From signal to signification in interactive environments

Abstract

There is no doubt that the shift to real-time interactive and electronic media can benefit from a renewed focus on the signal and a signaletic paradigm in addition to the sign. However, in this article I argue that we must be careful not to simply fall into the idea of one paradigm to simply replace the other. Rather, we should investigate what the fusion between paradigms allows us to say about digital and interactive technologies. This article attempts to do this through a thinking-together of signal and signification as well as affect and emotion based on the work of French philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon. Through an analysis of the minimal media installation Touched Echo, I argue that it is necessary to account for the dynamics of a larger experiential continuum to uncover the affective–emotive relations that occur through the transindividual workings of the signal and signification in interactive environments.Jonas Fritsch is Assistant Professor, PhD, in Interaction Design, Department of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University. He works on a multitudinous thinking-together of interaction design and affect theory in conjunction with practical design experiments carried out at the Centre for Digital Urban Living (www.digitalurbanliving.dk) and CAVI (www.CAVI.dk). He holds an MA in Information Studies with a supplementary degree in Aesthetics and Communication from la Nouvelle Sorbonne, Paris, and is a member of the SenseLab, Concordia University.