Interactive Environments as Fields of Transduction

Christoph Brunner and Jonas Fritch Brunner and Fritch call for a Simondonian practice in designing interactive environments, using two pieces of interactive art. They weave together Simondon's concepts of invention, affect, transduction and individuation to articulate a vision of interactive technology that highlights a relation between direct human experience and (interactive) technology. Brunner and Fritch pull Simondon's philosophy into the present day through their consideration of interactive environments, however, as an analysis of design practice they avoid a key Simondonian concept—concretization. This physical consideration of the technology is key in developing a design practice, and is more than a simple adoption of a mindset. It is an understanding of "technical mentality" whereby the inventor, to use Simondon's terminology, understands what the technology does within the environment in ways that go beyond human-use values. I will use this article to help apply Simondon’s ideas of invention and transduction to forming a praxis.