The Interface Effect

[Dave Monroe]

The Interface Effect
By: Alexander R. Galloway (New York University)

Interfaces are back, or perhaps they never left. The familiar Socratic
conceit from the Phaedrus, of communication as the process of writing
directly on the soul of the other, has returned to center stage in
today's discussions of culture and media. Indeed Western thought has
long construed media as a grand choice between two kinds of
interfaces. Following the optimistic path, media seamlessly interface
self and other in a transparent and immediate connection. But,
following the pessimistic path, media are the obstacles to direct
communion, disintegrating self and other into misunderstanding and
contradiction. In other words, media interfaces are either clear or
complicated, either beautiful or deceptive, either already known or
endlessly interpretable.

Recognizing the limits of either path, Galloway charts an alternative
course by considering the interface as an autonomous zone of aesthetic
activity, guided by its own logic and its own ends: the interface
effect. Rather than praising user-friendly interfaces that work well,
or castigating those that work poorly, this book considers the
unworkable nature of all interfaces, from windows and doors to screens
and keyboards. Considered allegorically, such thresholds do not so
much tell the story of their own operations but beckon outward into
the realm of social and political life, and in so doing ask a question
to which the political interpretation of interfaces is the only
coherent answer.

Grounded in philosophy and cultural theory and driven by close
readings of video games, software, television, painting, and other
images, Galloway seeks to explain the logic of digital culture through
an analysis of its most emblematic and ubiquitous manifestation –  the
interface.

http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745662527

http://books.google.com/books?id=lCWJ83rNi6kC

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117998763/The-Interface-Effect-Alexander-R-Galloway-pdf

Interface

http://www.thomaspynchon.com/gravitys-rainbow/extra/interface.html