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This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A pioneer in the fields of video art in the 1960s and internet art in the 1990s, and cofounder of the Sociological Art Collective (1974) and the Aesthetics of Communication International Group (1983), Forest is best known as an ironic media hijacker and tinkerer of unconventional interfaces and alternative platforms for interactive communication that are accessible to the general public outside the exclusive precincts of the art world. He has also made headlines as an outspoken critic of the French contemporary art establishment, most famously by suing the Centre Pompidou in 1994 over its opaque acquisitions practices. This book surveys Forest’s work from the late 1960s to the present with particular emphasis on his prankster modus operandi, his advocacy of an existentially relevant form of counter-contemporary art―or “invisible system-art”―based on the principle of metacommunication (i.e., tasked with exploring the “immanent realities” of the virtual territory in which modern electronic communication takes place), his innovative “social” and “relational” use of a wide range of media from newspapers to Second Life, his attention-grabbing public interventions, and the unusual utopian dimension of his work. Never a hot commodity in the art world, Forest’s work has nonetheless garnered the attention and appreciation of a wide range of prominent intellectuals, critics, curators, technology innovators, and fellow artists including Marshall McLuhan, Edgar Morin, Vilém Flusser, Abraham Moles, Jean Duvignaud, Paul Virilio, Pierre Lévy, Pierre Restany, Frank Popper, Harald Szeeman, Robert C. Morgan, Vinton Cerf, Roy Ascott, and Eduardo Kac.

This book deals with the ways in which visual artists have reflected on the cultural meaning of technology, and the particular aesthetic of machines, throughout the twentieth century. It is the first comprehensive treatment of Machine Art and covers the most important historical developments as well as the key concepts of machine aesthetics. The book examines a variety of twentieth- and early twenty-first-century artworks that articulate people’s changing relationship with technical devices and infrastructures. It traces historical lineages that connect art of different periods, looking for continuities that link works from the end of the twentieth century to developments in the 1950s and 1960s and to works from the avant-gardes of the 1910s and 1920s. The investigation focuses on four specific domains of artistic engagement with technology: algorithms and machine autonomy; image, vision, and the advent of technical imaging; the human body in its relation to machines; and ecology. The book argues that systems thinking and ecological theories have brought about a fundamental shift in the cultural meaning of technology, which has also caused a change in the way technology impacts the formation of human subjectivity. This changing relationship between technology and subjectivity has been articulated by the different types of "machine art" throughout the twentieth century.

Computing is increasingly intertwined with our physical world. From smart watches to connected cars, to the Internet of Things and 3D-printing, the trend towards combining digital and analogue materials in design is no longer an exception, but a hallmark for where interaction design is going in general. Computational processing increasingly involves physical materials, computing is increasingly manifested and expressed in physical form, and interaction with these new forms of computing is increasingly mediated via physical materials. Interaction Design is therefore increasingly a material concern. In this book, “The Materiality of Interaction – Notes on the Materials of Interaction Design”, Mikael Wiberg investigates this trend towards material interactions. In doing so he describes how the field of human-computer interaction has moved, through the material turn, from a representation-driven design paradigm, towards a paradigm which he calls material-centered interaction design. Wiberg examines what this emergent paradigm implies for the practice of doing interaction design, he proposes a design method for doing material-centered interaction design, and he discusses the implications for moving forward given an interaction design paradigm that focuses on the materiality of interaction.

We live in a world awash with ideas. We have become more creative, and thanks to digital technologies, we have easy access to an unprecedented amount of novel opportunities. How to make sense of this overabundance of opportunities? How to envision the next big thing? How to avoid trying everything and fall into the paradox of ideas (the more ideas we create the less we innovate)? To succeed in an overcrowded world we need a meaningful direction. To focus our creativity and the creativity of others towards a new, shared purpose. This book shows how to take the first crucial step in any innovation journey: the design of a meaningful direction. It provides the mindset, the process, and the tools. Leveraging on the experiences of firms such as Apple, Yankee Candle, Nest Labs, Philips, Gucci, Deloitte, it shows how we can nurture a new purpose that is actionable, and that people love.