FALL 2007 LECTURES - ABSTRACTS:
descriptions of some of the lectures I am delivering in Fall 2007:

"I Chocolate You": The aesthetization of Information Interfaces, 1997-2007. I will discuss the aesthetization of information interfaces which took place over the last ten years. He will analyze some of the key interfaces which have shaped the new paradigm: iMac, OS X, LG Chocolate, iPhone and Microsoft Surface. I will place the shift in how interfaces are understood and designed in a larger context of cultural and social developments which are re-shaping all objects and spaces in a global economy: the rise of "experience economy," democratization of design, spatial branding, supermodernist aesthetics and Bilbao effect.

Software Culture.
Today we routinely  use computers to create, edit and display photography, film, video, writing, typing, sculpting, architectural designs, music, etc. Although we take this for granted today, it took decades to conceptualize and develop principles and techniques which make computer simulation of older media possible. In my talk, I look at the work or writings of Alan Kay and other pioneers of computer media working in the 1960s and 1970s in order to understand their reasons for creating these simulations.

After Effects, or Invisible Revolution. We live in a software culture - that is, a culture where the production, distribution, and reception of most content is mediated by software. And yet, most creative professionals do not know anything about the intellectual history of software they use daily - be it Microsoft Word, Photoshop, Final Cut, After Effects, Flash, etc. Similarly, the theorists and critics so far have not systematically examined the connections between the workings of contemporary media software and the new communication languages in design and media (including graphic design, web design, motion graphics, animation, and cinema.)
In 2007 we have founded the first ever center for the study of cultural software - Software Studies Initiative ( softwaretheory.net). As an example of our approach, in my talk I will look at a new area of contemporary culture whose development in the 1990s was closely connected to the use of particular software such as After Effects - motion graphics. I will discuss the aesthetics of contemporary motion graphics and will present some hypothesizes regarding how we can understand it theoretically. To illustrate my ideas I screen recent music videos, short films, TV graphics, and experts from feature films.