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HCIANMDG

human-computer-interface and new media discussion group

• what: We’re meeting to talk about new media and user interfaces!
• when: On hiatus until further notice.
• where: McMenamins Barley Mill Pub

Details

tre you interested in why and how we use computers? Do you think often about radical reshapings of the digital landscape?

The HCIANMDG (also known as the human-computer-interface and new media discussion group) is a space for software-adjacent folks to talk about these things. We meet on the first Monday of each month to watch presentations, talk about projects, share our work, and/or grumble/wax poetic about the future of computing.

Schedule:

Typically the meeting kicks off with viewing a recorded talk or presentation about an HCI or new media topic, and then we hold a short conversation afterwards. That’s it, that’s the schedule.

Background:

A few definitions, to start us off:

human computer interface:

• we’re using this in the broadest possible sense, far beyond just the realm of web-browsers, front-end frameworks, or GUI toolkits. Examples include: hardware interfaces, interactive art pieces, and digital fabrication tooling.

new media:

• also sometimes called “programmatic media”, this is media that exists in both computational and physical contexts, often with distinct but connected aspects.
  • this includes technologies both familiar (e.g. hyperlinked media (a very novel concept, historically speaking) and unfamiliar (the cybernetic fads of the 1950s.)
  • check out the wikipedia page on new media for another good overview.
  • See also Lev Manovich’s “New Media: A User’s Guide” (1999) for an in-depth overview of the history/explanation of the field.

social rules

Read these before joining us.

some fun reading:

• Permacomputing
• How I use AI
• selections from The New Media Reader
• The Rise of the HyperPot
• Lev Manovich’s New Media: A User’s Guide
• Six Learning Barriers in End-User Programming Systems
• The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan
• Art in the Age of Machine Learning by Sofian Audry
• Malleable Software in the Age of LLMs
• Direct Manipulation vs Interface Agents
• Computer as Theatre by Brenda Laurel
• Abstracting Craft by Malcolm McCullough
• Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction
• Potluck: dynamic documents as personal software
• Actually, anything from Ink & Switch
• The Humane Representation of Thought
• The Source Digest
• Against Recognition
• Personal Machines and Portable Worlds