fields of research – including visual culture, design and media studies, and so
on. Since each field discusses the subject matter from different (and subjective) points of
view, it is evident that a solid academic discourse on interactive products and mediums should
also be argued from a designer perspective; mainly because the social comprehensions and
developing definitions of contemporary product forms would re-structure the product design
profession, as well.

The basis of these conceptual changes in the structure and the definition of design profession
may be investigated through a range of focal points; through the essence of the objects of
study or the method by which users interact with them as well as the involvement of these
new paradigms to design process itself.

1 EAD07: 7th International Design Conference (European Academy of Design and Izmir University of Economics, April
2007, Izmir-Turkey)
 Digital technology has contributed to the emergence of new roles for the designer
according to the nature of his interaction with the media. The designer today interacts
with, controls and moderates generative and performative processes and mechanisms.
Information has become a ‘new material’ for the designer. (Oxman, 2005: 242)

As Oxman discusses how digital technology has affected the design process and the materials
that are employed by the designer, it is also meaningful to propose another dimension of
discourse – an expanded view that involves the outcomes of the design process (the products)
and the consumption sequence of these outcomes by the users through similar technologies
but different tools. It is critical to investigate the life-cycle of interactive products with a
broader perspective - including different steps of design, production, reproduction and
consumption- mainly because the roles of conjectural participants –designer, author, producer,
user, consumer, etc. - and their definitions may coincide or overlap during the whole process.
In this text, the intricate nature of contemporary object-consumption cycle will be explored by
investigating the essential features of digital objects and virtual environments; their
connotative resemblances and distinctions from our existing codes of representation and the
methods by which we interact with them.

“New Media” and “New Media Object”

A new medium is new only until it is established and no longer new; but since any
usage of a medium is based upon communicative conventions, a new medium is
somewhat of a contradiction. By defining the medium as “new”, we acknowledge the
transitory stage of integration of our current analysis, limited though this may be by its
temporal frame. (Brody, 1999: 135)

Studying new media and the new object requires focusing not on a specific time period or a
set of technological developments but considering the social motives and conventions of its
evolutionary pattern; mainly because a significant amount of the definitions and connotations
are borrowed (or evolved) from the cumulative library of ontological classification. The most
noticeable and authentic contribution of contemporary “new media” would be proposing new
conceptual features (such as interactivity, customization, ambient intelligence, etc.) and
environments to enhance user-product interaction through various computerized media
(Software interfaces, Cyberspace, Virtual Reality, etc).

Manovich (2001: 20) offers a rather reasonable description for New Media and New Media
Objects as: ‘Translation of existing media sources – including graphics, moving images,
sounds shapes, spaces and texts – into numerical data accessible by computers’. What
Manovich aims to emphasize in this brief description would help us to formulate a semantic
discourse on the nature and background of digital objects and virtual environments as the
outcomes of a cumulative genealogy. However, considering how rapidly the information
technologies develop and spread worldwide, the need for an updated and expanded
description persists to exist constantly. First of all, it would now be considered as a limited
explanation to mention New Media only as a translation of existing sources, since a new
cultural layer of global information networks seems to be established and it is capable of
producing its own products and paradigm sets without solid linkages to material signifiers.
This argument should not be interpreted as “new media objects do not have referential links to
already existing systems” but should assist us to comprehend this new layer of existence as an
internally consistent and coherent system of production, interaction and consumption. New
media products are now capable of being produced by the means and tools of new media
appliances; by using the methods and interaction styles that are employed by the system; and
within this very system in which all these elements exist separately. “What you do in your
computer stays in the computer!” seems to be a quite reasonable expression for an average IT
user. Gürşimşek (2006: 90) proposes an updated description with reference to Manovich’s as
‘Creation, storage, classification, accessibility, manipulation and distribution of binary-coded
media objects through pre-programmed algorithms’ to include further features and processes
of contemporary New Media.

Considering the improvement of cyberspace (and information networks), computerized new

media applications and the digital object as contemporary stages of modern ontological
classification, we may attempt to examine the essential features and characteristics of these
conceptual fields with regard to their evolutionary patterns and connotative values that are
employed during the process. Therefore, I will focus on the methods of reproducing and/or
representing the virtual objects; interaction styles and roles of participants in interactive
product systems; and social reflections of these phenomena on conventional design,
production and consumption theories to understand the patterns of progression in their
semantic conditions.

Principles of New Media

As we have an updated description of what new media is with reference to Manovich’s

statements, an investigation of the essential principles and characteristics of his New Media
debate is necessary to build a solid discourse on. As outlined in Gürşimşek (2006: 91), these
principles are stated in Manovich (2001: 27-49) as following:

• Numerical Representation: new media is fed by binary coded visual information,

whether these materials are created inside the media system or converted from analog
media. By numerical representation, new media objects become programmable. Input
is sampled and quantified to transform the data to a comprehendible format by the
medium.
• Modularity: This is referred as the fractal structure of new media object. Unlike the
modularity in the product design, this modularity may contain contextually irrelevant
pieces of objects to create a meaningful whole because all elements may still remain
their individual identities. These elements are also composed of digital objects (pixels,
polygons, NURBS, etc) so the context may change although the object keeps its
originality.
• Automation: This principle mainly aims to reduce the need for constant human
control over interfaces. This is a low-level automation compared to Artificial
Intelligence concept. Generation of responses in computer games according to certain
behaviors of players may be considered as an example to automation of HCI over the
software.
• Variability: This principle is mainly associated by the first two and is also thought to
correspond with the “postindustrial logic of production on demand and just in time
delivery” The concept of variability also comes with “customization”, which defines
the logic of our post-industrial society. Customized interfaces or smart HCI modules
should not be thought separately from the expectations of modern consumers. This
may provide key clues about how new media and popular culture are associated, and
how one drives the other mutually.
 • Transcoding : The computer has to represent the information in its own specific way
and the user can also access to the material in this specific method. All cultural data
must be “computerized” to be in the field of new media.

In the light of these statements on the nature and structure of new media, the formation of a
comprehensive discourse on object-consumption relationship in this context becomes more
feasible. What is noticeable in Manovich’s theory is that the new media is a structurally
autonomous system which has its own functional associations and methods to create entities.
However, it will also be discussed in the next chapter that a requirement for references to
existing functional associations and metaphorical relations still maintains to exist. Therefore,
an extensive design research study should investigate the genealogy of new media with
reference to both conventional ontological classification and its promising new paradigms.

Visualization of the Virtual Object

Even though we mentioned the “new object” as an original and exclusive type of existence, it
would be unreasonable to claim that it has no reference to previous conventional models
whatsoever. Within a broader perspective, it is evident that the interaction between the subject
and object is a mutual progress. While the subject (the user, spectator) monitors or interacts
with the object (the product, system, world) through a medium (sense, screen, interface), the
object reveals itself as an image that is appropriate to the conventions of the specified
medium. The quality of the image affects the perception and consequently improves
(modifies) the expectations of the subject; thus results in a continuous processing of the
medium which is based on upgrading the means of preceding mediums.

Figure 1
The cumulative development in the formation of an authentic language for the new media is
frequently nourished by re-interpretation or adaptation of the existing conventions to the new
environment. This may be mentioned as one of the major reasons of why we still have the
symbols of “My Computer” on our “Desktop” in MS Windows©, or how we are using
(almost) identical versions of usual VCRs to launch digital media documents. Given that the
representations of material objects are still employed in contemporary digital media, we can
argue that the need for formal resemblances and references are essential for the users of the
new medium to metaphorize this new existence and recognize it as a new cultural layer. Only
after this new paradigm is socially comprehended, its genuine language becomes the primary
motive why ‘our memory technologies tend to define the very way we metaphorize our lives’
as Brody (1999: 139) states.

The roots of this representational phase in the development of a new language may be
observed not only through objects but also through spaces and environments within New
Media. Mitchell (1999: 116) focuses on the setting and conditioning of the Cyberspace
locations in the earlier versions of information networks and points out how they were
arranged to resemble the primitive urban settlements. It is noticeable that the virtual locations
are categorized and identified according to their themes or contents within the network and
particular interactive search engines are involved to assist the users to find their way inside
the system on their own. Significant categories are classified and designed in a way that an
average user may satisfy specific needs effectively; such as information sources, chat spaces,
leisure areas or business sites inside the network.

The nature of these conceptual, visual or functional indications may either be interpreted as
consequences of postmodern notions ‘parody’ and ‘pastiche’ as outlined by Fredric Jameson
(1982: 114); or as a matter of ‘persistence’ within conventional spatial metaphors employed
by Cyberspace with reference to Mitchell (1999: 126). In every respect, it is visible that some
sort of psychological attachment in the virtual environment to its material existence has been
required by the users to start a definitive/perceptive process. What causes a person to
intuitively act as if she’s in a tangible environment within Cyberspace has usually been these
spatial metaphors and representations of the “real world” as interaction tools or components.

The critical aspect of the subject matter, for both software and product design fields, is the
fact that various professions and research fields are now participants of this complex and
intricate context. The paradigm sets of each field are visible within a common medium. With
the involvement of interactive technologies in end-user products and of metaphorical
references to physical product systems in user interfaces, the extensions of creative
professions have widened to utilize different perspectives. Not only are the classifications of
objects and forms a new subject of discourse, but also the roles of participants and their
identities have new expansions for contemporary design research.

Identifying the User

(…) The spectacle's externality with respect to the acting subject is demonstrated by
the fact that the individual's own gestures are no longer his own, but rather those of
someone else who represents them to him. The spectator feels at home nowhere, for
the spectacle is everywhere. (Debord, 1994: 10)

The discourse on the identity of the user in product design - and as its counterpart, of the
spectator in visual media – has its reflections in the psychoanalytical and social theories. As
in Lacanian terms, an individual’s self realization requires an image of “the other”, a mirror
stage that the infant may observe himself as “the other”; and ultimately an external figure
which fulfills the unity of the symbolic order of reality. Thus, we position our own existence
consistent with how we metaphorize this order, looking from outside towards how we would
like to be included (Žižek, 1992). Given that contemporary visual media provides us with
images of external reality by the use of it own means, we may take the discourse on identity
one step further, by including interactive media. Subsequent to written text, the invention of
photography (as a method of instantaneous still imaging) and cinematography (by capturing
and presenting movement-image) were both breakthroughs in the progression of society’s
visual regime. It is a common topic of discourse that our perception of reality shifted towards
photographic images; and then to cinematic intervals (time captures). Now, with the
interactive media reorganizing our mental models by spatializing time-images within an
information network structure and providing us a virtual autonomy inside, an individual can
actually look through the eyes of the other. Moreover, he can control the actions of this
imaginary-other to manipulate the whole reality-setting. Manovich points out this
phenomenon by suggesting an updated version of Althusser’s concept “interpellation” and
stating: ‘The cultural technologies of an industrial society -cinema and fashion- asked us to
identify with someone else's bodily image. Interactive media ask us to identify with someone
else's mental structure’. (Manovich, 2001: 61)

As mentioned above, the freedom of the user and the level of her control over the interactive
medium is a limited and virtual form of autonomy. For Mitchell, one major reason of this
limitation is the system’s requirement for “persistence”, or the stability of the system’s key
features and its final condition whenever the user needs the same utility from the product. To
provide a certain loyalty to the virtual product or environment by the user, a similar type of
psychological attachment to the material product is needed by the software, as well. The
ability of interactive systems to afford customization and personalization proposes a whole
new role the user, a partial and restricted authorship that allows her to manipulate particular
features of the virtual object or the interactive elements of a physical product.

Another significant method of creating psychological attachment to the virtual environment or

system is by creating metaphorical, symbolic and/or arbitrary representations of the user as
designated personas, avatars, etc. Given that this secondary character (the imaginary other) is
a part of the system, the limitations and restrictions of his actions are legitimized since the
user –subconsciously and voluntarily- assigns his representational persona to operate for
himself inside the virtual environment. This is a similar kind of legitimization which may be
argued within physical tools and material products; however the virtual objects’ function is
generally representational and based on conveyance of information more than being a
physical body extension (Anders, 1999: 73). At this point, we may consider the mouse cursor
(the arrow) that is generally employed in user interfaces as a clear example of metaphorical
electronic body extension; as its main function is to aim (point) and shoot (click) at the
specified virtual object. The cursor on the screen is the user’s representational self to which he
assigns a definite amount of authority inside the system. What's more, the cursor is a
noteworthy example of another particular debate; the construction of an original language for
the new media, the connotations of which exceeded the primitive metaphorical references and
formal resemblances to corresponding material signifiers.

In the title of his foreword to Peter Anders’ book Envisioning Cyberspace, William Mitchell
asks an important question: ‘Who Put the Space in Cyberspace?’ (Mitchell, 1999: x) – A
question that criticizes the way we define this new environment with metaphors and
conventional references between existing mediums. With a careful observation, one can notice
a significant paradigm shift in visual culture: the shift from planar perception that is based on
the culture of the screen (or painting and, then, photography as its ancestors) to a spatial
autonomy that is introduced with the development of interactive systems and the global
information networks. As Anders argues in his book with reference to Mitchell, we should
consider this spatial recognition as a medium, not as another metaphor (Anders, 1999: 74); all
the representational figures and structures would be shaped within this new model. Taking this
paradigm shift into account as a strong motive of cultural transformation, we may propose a
discourse on the restructured identity of the user as a co-author of the mechanism; and
consequently, on the definition of consuming the virtual object as a re-production process.

Consumption of the Virtual Product

Aside from its conventional definition as the utilization of economic goods (sources,
materials, services) to satisfy needs, modern consumption is assumed to have wider
connotative values. The consumption habits of the modern society are shaped not only by
primitive physical requirements but also by the means of symbolic exchange and a social
system of ideological values.

Enjoyment is enjoyment for one’s own benefit, but consuming is something one never
does alone (this is the illusion of the consumer, meticulously sustained by the whole of
the ideological discourse on consumption). One enters, rather into a generalized
system of exchange and production of coded values where, in spite of themselves, all
consumers are involved with all others. (Baudrillard, 1996: 78)

For the modern individual, consumption of utilities is a method of constructing a certain sense
of identity; what’s more, it is also a way to express this identity within the social system of
coded values. As stated by Bocock (1993), consumers specify their utilities within paradigm
sets that are comprehensible by others to differentiate their individual identities. Thus, a
generalized system of symbolic exchange is required for the consumers to participate and
communicate through utilities.

Virtual communities and –as a broader set– Cyberspace are economic utilities, too. Moreover,
they provide their participants with wider and more heterogeneous platforms to express
themselves and offer them new grounds to consume within. What’s relatively more abstract
and theoretical in post-modernist consumption model is apparently manifested in New Media
theory – the shift from ownership to participation, and from consumership to co-authorship.
This is to say, By launching and using software, surfing through world-wide web or
downloading a document, an individual initiates a genuine cycle of utilization, consumption
and reproduction through virtual artifacts.

Considering the fundamental component of these artifacts –the electronic signal– we may
state that new media objects are essentially variable and infinitely reproducible. The
limitations of variability and customization are dependant not only on the means of technical
reproduction but also on the range of possibilities the designer prefers to offer to the user.
Modern software applications are able to modify their system features including user
preferences, language modes, intensity of details, visual/functional complexities and
behaviors of the interface on specific actions of the users. For instance, contemporary web
pages and computer games can be programmed to contain alternative file sizes and detail
levels by analyzing the connection speed, CPU power or the abilities of the users. (Gürşimşek,
2006: 95) The existence of such extensive possibilities to customize, personalize and
manipulate the structure of the systems would present new responsibilities and roles to the
consumer, too. While the interface or the virtual environment allows its consumers or
participants to modify the system elements and features, there ought to be regulations or
distinctive tasks for users to sustain an essential feature, as what Mitchell calls “persistence”
of the virtual environment. He mentions the primitive versions and the development of MUDs
(Multi-user Domains) and MOOs (MUD Object-oriented) to point out how the reinterpreted
concepts of property and ownership in Cyberspace maintain the enforcement of conventions
and persistence. (Mitchell, 1999: 126) It is evident within this crucial statement that the
construction of symbolic exchange in virtual environments may lead us to refer to them as
new domains of modern consumer culture.
However, one fundamental distinction of digital artifacts obliges us to revise our conventional
theories on the relations between “object and consumption”. As mentioned above, the digital
objects and systems are built on binary coded algorithms and transcoding of existing
analogous sources to electronic signals. Therefore, the possession and consumption of these
objects require the process of digital reproduction; such as downloading a document indicates
creating an identical copy to your personal computer. Unnoticed by the average user, the
system downloads web-pages while surfing through internet, creates temporary files to
preview a picture or a text file, and constantly operates its memory to create backups for
sustaining the system’s persistence. By all means, the consumption system of new media
depends on a consistent process of reproduction and re-distribution. Thus, if we could say –by
revisiting W. Benjamin’s inspiring essay on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction”- that ‘the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of
authenticity’ (Benjamin, 1997: 125), we would notice that this is an era in which the need for
the original is subdued by the existence of the hyper-real. The process of reproducing the
representations of the “original” had shifted our paradigms on object, production and
consumption socially.

Based on this hidden dependency of interfaces and virtual mediums, the borders between
conventional definitions of producer (designer, author) and consumer (user) becomes blurry.
Most users are now capable of downloading or creating documents, modifying their visual,
formal or structural elements; and ultimately, redistributing them through information
networks or a variety of mobile devices. Contemporary software tends to include more and
more personalization options, filters, plug-ins or updates everyday. Even task-specialized
applications (image and video editing, web design, document sharing, office software, etc.)
are now designed for the average user to comprehend and use with minimum effort and
proficiency. Ultimately, the modern consumer culture of hyper-reality defines its own
consumers as both the target and origin of its own presence.

Conclusion

As outlined in this text, a new culture of hyper-reality has emerged with the introduction of
interactive media and virtual environments as utilities of social consumption. This new
cultural layer is formed upon the conceptual processes of reproduction, utilization and
consumption of the images (representations) of physical reality as they are transposed to a
new context and associated with each other through exclusive interaction patterns of new
media. Consequent to the developments in information technologies and the growing
involvement of interactive product systems in product design market as “consumer
electronics”, the conventional paradigms of design profession and design research would
require a structural renovation to consider its contemporary expansions. The emergence of
such terms as ambient intelligence, end-user programming and system design within design
terminology shows us that this paradigm shift is already leading the field to a more complex
and interdisciplinary state.

The conventional concepts of design knowledge and design tools became new materials for
the designer, ever since the consumers ought to be equipped with the freedom of customizing,
modifying and, what’s more, creating their consumption utilities. On the other hand, the
responsibility of constructing a persistent and effective product system is still burdened with
the designer as he is the most active medium between technology and its users. At this point,
referring to the outcomes of professional design act as “product systems” seems reasonable; in
view of the fact that dominant motivation of contemporary design field is to create and
manage life-styles through object systems rather than to produce and trade individually
designed artifacts. Only through their incorporation with cultural system of symbolic
exchange, the improvements in information technologies and social communication media
may shape cultural conventions. The reflections of such a mutual relationship may be
observed through a critical analysis of the developments in contemporary new media; With
standardization of digital data formats, introduction of global information networks,
establishment of structural and formal internal networks between consumer products and
emergence of mobilized communication devices, the main concern of modern design culture
is shaped within the integration of information and interaction technologies to daily-life
effectively.

Since digital media has a standard structural language –binary coded algorithms- and shared
platforms to function within –programming languages, operating systems and user interfaces-,
the possibilities of customization and personalization are determined mostly by the efficient
usage of these sources. Although these possibilities are implied to the consumers as a form of
autonomy, the management of virtual environments and on-line communities has already
turned out to be a profitable market for global commerce. With constant tracking of users’
certain actions and behaviors, consumption habits, system performances and even
geographical locations, on-line corporations may offer user-specific functions, visual
languages, messages, and cognitive/subliminal advertisements that imply the idea of their
individual sovereignty on-line.

Ultimately, modern society is progressing through the domination of a new cultural paradigm
– a world of countless individual consumers living inside a simulacrum of ideological Global
Village (Žižek, 2002) who perceive the external reality as a physical form of information
architecture. What is critical for design research of the Cyberspace Era is to determine its
fundamental position within the emerging cultural formation, develop original definitions and
connotations for this promising specialized context to help build the authentic language of
new media.

References

ANDERS, P. (1999) ‘Envisioning Cyberspace: Designing 3D Electronic Spaces’, NY:

McGraw-Hill.

BAUDRILLARD, J. (1996) ‘System of Objects’ NY: Verso.

BENJAMIN, W. (1997) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in du Gay,
P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. (ed.) Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of
Sony Walkman, London: SAGE Publications.

BOCOCK, R. (1993) ‘Consumption’, London: Routledge.

BRODY, F. (1999) ‘The Medium is the Memory’, in Lunenfeld P. (ed.) The Digital Dialectic:
New Essays on New Media, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

DEBORD, G. (1994) ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, NY: Zone Books.

GÜRŞİMŞEK, R.A. (2006) ‘Future Directions in Product Semantics: New Media Objects and
Cyberspace’, Design and Semantics of Form and Movement – Conference Proceedings, pp.
90- 97.

JAMESON, F. (1983) ‘The Antiaesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture’, Seattle: Bay Press.

MITCHELL, W.J. (1999) ‘Replacing Place’, in Lunenfeld P. (ed.) The Digital Dialectic: New
Essays on New Media, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

MITCHELL, W.J. (1999) ‘Who Put the Space in Cyberspace?’, in Anders, P. Envisioning
Cyberspace: Designing 3D Electronic Spaces, NY: McGraw-Hill.

MANOVICH, L. (2001) ‘The Language of New Media’, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

OXMAN, R. (2005) ‘Theory and design in the first digital age’, Design Studies Vol. 27 No.3,
May 2006, pp. 229- 265.

ŽIŽEK, S. (1992) ‘Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular

Culture’, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

ŽIŽEK, S. (2002) ‘The Matrix: Or, the Two Sides of Perversion’, in Irwin, W. (ed.) The
Matrix and Philosophy, IL: Carus Publishing