During the weekend  16th and 17h  of May 2015 took place in Hangar the Manifestosprint. In order to work intensively on the Manifesto we invited the following experts and researchers : JL Marzo, Tere Badia, Pau Alsina, César Escudero, Jara Rocha, Andreu Belsunces, Quelic Berga Laia Blascos, Mario Santamaria, Femke Snetling, Rosa LLop and Clara Piazuelo.

During these two days several dynamics were carried out to pool ideas that each had worked individually in their texts. Through a physical display we could visualize the network of the relationship between the texts and the Manifesto.

We also used the ICONUU  tool to design icons and to experiment with iconic communication, we  took it as a case study to discuss about its interface and to apply all the concepts the we have been working on the theoretical research.

The rest of the dynamics were focused to imagine the final format of the manifesto. One of our concerns was that the Manifesto should have a real impact. To move from words to action, we take each point of the manifesto and deploy a range of activities, attitudes and actions in order to develop an actively critical relationship with the interfaces. These actions were classified into four types: Poetics (P), awareness (A), change habits (H), change of world (w)

Finally it was agreed to put all the information on a wiki, as it is an open interface, and it is very useful for work in team and for disseminating knowledge.

César Escudero Andaluz is the winner of MEMBRANA grant, which allowed him to spend one and a half months developing the project Interfight. Below he answers some questions about his residency at Hangar.

What does your project consist of? Where did it originate and how has it evolved?

The idea is simple: it consists of generating feedback between graphic and physical interfaces, two “surfaces” that detect each other and interact autonomously.
 In practical terms, it entails the creation of a physical interface using electronic components and a microprocessor. This interface, which measures around four centimetres, functions on capacitive surfaces such as touchscreens. When contact occurs, it detects a change in the luminosity of the screen and carries out mechanical actions such as moving, vibrating, or gliding over the screen.

The fact that it is made our of capacitive material means that it can be detected by smartphones and tablets, so that as it glides over the screen it automatically carries out actions such as clicking, scrolling and zooming. It automatically clicks on icons, opens applications, randomly explores places on Google maps, moves through profiles, and clicks without any criteria at all, anywhere on social networks. (“they’re pesky sometimes”)

The second part of the project consists of creating an app for android, based on the desktop metaphor. The app copies and imitates the interface, creates icons, folders and files that respond in an animal-like manner when they come into contact with the physical interface. In a sense, they interact with each other like artificial life interfaces.

The project was born in 2014. It started as a proposal to develop new tangible interfaces in Martin Kaltenbrunner’s workshop at the Interface Cultures LAB in Linz, Austria. It was called “Scroller Toy” because it was made out of old toy mechanisms. The idea and the concept were very similar: in this first prototype the Android app also imitated the desktop interface and interacted with the physical interface in the form of particles exploding like fireworks.

What materials and technology did you use?

Scroller Toy uses recycled materials, small toy mechanisms that I combine with an app for tablets programmed in Unity 3D. For Interfight I use electronic components such as photo-resistances, circuits, batteries, vibrators, and motors connected to an Arduino microcontroller.

What are your artistic influences? Can you tell us some examples of artists who have inspired you? What about other influences outside of the art field?

One clear influence is Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, pioneers of interactive art who also use biology as one of the core themes of their work, but there are many other references.

If we see research as a process that involves generating new concepts based on questions that expand our knowledge of the world, artistic research asks questions based on and using artistic processes and objects. What questions do your objects raise?

In this case, the questions emerge from the research; the project seeks to draw attention to problems linked to interfaces, to human-machine interaction and also computer-computer interaction. The artistic object here does not put forward a particular discourse, it leaves it open to be interpreted by users.

One of the objectives of PIPES BCN is to produce a Critical Interface Manifesto and part of your residency consisted of participating in the Manifesto working group. How did this influence your project?

The project takes a critical approach to the interface. “The ideology of the interface is always embedded in the interface itself”, is one of the points of the Manifesto. The Manifesto and the project developing hand in hand, and many of the points from the manifesto are reflected in the project.

How will you continue your research?

In June I’m returning to the Interface Cultures LAB in Linz, Austria, to keep working on the project, which will be shown at the 2015 Ars Electronica Festival. By then I will have developed the app and written a paper to present at some conference.

What did the MEMBRANA grant and the working environment at Hangar contribute to your project?

The grant provided a workspace, residency, and financial and technical support. It has been a very pleasant environment in which to share points of view. The working context of the PIPES group provided a broad and detailed overview of the concept of the interface, as well as proposals and methodologies for work, verified material, dynamics, and critical approaches. It has been a very interesting platform in which to develop and show results, with total freedom to experiment, and a core group of professionals who have facilitated the whole process.

El reto que tenemos entre manos es  escribir un conjunto de textos que pueda aportar perspectivas interesantes al debate sobre Interface Cristicsm, y al mismo  diseñar una publicación cuya interfaz sea coherente con su contenido.

Con estos objetivos en mente, el 20 de febrero tuvo lugar la primera sesión del Manifesto-Sprint. Hemos tomado prestada la metodología del Book Sprint  que permite trabajar de   forma intensiva y colaborativa en la publicación de un libro, y la hemos aplicado a la redacción de los statements. La siguiente sesión del Manifesto Sprint tendrá lugar los días 16 y 17 de Mayo. Durante ese fin de semana pondremos en común todos los textos y trabajaremos en el diseño de la interfaz final del manifiesto.

En el pad que estamos utilizando  pueden consultarse la dinámicas que seguimos así como los temas de discusión y el resultado de la puesta en común de los statements.

César Escudero Andaluz (LIC, MA, MFA) studied Fine Arts and Architecture & Design at the University of Salamanca, Visual Arts and Multimedia at the Politechnical University of Valencia. Since 2011 he is researching at the Kunstuniversität Linz in Interface Culture LAB. Working in the field between users and interfaces. +info 

Images of the project File_Món by César Escudero

During MEMBRANA residency César Escudero will collaborate with PIPES on the interface manifesto and will develop an artistic application that explores the boundaries  between Interface-Interface, Interface-Human. The work will consist on a physical, kinetic Interface, under the aesthetic of dysfunction, made of conductive material, that interacts with a GUI on capacitive surfaces like touch-screens. The project in its multidisciplinary nature, will promote inductive and deductive aspects as well as a theoretical and practical research initiated in the previous thesis “FUNCTION LOGIC DYSFUNCTION. The artistic instrument and interactive environment” UPV, 2011 and “FROM THE IMAGE TO THE GUI. Falsehood and appropriation tactics in new media art” Interface Cultures, Linz.

This tool also constitutes the compass that guides us along the wide and heterogeneous bibliography that we’ve been reading and discussing.  Some of the books that we have highlighted to write the first Manifesto draft are:  “Interface Criticism: Aesthetics Beyond the Buttons” (Christian Ulrik Andersen, Soren Bro Pold), “the Interface effect” (Alexander Galloway) or “Evil Media” (Matthew Fuller, Andrew Goffey).

We have also been looking at the wide tradition of Manifestos that exists in the fields of arts and technology. We consider some of them very inspiring like:

->The GNU Manifesto (1985), by Richard Stallman, an explanation and definition of the goals of the GNU Project (free software computer operating system). But also a fundamental philosophical source for the free software movement.

->The Hacker’s Manifesto (1986), by The Mentor aka Loyd Blankenship. It acts as a guideline to hackers across the globe, especially those new to the field. It serves as an ethical foundation for hacking, and asserts that there is a point to hacking that supersedes selfish desires to exploit or harm other people.

->Mozilla Manifesto, a  set of 10 principles that articulate a vision for the Internet a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.

->The First Things First manifesto , published in 1964 by Ken Garland. It was backed by over 400 graphic designers and artists and also was published in the Guardian newspaper. It is a reaction to the rich and affluent Britain of the 1960s, and it tried to re-radicalise a design industry which the signatories felt had become lazy and uncritical. It has been influences by the Critical Theory, the Frankfurt School and the counter-culture of the time. And it explicitly re-affirmed the belief that Design is not a neutral, value-free process. It was later updated and republished with a new group of signatories as the First Things First 2000 manifesto  by Adbusters magazine .

->The Critical Engineering Manifesto  considers engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, communicate and think. It is the work of the Critical Engineer to study and exploit this language, exposing its influence.

->The New Clues Manifesto, is an update on fifteen years since the Cluetrain Manifesto, which has been  seminal in the development of the Internet. The authors emphasize that the Internet is not a medium nor is it content, it is a conversation.

->Even a Manifesto for a Post-Digital Interface Criticism exists, written by Pold and Andresen that of course has been an inspiration for us.

What all these manifestos have in common is that somehow they try to fight the lack of ethics in the industry or in the economic system.  They also consider that technology should be used to expand our horizons. And at last, they invite us to thinking critically.

So we are quite aware that there is loads of previous research done before we started this project. All of this begs some basic questions like why should we focus and produce a manifesto and how can we contribute to this field?

Why to write a manifesto?

Because as a Manifesto is a political declaration of intentions or views and  it seem appropriate to us to use this kind of output that stress the “political” aspect.

If Interface design nowadays tends to hide the interface in order to be more user friendly giving the illusion of neutrality, by doing an Interface Manifesto we are stressing the “ideological” aspect of the interface.

So one of the aims of the Critical interface Manifesto is to generate a discussion between those who are concerned about the need for criticism in Interface design and those who believe it should be ideology-free.

With this motivations in our minds and after looking at all this references we tried to summarize the main ideas on a first draft. And these are some of statements that we agreed on:

– I interface, you interface, we interface.

– Interfaces are political objects.

– An Interface is not a neutral space. Ideologies are always embeded in the interface, but those are not always visible.

– The success of interface is defined not only by its ability to generate the interaction, but to have the user to understand  how this interaction occur and the set of rules that the determine the interaction.

– As a tool the interface should provide the acknowledge of its own shape and limits.

– We need to feel the presence of the interface while accessing the content on the other side.

– Freedom of use implies knowledge and to be consequent.

– Interfaces can also be honest and simple.

– Code is part of the interface.

– You can claim the right to know and understand without having to really know about each interface.

– Design is emotional, functional and political. Interfaces are designed. (D. Norman)

– Interfaces can be potentially everything, objects, movements, behaviors, spaces, sounds…

Taking in account this political tradition of Interfaces, we would say that a Manifesto embedded in its shape its political intention. So one of our challenges and hopefully our contribution to this field would be to transform the previous statements into an interface.

How can we do this? During the work session we focused not only on the contents but on questions related to the formal aspects of the manifesto that posed some dilemmas such as: should we strive for simplicity and clarity or rather should we try to be creative and poetic?

And if Manifesto itself will be an interface how can we design a coherent Manifesto so it can contain its ideology embedded on its own interface?

We have designed two future events that will help us to solve some of these doubts and to keep on working on the development of the manifesto:

—>1st  Booksprint:  this is a methodology that brings together a group to produce a book in 3-5 days. There is no pre-production and the group is guided by a facilitator from zero to published book. During this event we would like to finish not a book but the Manifesto and we’d like to invite some researchers and  designers to think together how can we develop that Manifesto whose shape, structure, matter will be coherent with its ideas.

—> 2nd MEMBRANA: an open call to support a visual artist interested in developing an artwork based on the concept of interface. The artist will develop his/her project during a six weeks residency at Hangar (Barcelona). He/she will also be invited to participate in the ongoing investigation of the PIPES_BCN research group which involves the drafting of a Critical Interface Manifesto.

Many of these ideas we are working with come from the reference bibliography that we have been reading like “Interface Criticism: Aesthetics Beyond the Buttons” (Christian Ulrik Andersen, Soren Bro Pold), “the Interface effect” (Alexander Galloway) or “Evil Media” (Matthew Fuller, Andrew Goffey) to name just a few.

The methodology that we followed within this framework was to display a brainstorming session in which every participant would contribute with three statements that could be part of an Interface Manifesto. We tried to organize some of these shared ideas and the result was a compilation of statements that summarize some controversial concepts crossing the interface conceptualization such as transparency, symmetry, collaboration, openness, ownership, etc.

During this working session other issues were discussed. First we look over the aims of the manifesto trying to answer some very basic questions like why should we focus and produce a manifesto, or how can we contribute to this field and who will be its target.

We also focused on questions related with the formal aspects of the manifesto that posed some dilemmas such as: should we strive for simplicity and clarity or rather should we try to be creative and poetic? or, should  the Manifesto itself  be an interface? and if yes, how can we design a coherent Manifesto so it can contain its ideology embedded on its own interface?