Utterback+Article

The Physical Aspect of Interaction: Camille Utterback’s “Unusual Positions […]”

Utterback works to get the reader to consider the relationship between humans and computers, particularly the relationship (mainly physical, but also how the physical impacts the user in other ways) created while using interactive elements (specifically within digital art). Utterback begins by establishing the difference between practical and poetic interfaces. Practical interfaces allow users to maintain a “sense of control” whereas poetic interfaces “function as legible signs, but also take on their own behaviors and responses to the user” (218-19). Utterbach argues for the perception that “these characters are somehow objects as well as signs” within digital artworks that allow the user to manipulate physical aspects of digital representations of letters/words (particularly within her examples of //Stream of Consciousness: An Interactive Poetic Garden// and //Text Rain//) (220). A discussion concerning the physical aspects of reading within some forms of digital art aims to prove that “[t]here is no ‘wrong’ way to interact” with these types of work (221). Works that demand interaction with one’s whole body are then analyzed with an eye to how they force users to consider “questions about our embodiment //[and that of language]// and the code that is both part of, and helps produce our ‘selves’” //[my insertion]// (referencing //Drawing from Life,// //The Legible City//, //Vicissitudes//, and //See/Saw//) (222). The last aspect Utterback addresses is the interactive interfaces that act back striving to “allow[s] the symbolic to read into the physical world and constrain the user’s motions” (226). Her purpose within this piece is to get the reader to consider “the position and status of our bodies as they are increasingly represented on screens, or in the virtual space of our machines” (226).
 * Overview **

Utterback’s work draws attention to the need to be conscious not only what interactions one is engaging with, but also with how these interactions are constructed, maintained, and what kinds of implications they might have. One goal Utterback seems to be striving to achieve is to demonstrate the new methods of reading that come about because of the possible techniques for interaction these pieces seem to invite. Considering questions of ontology via questioning language and symbol links allows the user to adopt new perspectives and implications that printed works may not be able to as sufficiently introduce. Furthermore, in the responses section, Utterback continues her argument by raising questions such as “what type of emotional content is implied” by the physical aspects of a pieces (224). Comments such as these demonstrate her investment in not only attempting to change the perceptions informing interaction, agency, and their outcomes, but also struggling to better unify the dichotomy of physical and emotional interaction that often appears when engaging traditional literature or forms of visual art. Furthermore, Utterback stresses the significance of the “flip side of the texts transgression into the physical in these pieces is the manner in which the user’s body enters the symbolic space of the texts” (226). By working to display the way that these texts are impacted by and act upon the user, Utterback reveals how cyborg concerns may need to be considered and reframed in developing reader practices.
 * Commentary **

Is Utterback’s discussion reaching to make connections that typical users might not be conscious of? What are the implications of her argument for user’s who recognize the various levels of interaction they engage with pertaining to these pieces (and those like them)?
 * Discussion Question **