Final Year Studio - Research - Internet Physicality - New Medium

Image courtesy of http://www.nickcrowe.net/, originally uploaded by Jimbo (Alan James Wellock).

One of the ideas behind my "Datamotive' idea is that of making a website unique and give it all the attributes of being a physical object. One piece of work that has done this is Nick Crowe's 'New Medium' produced in 1999. Above Crowe selected 15 websites, took screen shots, then engraved them on to 600mm x 450mm, 6mm thick glass. Here Crowe has explored all the avenues of an object being physical. Being physical, he could make it as big as he wanted, just like we can when observing an object. Also with the material being glass, it eradicates the sense of fear and untrustworthy, that sometimes a website on a monitor can portray, for example not knowing a website is totally secure when buying something. Unlike physcial actions our senses cannot be used to sense danger or risk in the virtual world. But with physicality comes restrictions in the form of the website being static, it cannot be refreshed or even navigated as it so often relies on the user moving it around a 4:3 ratio space digitally using a mouse and scollbars.

In relation to my idea, to really push the physicality idea I could create an appllication that just doesn't let you view the website straight away but actually prints the website out and posts it to you instead to use. Another simpler experiment would be that of transfering a website into a book, investigating first hand the differences in which we navigate the physical and the digital.