Adam Greenfield posts a gently stimulating piece around inspiration in design. He notes how his excitement about his forthcoming paper "As free as the air" (sounds fascinating - more details Adam?) for Ubicomp2002 was somewhat tainted by the trailer to Minority Report, thinking that the interface visualisations therein might actually steal his thunder. Something I'm sure any practising 'designer' can empathise with - happens all the time.
However, I reckon if Adam goes to see Minority Report (leave 10 mins before the end fer chrissake), he'll realise his ideas are likely to be a few years ahead after all. Sure the film has an utterly beautiful evocation of an advanced gestural interface ... but, for a start, it still uses disks! What, they don't have a network in 2050? Never mind wifi. There are numerous other technical and logical inconsistencies with the film ... but anyway. That interface sure is pretty. Reminded me of many 'ubiquitous/pervasive computing' presentations I saw at DIS2002 (again), and watching (buff heterosexual) Cruise manipulate the thing like a prima-donna conductor seemed to provide further proof for my conjecture that interface operation could develop into a performance art/olympic sport.
Adam's post was influenced by reports that MIT research for the DoD draws inspiration from comics. Not before time, I'd suggest. They should certainly keep an eye on The Spiders [via Matt Jones, Boing Boing]. A visit to the Game On exhibition currently at the Barbican in London reminds how long the military have been using video games too.
Adam suggests that not only does 'receiving ideas' in some senses rely on today's incredibly rich shared cultural experiences, but that inspiration within design (as a practice) is almost impossible to conceive of without those shared experiences. That ideas always come from somewhere, subconscious or no, and as often as not emanate from the infosphere that we're constantly bathing in.
"(W)e now (and once again?) live in a milieu where those who dream technologies, those who fund them, and those that comment on them have all been exposed to the same myths." [Adam Greenfield, at v-2.org]
Interesting, as there's creative potential both within expanding and extrapolating commonly-shared myths and genres (such as The Spiders, or the riffs in smarter comic books playing with superhero myths) and there's potential amidst the difference too. In those who haven't experienced what the majority has, and in experiences outside of the global popular culture.
