Concept & principles

Concept

With Meta-Matic the concept of browser is transformed from a frame into an information space to a platform for representing and interacting with the Web. Data and structures can be viewed independently of the page structure, a standard unit for structuring data on the Web.

Browsing becomes art; the browser user becomes a "data-artist". Browsing is turned into an audiovisually creative process: a craft of creating access structures into data on networks. In the Meta-matic the user accesses and retrieves data by composing audiovisual interactive views. The the symbol system used to encode data comes from the user.

The Meta-matic takes the user's symbol and "subject" or "keyword" or "data location" - a domain address not a page - and proceeds to encode data and meta-data about structures associated with the given subject. It does this visually or auditively with the given symbol(s) creating patterns and constructing shapes that convey the richness and relative importance of the subject being represented.

Design principles

* reinterpretation of existing structures and conventions for representing data on the web: the dissolution of the page metaphor. By doing this the granularity of data on the Web is increased. the smaller the smallest unit of data that can be retrieved, viewed, represented then more complex structures can be created. By dissolving the page metaphor the nature of views into the Web changes. Sampling and mixing of data from different sources becomes possible. This supports the use of a collage technique.

* user customized symbolic language for representing data, data structures and meta-data.

* a GUI (direct manipulation interface) where most interaction happens by directly interacting with graphical symbols.

* recontextualization of information

* a personal aesthetic

* a meta-level creative and artistic approach that supports the element of chance in the organization and construction of views into information spaces.

* organic, genetic, autonomous agents and heuristics according to which symbols are arranged into kinetic patterns: self-organizing abstract collage. (the possibility to add the dimention of SOM, thus allowing a Meta-Matic generated view as well as the user generated view.

Overview

Is the infusion of chance and chaos into the rendering of information conducive to a more insightful way of processing information? What are the user interface design possibilities of presenting information as ar? Can the aesthetics of the generated information collages be formalized? What can be learned of the biases in information spaces when viewed through one of these "filters"?

Meta-matic: information browsing and use transformed into multimedia art. a personal meta level representation scheme for existing information structures. encoding of existing data structures into a audio-visual composition. change of composition results in a change of view of the encoded data structures. a meta-matic can contain data from one source or many sources, from one information space or from several information spaces. it is a portrait or a landscape. meta-matic is a not task oriented. data access through a Meta-matic is not necessarily efficient. there need not be a logical correspondence between the symbol and the data it represents. therefore, a Meta-matic is not usable as defined by HCI (usability). Each Meta-matic is an interface to a collection of data
structures as well as a set of rules for accessing and manipulation representations of those structures.

A Meta-matic is an information environment, an experience. It has several levels of meaning. For an outsider it is a multimedia artefact - a sound, an animation, a set of symbols, etc.. To the author and user it is a front-end as well as a design language. The Meta-matic user is a mapper and manipulator of structure. The Meta-matic user can transform any information space into a new symbolic scheme. This develops the practise of sampling, processing and mixing symbols.

Designing a Meta-matic vs. user interface design

Designing a Meta-matic differs from user interface design in the following ways:
* personal aesthetics take priority over usability
* the philosophy towards information or data is completely different
* the Meta-matic is an environment where structures have behavior
* a Meta-matic is more "agent" than browser user interface

The Meta-matic system vs. WWW browser

The Meta-matic differs from a WWW browser:
* the Meta-matic is a tool for visualizing many different views of the WWW and being able to see them simultaneously
* the Meta-matic is more of a design language for creating a metaphor and interface to the WWW than a browser
* the Meta-matic sees the WWW as a collection of elements rather than pages
* instead of cliking links to navigate through the WWW the user designs a new view or the Meta-matic generates a new view
* instead of visualizing existing structures the Meta-matic is a platform for creating new structures - new views to existing structures

Personal Aesthetics

The personal aesthetic defines the representation layer for an information space. It defines the experience of information.

The definition of the personal aesthetic is a process where the Meta-matic model of information structure is mapped to a symbolic layer. The symbolic layer is the Meta-matic artist's representation of information as well as the notion for interacting with it.

The personal aesthetic is an index for a symbol scheme - a personal grammar for interaction.

It includes the
* basic elements and their composition (through interaction)
* patterns = ways to combine symbols
* structures = sets of symbols or rules
* and behavior

The personal aesthetic becomes the metaphor for representing information space including its qualities and behavior. It is a point of view, a classification system. The personal aesthetic will probably be connected to the subject of the Meta-matic but it may also be a more general definition of a personal information representation and access layer to an information space or a hybrid of several spaces.

The choice of metaphor affects how the data and structures (hierarchies, rules) are encoded, manipulated and decoded.

An artist has a subject. The Meta-matic artist - the user - also has a subject or subjects they will deal with in the Meta-matic. Creating a Meta-matic is about creating a viewpoint to the subject. It is also about conceptualizing how this view can and may change in time. This is done through the personal aesthetic
based encoding of data. Like any piece of art, a Meta-matic may deal with several subjects at the same time.

Symbol System according to McCulloch

Symbols are the ultimate tool for abstraction. A symbol stands for something else, that something is usually more cumbersome. Symbols may represent concepts, conditions, or qualities lacking in embodiment or measure - things we could not carry about at all.

Meta-matic design is based on symbols and visual and auditive symbol representations. Meta-matic user can create his/her own symbol libraries and use created symbols to form a pattern that represent an information structures, for example pieces of web pages.

There is power in symbols because the symbol is not the signified. Symbols differ from that for which they stand, and they are presumably easier to use: easier to reproduce, easier to transmit, easier to transform.

When replaced by a symbol, an object becomes a mere operand. As an operand it may be manipulated in an abstract manner, such that the syntax of forming consistent expressions, rather than any representational significance of the symbols, governs the formation of new expressions. This may result that new representational significance emerges from syntactical operations alone. This is how symbolic operations yield abstract results.

Symbolic structures apply the principles of formal reasoning to many more kinds of operands; not just magnitudes or quantities, but coordinates and fields of numbers; not just algebraic numbers, but musical sounds, chemical compounds, logical assertions.

Symbolic context

Any markings made for explicit purposes of representation, record keeping, or transmittal could be understood as notation.(pictures, numbers, and text have been usual formats). Context and structure shape the use of symbols. A complete text is not only a construction of time and place and outlook of the author, but also those of other authors, and also (on each occasion) of a reader.

Convention is a form of abstraction, or a means to abstraction. Although the symbols are merely conventions, and the theorem itself is the main focus of abstraction, the choice of notation does affect the relative ease or difficulty of achieving the results. An understanding of formal notation is relevant to studying the computer as a medium.

A symbol scheme is generally a set of distinct characters plus a syntax for combining them. The essential features of such a scheme are that the characters are finitely differentiable and that the syntax is character-indifferent. These properties are common to many familiar schemes, including alphabetical, numerical, binary, telegraphic, and basic musical characters.

A symbol system is the correspondence by which meanings comply with characters in a symbol scheme (all inscriptions of a given character must have the same semantic reference or compliant. No one compliant ca be referred to by multiple characters. And for the system to be a useful notation, these semantic distinctions themselves must be finitely differentiable.)

Interaction design craft

In a formal symbol system authorship and execution can be different.
Traditional crafts lack notation, are made by hand, and produce no two pieces exactly alike. Arts were there exists only one original are
"autographic". The work of craft is neither the design nor the individual artifact: it is the tradition of the very production.
Arts were notation carries the work such as music compositions and multiple instances are possible are "allographic". Notation allows
composition in the abstract. This means a quicker results since performance or execution are not needed at every stage of the evolving
composition.

Structure

Formal notation invites the study of structure, which in natural language consists of grammar. Computing is essentially the use of symbolic notation on a huge range of scales.

Computational theorists are interested in generative notations and grammars. Computing is structure manipulation. Data structure characterized software: what you can do, and how a program looks and feels, depends on its underlying abstractions and assumptions. A data structure organizes symbols for specific purposes.

Generative Structure

Software design is a matter of defining an appropriate structure for serving a task or problem. Generative structure is the beginnings of a medium largely because ti invites manipulation. A structure has a feel based on internal laws
and self-regulation, which we experience by working on it - through transformation. The structures we manipulate are more than collections of elements: they are dense notational contexts for action. Available operations, accumulated work, and the organization of sessions all contribute to a strong sense of the rules of the game.

Creative computing give special emphasis to generative structure. Developing new artifacts and expressions depends on sound aesthetic theory informed by syntax and grammar.

Structured symbolic prosessing can be the basis for creative expressions.
Formal structure provides a basis for understanding - and generating- expression within a variety of media. Computation introduces formal notation and structure where formerly there were none. We might say that it makes some autographic media allographic. Although it is important to respect generative structures, we must also acknowledge that their power will be realized through the complementary role of personal sensibility, and that this may occur through the perception and practice of medium.

Limitations of structure

There will always be intentions that we cannot or choose not to express in symbols. The human computer partnership is a partnership between inarticulable insight, or impetus, and rigorous symbolic reasoning. Personal practice will prosper primarily in its coupling to digital notational systems, and digital notational systems will be useful just as much as they encourage human imagination.

Formal symbolic manipulations arrive at indicated solutions that suggest new concepts. But it is a weakness in contextual interpretation: numerical models have the unfortunate disadvantage of containing no information about when their contents are appropriate.

Limitations of cognitive science
We must balance the use of powerful notations with the use of tacit knowledge: visual thinking, kinetic skill, and symbolic reasoning can complement one another, whether in business planning, scientific analysis, or artistic improvisation.

May the work of symbolic processing be made more human by the ways of the eye and the hand? There is wisdom in coupling symbolic processing to all human insight and skill we can muster. Tacit personal knowledge is important. Human beings will make computing humane. Human beings like to make things; they like to use their hands at least as much as their brains; they like to play; they tend to do better with practice. If we are to tap the increasing visuality and dynamics of computing in order to open new realms of abstraction, we should depend very much on these humane traits to do so.

McCulloch, Malcolm, Abstracting Craft. The Practiced Digital Hand. The MIT Press, 1996.

A Meta-matic is a sum of its parts. The behaviors make a Meta-matic dynamic.

Meta level composition

The "artist" can manipulate symbols my changing their location (x, y,) as well as size (pseudo z). Location of symbols has different meanings: Overlapping symbols translated into a search (cross breeding), new symbol creates proximity of symbol can be assinged meaning and a resulting behavior Information represents the transmission of thoughtful messages and reveal the relationship and patterns (the context) among the data presented.

Knowledge is fundamentally participatory; it is the level that allows us to convey the most valuable message. It is the highest level designers can affect directly. Understanding can be gained only through experience. Wisdom is more abstract and philosophical than other levels, a blending of all the processes and relationships understood through experience (it is the result of
a personal process of contemplation, retrospection, interpretation and evaluation).

Behavior levels

* Decoding decoding done by user & the Meta-matic system

* Symbol pattern behavior The Meta-matic system generates behavior like grow, move(x,y,z), rotate, break apart

* Visual and sound mixing

* Significance coding

* Flipping into underlaying information structures