Why digital physical design unity is not skeuomorphism

Unity in design praxis, blending the needs of digital and physical worlds is aspiration of many. It is at times a hot topic of discussion as well. Many design theorists look at skeuomorphism as the obvious choice and the approach to arrive at a unified design for digital and physical worlds. As we know skeuomorphism attempts to translate the physical features explicitly into digital realm. This is subject to criticism from various corners.


My critic is not from the angle of any pristine principles, rather from the perspective of a student of nature. And I don't make any loud claims that design is always the manifestation of truth and honesty. Design is as artificial as any form of art and exploration of truth as any kinds of science. Machine design will be largely driven by the forces of human machine interaction and reciprocal evolution. And I must say it is a misconception that the design is an explicit visual centered paradigm. Yes, it is true that visual features can quickly communicate design elements however there is a larger set of implicit design elements in every object, whether digital or physical. When you design a product or a service or an interactive experience for a commodity in a utilitarian relationship, explicit and consumer specific features are highlighted.

However this is not always true in the case of causal and natural relationships. When relationships evolve through a self organized network or a biological system, they abstract a lot of design aspects. Let us take the example of birds and their wings. Can we say that the evolution of wings in a bird is always driven by the use value alone. Of course not. Ecology also plays a role. Let us take the case of social signs and syntax in language. Can we have single design variable for describing the evolution of all the language symbols. Again it is not possible. Hence the analysis and investigation into the wide spectrum of natural and social relationships require multivariate analysis that goes beyond explicit forms.

Constructivism and the world of art: Beyond the noise

Investigations on the major milestones of Russian formalism took me to the foundations of constructivism. I found the following books informative on the historic role of constructivism in shaping a social aesthetics of art and literature in the modern times. However my pursuit to find the critical role of constructivism in shaping up a materialist consciousness in the emerging literary groups of Soviet Union needs further references.

In the book: Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in A Digital World, I came across an interesting article by Mayakovsky here: How are Verses Made?. Quite thoughtful indeed. This book mentions that environment design and artifact design need to be worked upon separately.

The same book says about another conjecture that the markets are inherently reflexive when the author is speaking about the ‘open textured’ nature of designs. The rationale is that whenever the interpretations of human action can change the course of subsequent action and interpretation, it is said to be reflexive. While searching online, I could see that constructivism is almost used synonymous with the category ‘social constructionism’ and many authors perceive Marxism itself as a philosophy centered on social constructionism.

Going through one such book, Building Knowledge Cultures, we can see that there is a recent attempt to create mystery around the concept of constructivism. This book presents an argument that constructionism and constructivism are entirely different schools of thought. I will need to examine the authenticity of this laughable proposition.

On going further, the book Unfolding Social Constructionism speaks about a critical approach to cognitive psychology and its representational paradigms. It says that memories, perceptions, motives etc are not psychological entities, rather constructed in conversation.

The book, The Russian Experiment in Art, 1863-1922 says that constructivism achieved its most complete realization in the early films of Sergei Eisenstein. Another book, Realist Constructivism says that a constructivist will take a clearer position on the ontological role between individual and society than on the questions surrounding the power.

Constructivism in Film: The Man with the Movie Camera : a Cinematic Analysis has finally landed me on the history of the movement in Russia at least. According to this book, constructivism was famously defined in the ‘Realist Manifesto’ issued by the brothers Naum Gabo and Antonin Pevsner. They wrote that ‘art is the realization of our spatial perception of the world’. The rhythms of the working men and the machines play an important role in the constructivist theater. Constructivist photo-montage is based on the principle of self reference and it precedes the emergence of the self referential cinema.

Like other constructivists, Alexander Rodchenko emphasized the self referential aspect of the photograph achieved through the dualistic relationship between the images content and the means by which the image is constructed. He suggested that the photographer should find the most expressive view point that would alert the viewer of the potential use of the medium. Implicit in this approach is the formalist’s method of ‘defamilarization’. This is an interesting development that constructivism becomes a tool to break the false consciousness.

Nature of Evolution : A Note on the boundaries of Darwinism

Self Similarity of Cognition

Self Similarity of Cognition

Do we perceive the grand nature as a reflection of our innate self? This question may sound philosophical at large. To make it clear, let me frame the question as: how do I conclude that the society is evolving? Are we comparing the history of life with our present achievements? When we examine the organs, bones, muscles, movement patterns, anatomy, cell structures in context of evolution, we tend to compare them with human specific configurations. Is this model quite subjective? May be it is true that this reflexive element is an inevitable aspect of experiments. My point of view is not towards attributing subjectivity to the methodology of observation-ism in scientific experiments. 

Rather, I see an aspect and a drive for self-similarity in many of the human cognitive activities. Going further, this self-similarity seems to be driven from an innate instinct of nature itself. Our cognitive mind is essentially seeking self-similarity in all the material objects of life. Even its cognitive processes are affected / influenced by this instinct. Our art works, aesthetics, and our artistic creations are many at times influenced by nature. We see mimicking nature a prelude to many original creations. Even highly original engineering and aesthetic works are inspired and driven by nature. This all suggest an inclination towards self similarity in our cognitive mind. This self similarity at times makes measurement of our experiences highly subjective. Thus a metric for self similarity is worth a mathematical pursuit.

+Gokul Alex