On Feb 1, 2015, at 11:17 PM, Bret Victor wrote:
One of the interesting things about a cockpit is that a pilot and copilot can both be present in the same space, both using the system together and talking about it, but doing different things simultaneously. This is in contrast to, say, pair-programming (where the two people can only work on a single thing at at time, because they are both locked into a single screen) or programmers-sitting-around-staring-at-their-own-laptops (where you can't really say they are present in the same working space).
Seaching for “people using laptops” on the Internet yields images I’d call “collaboration porn.” Who would actually want to work this way—four people surrounding a single laptop? I imagine future generations will look back on these times with some pity. [Also, a John Bergian note: when there is a man, he tends to be the one mediating the laptop, either directly or by pointing. In a few cases, he is also standing—his body free from the confines of operating the computer.]
At some point in the history of storytelling, the rectangle/screen became the dominant form. Looking at photos of screen-watching throughout the eras, it is interesting that, over time, the devices and the people tend are more dominant than the images they are watching. Perhaps what’s on the screen doesn’t matter as much now—we know that the experience is personal/individual, and to keep the photograph feeling that way, it’s best to show people’s reactions to some imagined, individually-tailored content.
This next image was somewhat of an outlier during my search. The name is something like “Family watching giant LCD screen.” I don’t really understand who created this image or why, but its tone is much more like the early cinema/early television photos, where the focus is on the viewed content, not the viewers. It seems that Big = immersive/dominating and Small = control/individual. Can a group interact with and share an immersive screenworld, or are they relegated only to watching?
Cinema and storytelling used to be more collective experiences in physical spaces—now, not so much. Perhaps it is really the printing press/book/novel that started us down this path, and cinema was, in some ways, a return to an older form. In any case, it seems that the contemporary Individual Rectangle Screen (like the novel of the past) is winning big time these days; I’m writing this on my Individual Rectangle Screen.