Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Fruit, Mineral, Number

No farm is an island.

Part of my upcoming Fondation Cartier exhibition involves a smaller show of new work for children entitled, "Eye'm Hungry." I haven't made anything interactive in a while, so it was kind of fun to try to make thing runs on 2005-class computers. There is so much activity now in the dynamic graphic space that the task once in front of me was quite daunting. I took it all in a lighthearted space of mind, and the result is simple and hopefully can make a few children (and adults) smile.

In my business school studies, I have learned of the cost of setup in the process of production. This refers to when you have an assembly line, and you change what is going to be assembled. The time required to retool and reconfigure your assembly line can be costly (if you're not a Toyota). I've recently tried to make my mind run more efficiently by borrowing some of the manufacturing techniques I've learned. Unfortunately a mind isn't really a factory, so I must admit that the CEO should have fired me by now for production inefficiencies.

The speed of switching mental processes is a critical skill to master if you don't believe that your mind can multitask. Computers today all multitask (thus you can have a few browsers, Word, and the desktop clock happening simultaneously), but unless your computer has multiple processors, it never is truly processing things in parallel. It's all about the speed of switching behind tasks, and how finely you can chop up the task and also at the same time reduce the cost of switching. I think that's why I marvel at Nicholas Negroponte's ability to respond to every e-mail he receives within 24-hours. I don't understand how it's physically possible. I guess that's the key. Physical, versus mental. Analog, versus digital. Marvin Minsky often mumbles about how he wants to get rid of his body and upload his brain to a computer. If I had my wish, I don't need to upload my brain or be an e-mail machine -- I think I'd like to work with fewer tasks in order to process deeper. Your mind running clean and deep. That's a nice thought.

Posted by maeda at October 11, 2005 12:07 AM