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Interface Culture

 How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate

By Steven Johnson

1997

Complementary Texts

Sherry Turkle

N. Katherine Hayles

Donna Haraway

Boyd Davis and Jeutonne P. Brewer.

Keywords

Media Theory

 

Johnson tracks computer interface over the decades and reflects upon how societal motivations caused those creations. He organizes chapters according to technology and the progression of time (e.g., bitmapping, the desktop, windows, links, text, and agents). His style is less scholarly, but it is highly analytical. He pulls metaphors, historical analogies and parallels from other technological discourses into his discussion to make revelations about how current interface design occurs. Rather than examine subject formation within a technical realm, which is the project of Turkle and Haraway, he focuses on the formation of technology at the hands of humans. His work presents an interesting and alternative way of discussing the individual as creator.