Interface Criticism

This volume of 13 essays critically investigates the connection between artistic practices, aesthetic theory, culture, and computer interface design. They explore a broad notion of interface that refers to not just the user-end of machines, but also the connections between machines as mediators between humans. The book is organized into five sections of two or three essays each bracketed by the editors' introductory essay and a concluding essay about how Web 2.0 strategies and "control of the marketplace of the gaze" affected the 2008 French elections. They go back historically, charting the development of screens and display mechanisms in the public sphere and cybernetic installation-art, through how interfaces influence sense-perception, and behind the concept of the interface to criticize the aestheticization of computational processes with interfaces that disguise them as well-known. Additionally they focus on how interfaces are both mediums and computationally functional in themselves, finally moving the discussion out into society and culture where interfaces mediate public, market and political relations. Color photographs and figures support the text. The contributors are scholars and researchers in media studies from primarily European universities. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. (reviewer --use this exact wording & capitalization) Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)