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cover design: antonio fdez.coca © 1998 • http://dmi.uib.es/people/acoca • e.mail: antonioc@ipc4.uib.es • University Balearic Islands. Spain
Welcome to "Student Perspectives on the
Future of Content". In 1997, the Electronic
Publishing sector of DGXIII/E-4 published
through Techserv a discussion document
called "The Future of Content". It encapsula-
ted the views of strategists, academics, rese-
archers, industrialists and users. It contained
input from people at all points of the content
value chain: creators, publishers, managers
and consumers. Its purpose was to assist the
European Commission to determine the
orientations that a research and develop-
ment programme in multimedia content
should take.

The document has been very successful but

it is clear that discussions on the future of
content are to a certain extent sterile without
the energy and honesty of those who will
herald the new wave of content. This is how
the idea of acquiring a students view was
born. On the occasion of the Interactive
Multimedia Student Forum in Palma in
January 1998, we invited the participating
students to provide us with their vision state-
ments. To heighten interest in the initiative,
we offered some prizes for the most creative
entries.

The result was a very dynamic, almost orga-

nic interaction, during which the students
enthusiastically seized the opportunity to
record their views. I do not necessarily agree
with everything they say and you the reader
may find some of their opinions challenging,
but I fully support their right to say them.

The contributions included vision statements,

scenarios and commentaries, published here
in a way that we hope retains the vitality and
spontaneity with which they were submitted.
What is the future of content? On the basis of
this interaction, the answer is quite clear. The
future of content is people.

Kieran O'Hea
Techserv
February 1998

e-mail: kohea@ip.lu
http://elpub.ml.org
As main organisers of the Forum of the European
Master of Arts in Interactive Multimedia (MA IMM),
which was the setting against which vision state-
ments on The Future of Content were collected, we
would like to tell the readers a little more about it.
The Forum gathers the Master students and staff
for one week every year, together with guests from
Universities and Companies across Europe. It is a
stimulating event full of exciting discussions
amongst students, staff, guests. About 60 master
students of 17 different nationalities, 20 lecturers
coming from The London College of Printing of the
London Institute of Higher Education Corporation,
the École Nationale Supérieure de la Creation
Industrielle (Paris) and the Dublin Institute of
Technology and Universitat de les Illes Balears
took part this year. Guest speakers were from
Spain, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal
and UK.

Universitat de les Illes Balears hosted the Forum in

Palma from 26th till 30th of January 1998, which
was partially sponsored by the Regional
Government of the Balearic Islands. In previous
years the hosts were HKU (1994, Hilversum, The
Netherlands), LCP (1995, London, UK), ENSCI
(1996, Paris, France) and DIT (1997, Dublin,
Ireland).

The Web address of the European MAIMM Forum

is http://o2a.uib.es/maimm/forum/index.html

Josep Blat and Antonio Fdez.Coca UIB

Dpt Matematiques i Informatica,
Universitat Illes Balears,
E-07071 Palma de Mallorca (Balears) Spain
Phone: + 34 71 173243/2991; Fax: + 34 71 173003
http://dmi.uib.es/people/jblat
http://dmi.uib.es/people/acoca
e-mail: jblat@anim.uib.es
e-mail: antonioc@ipc4.uib.es
 Juan Miguel Bauzá

Martin Casey

Anne Courtois

Garret Dalton

Sandra Guedenzi

Tyrone Hannick

Kamol Khunvitayapaisal

Altan Koraltan

Owen Kelly

Eric Lachaud

Alan Lambert

Alan McLeod

Conor McMahon

Renate Minoga

Colm Murphy

Gary Nolan

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

 Joachim Pietsch

Tania Ruiz

Lisa Salem

Matthew Sharwood

Claudia Torres

Chris Timmerman

Johnson Tsui / Adam de Linde

Lam Wai

Judith Whittaker

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Zoop and the lost memory
For a long time, Zoop had been looking for his per-
fect-landscape, which would allow him to get the
adequate dose to recover the mental-breath-balan-
ce in order not to disappear and dilute into the
swarm of ultra-autonoumous-beings from the
Outside.
The perfect-landscape must be comfortable
enough for him not to miss the termical seat of the
micro-transporter which takes him to work every-
day.
Zoop understands that he has found the missing
piece which enables him to integrate himself com-
pletely into the outside whole. His blood pressure
increases for a moment, and he thinks that it is only
a dream and that it is not possible to have so much
luck.
He sweats abundantly under his super insulating
suit, and he is afraid that the old postcard he holds
with delicaty can disintegrate.
He has no doubts about the quality of the image,
and he takes a glimpse at the immense sea, a sea
without any of those disgusting virtual whales.
Zoop has spent years dreaming of an image like
that and he has finally found it. It was down there,
at the four hundred-metre subway where he works.
Other people have already enjoyed and praised the
advantages of being able to see their own perfect-
landsapes, people which they found anywere in the
city. These people can be seen, any time of the day,
happy, looking far away, at the horizon, not being
aware of anything else. The crowd brushes against
them with their super transportators, and some
absent minded even crash into them, but it does not
seem they care.
Some of them see woods over an ultra-titanio door,
others see the sky full of stars over the anti-pollu-
tion crystal of the personal super-transportator.
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Juan Miguel Bauzá. UIB
juanmi@kmm.uib.es
The images are perfect, clean and shining, even
though each time it is more difficult to find ancient
things to base memories on. They are already sear-
chers of books, old photographs or films out of
which one can extract a light reference of what
used to exist.
The landscapes flow and reach everywere perfectly
and instantaneously.
Zoop can not believe it, the exhumed postcard
must be seven hundred years old. One can see a
still sea on it, which seems to be limitless. It is the
first time Zoop sees something like that and feels a
strange vertigo.
The title on the card identifies it as “sea”...from now
on, Zoop sea. The photograph became yellow a
llong time ago and, in many places, little particles of
paper made thin cracks which merged whith the
waves.
Zoop sighs.
He closes his eyes and smiles underneath the anti-
pollution mask.
Zoop knows he will be able to get his undistorted,
pure, bright, yellow sea whenever he wants to.He
will plunge into it by only wishing it and switching on
the signal.
The transmission centres work at their full capacity,
but the most difficult thing is to find images that can
provide a base for reproducing the perfect-lands-
capes
Zoop will always be able to see his piece of rustling
yellow sea, inmersing him into a dream of hyperre-
ality.
Titulo
The Wastepaper
del ensayoBasket
AKA The World Wide Web
The question for the future of content is, How can
we stratificate content.
In the context of the commercial world time is
money. With this in mind there seems to be far too
much time wasted finding the content that we requi-
re.
Recently I was required to write a paper on the
French thinker Baudrillard. I though that the WWW
would be the best scource reference available to
me. I was bombarded with 365 218 references to
this French thinker.This obviously blew my mind
and right away I knew that I would infinately never
have enough time to sift through this information.
This was a problem and a problem that I feel is
beginning to destroy the WWW.
We are reaching a point where we cannot distin-
guish between good and bad content. There is not-
hing worse than searching for something and
having to wait for the search engine to find your
specific request. When the engine find the request
we are bombarded with thousands of interpreta-
tions or pages which relate to your request.
Considering that time is money, there is only so
much time to read all this information. We need a
model to categorize this content.
For examaple, Should the service providers be
required to catagorise relevent and irrelevent infor-
mation, or is this the responsibilty of the user ? This
is not an issue of resources, but an organisational
issue.
I do not advocate censorship, rather I do not equa-
te organisation with censorship. I am not advoca-
ting the introduction of modes of restriction, essen-
tially the beauty of the internet is the freedom to
express yourself. And this freedom would be facila-
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Martin
nombreCasey.
del autor
DIT
Nkosi@hotmail.com
e.mail del autor
tated with the easy navigation of content. This con-
tent does not have to be impersonal. The personal
soap box should have the capacity to reflect the
personality and the eccentricity of the user .What is
required is the development of an organisational
model. This catagorisation can be based on many
different metaphors. Possibly through the introduc-
tion of colour coded sections on the internet.
Addressing the question of rescources, it is more to
do with the funding of explorations of models of
catagorisation , than with control of content. With
this stratification of content there would not be that
feeling of information overload. This catagorisation
of content would not restrict the web but rather free
it up. In this case looking at traditional models of
organisation and applying them to interactive digital
media may be the way forward. This as I have sta-
ted is about access to information. Currently going
to the library seems to be the better alternative,
hopefully through the stratification of information
(content) we will be able to harness the benefits of
digital media. We do not have the time or patience
to sift through thousands of page of URLS to find
exactly what we want. In other words if we do not
categorize the internet it will become nothing more
that a waste bin.
L'avenir ? des publications
réelement interactives
La notion essentielle en matière d'édition multimé-
dia est l'interactivité. Cependant, actuellement, l'in-
teractivité des produits multimédia se réduit a des
propositions de thèmes sous forme de table des
matières, parmis lesquels le lecteur fait son choix.
Ces thèmes sont pré-écrits et les cheminements du
lecteur dans l'information lui sont imposés.
Ainsi, malgrés tous les avantages apportés par ce
nouveau support, à savoir, les liens hypertextes, le
son, l'image animée, la cinétique typographique...,
cette soi-disant interactivité est limitée.
Ne peut-on pas imaginer qu'un tel media puisse
prendre en compte le comportement des individus?
En effet, l'interactivité, ce n'est pas faire un choix
entre différents thèmes de manière à entrer dans
l'information comme c'est le cas dans un livre.
L'interactivité, la réelle intéractivité, ce ne doit pas
uniquement être le lecteur qui s'adapte au contenu
comme c'est encore le cas avec les CD-Rom et les
sites internet où il suit les voies qu'on lui a tracé. Le
contenu doit lui aussi pouvoir s'adapter au lecteur.
Ainsi, on peut imaginer que l'avenir de l'édition
électronique peut être de proposer des contenus
d'informations, des développements de raisonne-
ments ou des concepts qui puissent se générer en
fonction du comportement de ses lecteurs, de ce
qu'ils sont et de ce qu'ils savent.
En effet, pour tout lecteur, la seule réalité qui soit,
est la sienne et la seule interaction qui lui importe,
est celle dont il a besoin. Ainsi, en termes d'inte-
ractivité, le point de départ d'une démonstration, le
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Anne nombre
Courtois.delENSCI
autor
courtois@ensci.com
e.mail del autor
fil conducteur sont des archaïsmes et l'altération de
la linéarité est fondamentale. Il faut que le lecteur
puisse créer son propre cheminement, sa propre
voie.
Ainsi, lors de la consultation d'un contenu d'infor-
mation, le parcours du lecteur ne doit plus se faire
en fonction des choix, des liens qu'on lui impose.
Le lecteur doit pouvoir créer lui-même le contenu
qui l'intéresse en créant ses propres liens et non
pas suivant le contenu de l'information qui devra
être écrit, mais aussi les lois qui géreront la façon
dont le contenu d'une publication se générera, de
manière à répondre à tout lecteur.
Il faut donc créer ces lois, développer des pro-
grammes informatiques, des agents intelligent qui
pourront régir la génése de tels contenus propres à
répondre à chaque individu. La puissance de plus
en plus grande de nos ordinateurs et le temps réel,
le génie de nos informaticiens et l'intelligence artifi-
cielle semblent pouvoir offrir un ensemble de rée-
lles potentialités en matière d'interactivité person-
nalisée. Le lecteur deviendra alors, après l'auteur,
le principal acteur de la génése de la publication.
Les écrits pourront s'adapter à la réalité de leurs
lecteurs.
N'est-ce pas cela la véritable interactivité?
Utopie? Peut être pas tant que ça...
Future <-> information
Garret Dalton. UIB
garret@kmm.uib.es

<TITLE> <B> Today </B> </TITLE>

<HEAD>

<META NAME= "keywords" CONTENT "information revolution", "infinite information

access", "difficulty locating topic", "less time to look", "nothing depreciates like yester-
day's news", "information overload fatigue">
</HEAD>
<BODY>

<A HREF="http://Tomorrow"> is when the computer will know and understand us and will
be our mentor in our quest for knowledg: our agent>

</BODY>

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Tomorrow
In the 'post
information' revo-
lution the real cha-
llenge is not having
access to infinite informa-
tion, but rather, acquiring
the desired information in the
simplest and most direct man-
ner. It could also be called a
'control revolution' a radical shift
in who makes choices about
information experience, and
resources. It will now be the user, through his
delegates, who decides when and what informa-
tion to view and access. A form of ‘object orienta-
ted’ structure/environment, where all service ele-
ments, not only work together, but help define and
build each other.
Let's start at the start! A computer is defined as a
"machine that stores and processes data".
Obviously this bears little resemblance to our
requirements of it. Lets just redefine it based on
its new functionality: ‘collection of digital 'ants'
(anything is better than computer!), existing on a
network medium, working together in an object
orientated manner.
These 'ants' will become our friends, interaction
with them will not be hygienically standard, but rat-
her will be intuitional and they will learn our man-
ners and habits. If we require one of our 'ants' to
perform a task he/she will provide us with a perso-
nalised service, we are their master after all.
He/she knows us and wants to serve us and is
prepared to do this relentlessly, based on their
eusocial (inherent sacrificial makeup) character.
Their interaction is not just confined to us by any
means. As a result of their altruistic attitude, we
can be guaranteed that once we send one 'ant' on
a mission that he/she will, together with his com-
rades, working in parallel, ensure the maxim
results possible. These mobile 'ants' travel on any
existing Web or communication channel gaining
information and simultaneously collaborating with
`filtering ants’ located at the base, who based on
our current state of mind/requirements, will rely on
the ‘notification ants’ to present, or not, the fin-
dings to us. These representatives will have the
power to bargain and swap information with other
agents, who belong to other clients. We will in
addition be guaranteed the best representation
possible, through our war ants.
The idea is that once the user has identified a
need for content then he/she sets up a communi-
cation channel to manage the content. As the con-
tent is changed at the source, the channel trans-
mits or manages and updates the content on the
clients’ machine. All content can thus be dynamic.
The emphasis will be on user attention, with the
target users paid to pay attention to any advertise-
ment. Publicity will be tapered to the individual's
requirements and interests.
Titulo
The future
del ensayo
of content
The 20th century has invented the computer, the
21st will have to deal with it.
When a question like ‘the future of content’ arises,
a lot of considerations can be made. Will digital
content force a convergence between the actual
medias, who will be the creators of this content
(artists or technicians), will we have too much infor-
mation, how will we select it, who will benefit from
it... but, to my eyes, all this is not the most interes-
ting part of the debate. The content and its support
are intrinsically linked, and we can’t speak about
the future of the first without analysing what will
happen to the second.
If we translate print, video, film or sound into series
of 0 and 1, what happens to it? Apparently nothing.
We still have a word, an image or a sound... but this
time it appears through a computer screen. Has
this changed the content of what we have impor-
ted? This is all to be discussed.
Lets come back to the link between the content and
its support.
Imagine a book. The book is the support (we could
also call it ‘media’) and the content is the novel that
it contains. We could take a newspaper or a maga-
zine (other supports that are using words) they
would result dramatically different in the content (an
aricle is not a novel). If we step to television the link
between content and support is even more clear:
the use that television makes of image is proper to
the medium itself (see the difference between tele-
vision and cinema).
So for the content creator (writer, director, musi-
cian...) the first choice is the medium that will con-
tain its message, the content will then find its way
of expression depending on the support that has
been chosen.
If we want to see how the digitalisation of informa-
tion is changing our world we could start analysing
the new support that it has created. The computer
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Sandra
nombre
Guedenzi.
del autor
LCP
s.gaudenzi1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor
is a machine where supports such as CD-Roms,
DVD, World Wide Webb are creating new ways of
expression. But what is peculiar about these new
supports is that they are not adding a new ‘code’
(words, images, sounds...), they are just mixing
them together in a different way. Our new support
could be seen as a ‘remix’ of our old ones. Of cour-
se the big novelty is that we can interact with the
medium and, in this sense, we read and use it in a
completely new way. But has the content really
changed? Not really. What has changed is the way
we assimilate it.
So, to come back to the original question, what
about the future of content?
Until we consider the digital revolution through the
computer and its actual supports, the content will
not drastically change as such, what will change is
its authors, its distribution and its public. What will
really change the content is the event of virtual rea-
lity.
The day we will be able to immerse ourselves into
a virtual world that will contain all the information
that is now available around us, then we will beco-
me the support for it. The day we will not read a
novel but live it, there will be no such thing as the
book or the intermediate between someone’s crea-
tion and our perception. We will be in the novel and
so we will also be part of the content.
This is the real revolution: when content will be
space, smell, life and not word, video, imagination.
This is the future we cannot even imagine because
we are used to interpretate or use a support; we are
not used to ‘be’ the support ourselves and to crea-
te the content while it is happening.
The future of content is to be life, and stop being
content.
Future of Content

Tyrone
nombre
Hannick.
del autor
LCP
t.hannick1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor

Where do we begin?

As we evolve we see patterns from the past being replayed, re-enacted before
us. In the same way, what will forge the future of content are patterns from its
own past.
Where this all begins is when humans began to interpret their perception of their
natural and social environment, be it faded paintings on cave walls or etchings
on monoliths.
As the necessity for communication intensified we developed symbols to
express meaning in the form of language and then text.
Finally as content increased in volume, and modes of expression, in order to
allow us to manage and digest it, its form moved from the solid (paper, celluloid)
to also encompass the fluid (analogue, digital).

What can we conclude?

Although the tools and means of production may change we will always create
content, as it is intrinsically linked to our being, our expression of our existence.

What will change in terms of the future?

What will change in the future is reflected in the way we are transforming our
concept of time. We evolve at an increasingly faster rate, the flux of information
has intensified pushing our abilities to absorb it all to its limits.

As concerns the management of this glut of content we will require the develop-
ment of artificial entities which mirror thought processes, to help us absorb.

The danger of this non-stop evolutionary acceleration is if we shorten or limit the

time we allow for the process of reflection. Reflection is what provides the crea-
tive psyche with space which is essential, if the intention in the creation of con-
tent is innovation and not imitation.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

'Euro Cult'

Kamol Khunvitayapaisal.
nombre del autor
LCP
k.kamol1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor

The Euro Cult would be a digital weekly magazine about the Europeans' culture.
For instance, art; music; cooking and sport. It would be published on the internet.
The text would be in a mixture of languages. For instance, an article about Italian
cooking for British readers would be in English. From place to place in the text the
words would be replaced by Italian words, i.e. (cooking instructions) put spaghet-
ti in boiling water for 10 minutes. The word 'water' would be replaced by the Italian
word, which is printed in a different colour from the English language, and there
would be a pop up dialogue box explaining the meaning and grammar, when the
word is clicked (activated). Also, there would be sound teaching how to pronoun-
ce the word. There would be several different levels of integration of the langua-
ge. The advance level will have more integration of the languages. For the profi-
ciency level, the readers could choose to read purely written in Italian language.
This integration of languages would apply to other languages which are officially
being used in the European Union. If the article is about England and published
for Spanish readers, it would be published in Spanish and mixed with English
words. This scenario would apply to other EU's official languages.

I believe language is living. The nations would integrate if their members adapted
one another culture and languages. This concept is a kind of melting pot and is
the one which once created the Afrikaans language.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Titulo del ensayo
Emancipated Computing
Recently, a friend of mine illustrated an old Chinese
proverb in one of his presentations to explain mul-
timedia. Two fishes, one fully grown and the other a
baby are swimming in the sea.
The baby, asks
What is water?
The fully grown fish answers: you are surrounded
by it son
Content, to me is a little bit like that. We are
surrounded by it. Immersed in it, and indeed we are
the content. Computers are not made in the image
of man, but the computer is the mind - set of man.
Through out history, man evolved variety of
mediums for self expression.
xpression and representation: painting, text, print,
photography, moving image, sound, video, anima-
tion. Ever since Gutenburg printed the first Bible,
our striving has been to advance the means by
which we express and represent our selves. The
content that gives life and meaning to an otherwise
an earthly and empty corps.
Now, for the first time, these disciplines we created
have been digitised. A new palette has been crea-
ted for our self expression. It is, if you will, like man,
the artist suddenly finding new colours. These
colours when mixed create what we have come to
call Interactive Multimedia.
Are they, these number crunching, cold, calculating
monsters ready perhaps to obliterate humanity and
create a new computational new order, perhaps, a
cheap thrill from a game, or a glorified typewriter?
Well, if the metaphor for the multimedia tools
(image, text, video and animation) are colours and
if we extend and continue with the same line of
thought and say, that the computer then becomes
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Altan
nombre
Koraltan.
del autor
LCP
koraltan@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor
the canvas, the paper, on to which we apply our
extended colour range in order to create content.
There is how ever a problem here, computers are
created and programed by techno' s to perform
multiple of tasks of which multimedia or electronic
publishing is only one. To greater extent computa-
tion is still largely controlled by programmers who
create the sofware to operate the computer.
When computers were at an infant stage of deve-
lopment, our expectations still, some how, out strip-
ped their performance. It seems perhaps, that
some of the targeting and specifications of compu-
ters were to say the least underestimated. The
more we learn.
earn about the computer and the software, that
operates it, the more we demanded.
manded of the computer. Our dreams and ambi-
tions, are infinate so when we come to find outlets
for these, we want to feel that what is on promise is
realised technically. For, with every advancement of
technology our demands and ways of self expres-
sion become even more ambitious.
Now, in the digital age, we are more mature as
users of computation and see more clearly how we
want to use computers to create this elusive dream,
idea-content.
IInternet, for instance is more advanced as a busi-
ness, and its membership is growing daily. Millions
of people already access it everyday, for work,
enjoyment or both.
We want, indeed demand, more user friendly, more
powerful computers and software from the manu-
factures even though many of us perhaps only use
a small percentage of the capabilities of the com-
puters. But what's changed, we use a small per-
centage of our brains.
We want the ' techno' s to become more aware of
the input of the users. It is not just purely the ergo-
nomics of the hardware, but we seem to want to
create the reflection of our souls on the computer
screen make it artifically intelligent with a heart,
warm blooded, like us.
We want to spend less time grappling with the ope-
rating systems, with interfaces, and use the time to
explore and to realise the full potential of our crea-
tivity.

That seems to be the way the future is going. More

powerful computers built with voice recognition,
metaphoric bots to suit your taste. Give your com-
puter a personality, make it part of the familly give it
tasks to do while your are not present. Now, you
can perhaps be in two places at once? Sensors will
be regulating and controlling our domestic and
business environments. Intelligent buildings, cars,
televisions more sophisticated communication sys-
tems.
Technology that will create integrated computatio-
nal systems with it' s own alphabet. Understood by
us all. No chains of gobbeldy - gook programming
language, that you need to study for years in order
to write simple script, instruction to your artifical
mate. Yes, may be a mate in all the senses of that
word. Of course, for every good thing there is a flip
side. But, that is for another time. In short emanci-
pating programming, take it out of the hands of the
techno's and give it to the crazy's as I heard some
one say the other day. Don' t leave it cold and cal-
culating, making it hot blooded, imaginative that's
the way we prefer more pleasant interactions. A
warm colour perhaps a full blooded orange (
metaphorically speaking) where our every day is a
new dawn. That will empower people, give wider
accessibility to the computer and the tools with in to
more than fuel our imaginations to reach our full
potential, realising ideas, our dreams in transit, to
reality, virtual or not.
For we are the future of content for any form of
expression.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Titulo Live
Long del ensayo
the King!!!
Content is king....long live the king! This is the latest
call to arms of multimedia designers today as they
negotiate a position for themselves in a technically
grounded industry. Can this positioning of the tech-
nical and the creative communities continue and
still move the industry forward? When discussing
the future of content the answer to this question is
secondary to what the new generation of users will
demand. What will these new demands be?
Accessibility, usability and functionality of software
and hardware to facilitate online publishing. The
mediator is no longer the content developer but the
software and hardware.
There are many tools that exist today to create con-
tent in a digital form. With the emergence of a desi-
re to no longer be a passive partaker of content but
an active subscriber, we must look beyond the digi-
tal page to the creation and delivery of interactive
documents. The author must have the ability to cre-
ate such a piece without the need for an indepth
technical understanding of the underlying stuctu-
res.To this end, a tool is needed that provides the
creative user with the ability to author a piece that
can incorporate audio, video, text, graphics and
animation in an interactive environment. Such tools
exist today but are positioned in the production pro-
cess at a level far above the content creator and
have seemingly insurmountable learning curves.
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
nombre
Owen Kelly.
del autor
DIT
e.mail
okelly@dit.ie
del autor
To facilitate a creative communication platform the
end user must have uninhibited access to a tool
that allows the intuitive process to flourish. The
development of this tool will cause a paradigm shift
in the interactive publishing community.
The accessibility of the internet gives the user the
means to disseminate their work without the costly
and subjective process of publishing as it currently
exists. Positioned within this infrastructure and
armed with this new authoring tool the home publis-
her will become a reality, challenging our notions of
creativity. If the creative process becomes truly
intuitive there is no time or place for devaluation of
content or ideas.
To this end we return back to the original statement
... content is king! However, in this new medium
content clearly cannot exist without the tools and
hardware to house it. Through the collaboration of
the technical and creative disciplines the percep-
tion of the computer and its place in our lives has
been altered radically. This perception has positio-
ned the user as the driving force in content deve-
lopment. Perhaps the designers and technicians
should take a step back and rewrite this adage and
express it from the users perspective ... CONTEXT
IS KING!
Pour des lendemains qui
chantent ... juste
J'aimerais que les Européens en général et leurs
dirigeants en particulier profitent de l'avénement
des "autoroutes" de l'information pour se démar-
quer du modèle de civilisation démesurément mer-
cantiliste qui règne de l'autre côté de l'Atlantique et
du Pacifique et qui occupe une place prépondéran-
te dans la production multimédia actuelle.
Je souhaiterais que les Européens démontrent, par
leurs initiatives, que le multimédia peut être égale-
ment un vecteur de la démocratie lorsqu'il rappro-
che les citoyens du savoir et qu'il propose par ce
biais des services d'intérêt général accessibles à
tous.
L'expérience du Minitel en France constitue à mon
sens un exemple précieux du fait de la contradic-
tion majeure qu'elle recèle. L'État français s'est
engagé généreusement au début de cette expé-
rience à fournir gratuitement un Minitel a tous les
abonnés du téléphone. Cependant, comme Sega
et Nintendo, l'État français fait payer l'accès aux
informations et aux service qu'il diffuse sur ce ter-
minal. Cette conduite contredit le principe du
Service Public pourtant si cher aux français qui
assure à tous l'accès aux informations et aux servi-
ces d'intérêt général sans conditions de ressour-
ces.
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Eric nombre
Lachaud.delENSCI
autor
lachaud@ensci.com
e.mail del autor
Afin de promouvoir un Service Public européen qui
dépasse l'expérience française, j'aimerais que la
Communauté européenne soutienne la production
et la diffusion d'informations et de services d'intérêt
général accessibles à tous. Je pense notamment à
la mise en place:
- de bibliothèques en réseaux pour les écoles et les
universités de l'ensemble des pays de la
Communauté
- de bourses virtuelles du travail qui recensent les
opportunités de formation continue et d'emploi
dans les différentes régions de la Communauté.
- de guichets virtuels qui permettent l'accès aux
services publics des différentes régions de la
Communauté.
- de forums virtuels (type IRC) sur lesquels pou-
rraient être débattus des questions d'intérêt géné-
ral dans les différentes régions de la Communauté.
Il me semble que c'est en produisant des contenus
de ce type et en permettant au plus grand nombre
d'y accéder facilement que le multimédia européen
trouvera une place à part entière sur les autoroutes
de l'information.
Ignore the status quo:
The future is ours.
Which would you rather read; a boring, incoherent
story written using a £1000 Gold Parker pen or a
riveting, page turner of a story written using a half-
chewed pencil? Would you rather see a beautifully
photographed film with a cliched plot and uncon-
vincing characters or a film shot on a Sonycam for
sixpence, that has a unique plot and engaging cha-
racters? These are the choices that seem to lie
ahead for the consumer of multi-media, particularly
on the Internet.
In Multi-media/Internet-land so much is being writ-
ten about the latest metaphorical Internet pens,
pencils and cameras that we are in danger of losing
sight of the real target that multi-media professio-
nals should be aiming at: producing content that the
consumers want to consume.
Ah, that word..."content"!! Terrifies the life out of
otherwise sturdy commentators. They fear the
question that haunts the development of multi-
media, especially the development of the internet,
so much that some of the most outrageous cods
wallop ever sprouted by the dying breed of the lud-
dite old-media pros is regularly quoted in the press
and on TV as being "authoritative". Martin Amis
considers the net a "worthless toy for talentless
Geeks" - does he now. I wonder why? Fear, that’s
why. He feels excluded - doesn't understand - and
so fears. He is not alone. He fears "content" that
might exclude him.
Content will be driven by talent - new media talent.
Talent that can connect two or more established
forms of communication, add a little something else
and produce exciting new multi-media content.
Exactly what that content will be no-one can pos-
sibly imagine. Could Logie-Baird have envisaged
Eastenders, Marconi BT's Friends and Family offer,
Bell Virgin Radio? Of course not. So how can we
foresee the future? Obviously we can't and it is stu-
pid and self-defeating to try.
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Alan
nombre
Lambert.
del autor
LCP
lambert1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor
What we must do is try new things, try new ways of
storytelling that engage the consumer and demand
an interactive response. New ways of selling and
advertising to raise finance to produce new-media
shows. Not 'Banner-Ads', they're deader than
disco. Truly interactive advertising that will reap
such huge rewards the old-media ad agency boys'll
be dust and bones. No idle boast this, if internet
advertising revenues carry on at least doubling in
size every year, as they have for the last four, then
a schoolboy can determine that eventually, maybe
in 10 years, it will be the advertising medium. Digital
TV with its return path miracle should ensure that.
The luddites at Saachi disagree, scoff at their sup-
posed 'dilemma', say sarcastically 'Yeah, we're
really scared'. Deep down they know. They know.
And they are very quietly assembling info and per-
sonnel to hopefully place themselves in the fore-
front at the appropriate time, i.e. "When the net
takes off" as Maurice is fond of saying. Wake up
Mo, it has taken off and is climbing in altitude at a
rate faster than even the most optimistic 'nethead'
would've believed four years ago.
No-one, absolutely no-one on this planet knows
what the net will be like in 10, 5 or even 3 years
time. The Redmont Behemoth invested $800m in
its web TV channel, lost the lot. And if Bill doesn't
know anything, who does? His fortunes luckily
saved his company but the mistake his huge ego
made of thinking he could form the net design it and
dominate it was typical of the "old thinking", and
long may it continue. His money can pave the way
for our multitude of talents without even being
aware of it.
Or as Bill would say (if he weren't the ego manic
that he is) "How do you make a small fortune on the
Internet? Start with a big one!"
 Alan McLeod. D.I.T.
amcleod@dit.es

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Titulo del
Vision Statement
ensayo
The Future of Content on the Web.
We speak of content, of intellectual property, of
ownership.
We speak in the language of real estate. We define
phenomena with a language which is only really
designed to describe an item or concept as it exists
in real time and space.
The wrong tools for the job.
Within the virtual, the digital, the codified ones and
zeroes that manifest and drive web technology, we
deal in ideas, fluid and changing.
An idea is a precious commodity, invaluable and
utterly mutable.
We move away from the physical manifestation of
ideas; books, films, records and music cd´s.
As we shake off the the parameters and codes of
these analogue media, we must prepare ourselves
for a new attitude to that which we currently refer to
as content.
Out are the lawsuits for breach of copyright.
Appropriation will become the norm and has always
fuelled and enlivened our arts.
Corporate law may give up at the first fence, the
challenge is
insurmountable, and scapegoating can only really
go so far.
We speak through the content of media peripheral
to our lives. Often we hear ourselves speak of a
fragment of a film, a song, a book or a poem, as we
strive to ultimately communicate some vital ele-
ment of ourselves.
Softwares provide us with the tools of appropriation
and we will use this technology as we do, to speak
of ourselves.
We will appropriate whatever it takes to do this and
the law cannot keep up.
I write as an artist and this both excites and intri-
gues me. I wonder how I can protect my work and
yet I cannot let this hold me back. I must take this
chance.
The web provides a highly kinetic space for the
collision and interaction of ideas, and we ultimately
cannot control or regulate this kind of environment.
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Conor
nombre
McMahon.
del autor
DIT
cmcmaon@dit.ie
e.mail del autor
There are far to many variables.
However, think of a city when the lights go out. We
can run wild and ransack, plunder and appropriate,
but we may find ourselves with nothing more than
the useless results of a senseless looting.
Resources and tools appropriated and used wit-
hout thought or any real regard for their potential.
Guard against this.
On the web, we may sit back and think about it.
Think about respect, respect for diversity, opinion
and feeling. Think about the ideals of etiquette, and
a regard for other people.
The web emerges, not as a technical resource, but
as a tool for communication.
In the absence of a legal structure capable of enfor-
cing respect, we must value the ideas and thoughts
of others as the very fibre of communication, and
the future of web content.
We are not dealing with commodities, we are expe-
riencing something which can only exist as virtual
phenomena, and we must be gentle with this fragi-
le material.
We must tread carefully amongst each other in this
virtual, charged space, as we move towards the
generation of our own content on the web.
Our ideas express ourselves, they represent the
fundamentals of who we are and the unique space
and perspective we can each occupy on this earth.
On the web this is our only real possession and the
virtual can never subsume this.
We can only protect this with respect, and for the
time being this is central to the future of digital con-
tent, of any shape, form or origin.
Maybe respect is the future of digital content.
Maybe the web presently challenges our ability to
respect the ideas, thoughts and feelings of others.
These are the elements of our conciousness, our
conscience, which defines as nothing more than
that which we are,
a human race.
Impartial information X
Comments
Renata
nombre
Minoga,
del autor
DIT
a.minoga1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor

Information now is provided in a large number of ways but all of it very partial.
Every time you get any kind of information you also get someone elses opinion or
point of vew about it.

In the future, people should concentrate on finding a way of providing information

that is absolutely impartial. Information chrystal clear, and as an extra, an analy-
sis , or a point of vew of someone maybe interested on the subject, linked anyway
with it, or even in outside observer.

Impartial information, makes people reach their own conclusions. It should be

their own choice if they want or not to go deeper into the subject comparing their
conclusion with other points of vew , not being driven by someone elses conclu-
sion or opinion.

When you make conclusions by your self, and then you discuss the topic you
make any conclusion more mature. People need to think more for themselves, the
content should be more in real form, less worked out to make our life easy.

People deserve to think about information, not only swallow it as a tablet and we
will have to learn how to digest information again! That is a way to empower infor-
mation, compelling people to think and consequently inspiring and enriching their
minds.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Future of Content
Interacting with the latest on-line documentary you
are interrupted by your brother in Australia calling
via video conference to remind you its mother's
birthday tomorrow. You quickly order her present
after an interactive database gave a selection of
novel customised gifts and pay for it using digi-
euros drawn on-line from your money manager ser-
ver.
After the documentary you click on news and get a
customised multimedia presentation detailing what
happened in your locality, nationally, internationallly
and professionally today. Its drawn from different
sources in languages but presented by a single
voice in the one tongue.
Its then down to work to do a half an hour module
of the MA in interactive multimedia you are comple-
ting through a Portuguese university.
While this scenario is technically feasible today the
prohibitive hardware and telecommunications costs
have meant few have developed the content to
make such a scene commonplace. In the future,
the low distribution cost of electronic content will
mean the information which for geographical and
commercial reasons it was not viable to communi-
cate through a medium will become accessible to a
mass audience. Another significant change will be
that the on-line audience's profile - mainly male,
white, computer literate, upper middle class, wes-
tern European and north American will also change
bringing more universal and varied content.
The geographic location of the mass market
audience, which previously TV, radio, newspapers
and other traditional forms of media had to cater for
will, become much less important in future publis-
hing. Special interest content, original content sho-
wing all sides to the story and detailed coverage
with feedback may become the norm if the new
medium of digital media is harnessed creatively
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Colm
nombre
Murphy.
del autor
DIT
cmurphy@dit.es
e.mail del autor
and openly.
Technology such as instantaneous translation
should allow cultures that rarely communicated
before to begin to talk. The Anglo-American content
which dominates much of western European media
should give way to a more diverse range of influen-
ces.
Interactive on-line programmes and games in
which the viewers must participate will partly repla-
ce some of the time spent passively watching the
same television set. The range and choice will be
diverse and not restricted by national or cultural
boundaries.
For professionals, their precious time and constant
need for more micro information will be satisfied by
personalised multimedia on-line content. Their
expensive and time consuming chores such as
checking an overseas company's credit rating, get-
ting business leads from planning permissions and
seeking trading links outside of their traditional mar-
kets in other countries and languages should beco-
me easier.
Life enhancement content will also feature. Non
profit support groups can proliferate linking people
with similar problems or who have faced similar
dilemmas who would otherwise never have had the
opportunity to communicate. Educationally, cour-
ses will be able to be provided more economically
and in people's own homes. They can pursue cour-
ses that geographically or financially had been out
of their reach.
The most exciting content prospect is what we have
not been able to yet imagine. Putting new media in
the hands of people and allowing open access
should bring new types of content not borrowed
from traditional media into the new digital space.
The Future of European
Electronic Publishing
The developments in technology and their bountiful
contribution to the development of an industry enti-
rely based around the rearrangement of digital bits
of data is well documented. However, there is one
area, early in its stage of development , but nonet-
heless of great impending importance, which is
worth exploring in the debate about the future of
electronic publishing in Europe: that of the common
language - not a language restricted by words
alone but a language structured around a new
semiotic system which incorporates image, sound
and user interaction.
"What is the use of a book?" though Alice,
"without pictures or conversation?"
"Through the Looking Glass", Lewis Caroll, Author
(1872)
The multitude of possibilities to directly process and
combine well-established media have coined the
term 'multimedia'. What this term fails to reveal is
that it is not actually the convergence of the various
existing media which is most significant, but rather
the unique opportunity to realise the age-old ideal
of common language a new language with no fron-
tiers - a democracy of information within a frame-
work of communication which acknowledge the
value of the receiver and sender as equal, effecti-
vely uniting them in a seamless transaction.
Therefore the success of European electronic
publishing lies in its ability to simultaneously provi-
de a strong foundation of a new semiotic, as well as
to fulfil its responsibility to the continual develop-
ment of opportunity, democracy and economic
prosperity.
As a consequence of this combination of technolo-
gical developments, multimedia content will evolve
into a woven tapestry of integrated information,
entertainment and services, available on-demand
by any user, at any time. The resulting media will
provide users with a choice of sophisticated modes
of communication which will stimulate understan-
ding and communication across barriers, thus ope-
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
nombre
Gary Nolan.
del autor
LCP
g.nolan1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor
ning new channels to encourage the exchange of
knowledge, the simulation of education and
employment and the sharing of cultural experience
across Europe.
"Language is not simply a reporting device for
experience
but a defining framework for it"
"Language, Thought and Reality", Benjamin Lee
Whorh, US Linguist (1856
Importantly, content and design of this new media
also has to take on board the task of educating the
population to be able to understand the emerging
codes of communication: the new grammar or
semiology. Designers and content developers will
have to use the new tools to, not only shape infor-
mation for optimum quality, interpretation, availabi-
lity and delivery, but also to learn about the needs
of the population of Europe and ultimately straddle
the hurdles posed by the characteristic diversity of
the countries involved.
Digital delivery channels such as fibre optic net-
works and electricity grids capable of delivering
digital data at many times faster than current spe-
eds of transfer are characterised by an accelerated
rate of evolution. The industry also demands a
dynamism from its work force capable of matching
emerging opportunities within electronic publishing.
Perhaps of even greater significance is the deve-
lopment of wireless transmission networks, allo-
wing remote access to information through high
bandwidth channels, therefore removing the geo-
graphical restrictions of many industries and stimu-
lating an effective matchmaking medium between
supply and demand of skills. Other such catalysts
in this process are the liberated and deregulated
telecom companies in Europe and the race to
achieve even higher rates of data compression
which, together, combine to satisfy a correlating
demand for increasingly 'media-rich' presentation
of information and service.
Not only is there an increasing capacity for greater
amounts of information (including large data ele-
ments such as sound and video) to be embedded
into data transfers, but there is also a capacity for
faster simultaneous access to a significantly larger
market base at any one time, effectively creating
the ideal conditions for information on demand,
and an all-important return-path channel, giving the
user options and input on their overall multimedia
experience.

The importance of the evolution in technology lies

in its ability to create a new dynamic semiotic sys-
tem as well as giving the users the opportunity to
define the semiotic system itself. The implications
suggested by such developments signify a traver-
sing of all frontiers to connect individuals together.
As a significance of geographical location diminis-
hes, the importance of the role of content desig-
ners, authors and access providers grows, defining
their responsibility to ensure that electronic publis-
hing remains a democratic and progressive media.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Titulo del
Future of Content
ensayo
“Not to lie about the future is impossible and one can lie about it at will”
All forms of information - from the human genome
to Mozart’s symphonies - are being digitzied.
Binary code does not distinguish between different
types of information and allows for cross-referen-
cing between media, i.e. film, music, print. It follows
that images, sound and text will become equal and
integral parts in electronic publications. This is the
basis of multimedia productions today but the inte-
gration of the media will increase further.
Electronic content will start to replace traditonal
media when an adequate content-player has been
invented. This is neither the Desktop PC or the inte-
ractive television set. They are both immobile and
strain the eye. In order to be successful the device
will need to be cheap, small and battery-powered.
It will be able to upload data into its in-built memory
and be able to display sound, text and audio.
Simple controls through touch-screens or voice
navigation will allow the user to navigate through
content.
When such a device gains market acceptance elec-
tronic content will replace traditional media as
rapidly as compact discs succeeded vinyl. Although
the following discusssion is primarily concerned
with the replacement of print by electronic text the
arguments about the logistics of digital media are
equally valid for audio and video content. The gro-
wing integration and customisation of digital media
also implies that future texts will contain a lot of dis-
parate media.
Books (especially computer books) are often out of
date as soon as they are on the shelves. Future
books will always be the most recent version. Also,
titles will never be out of print. They will include
hypertext indexing which points to internal or exter-
nal information. They will contain audio and video
for additional explanation and allow for manual
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Joachim
nombre
Pietsch.
del autor
DIT
e.mail
jpietsch@dit.es
del autor
Naum Gabo
annotation. These titles will improve French pro-
nounciation in a language course or read bed-time
stories to a child.
Because content is transmitted electronically
publishers will not have to worry about printing,
warehousing, transportation and retailing costs and
will offer a wider variety of specialised, previously
unprofitable publications. The range and definition
of titles of the future publishers will become the key
to their success. Since there are no other related
costs than content development and data-storage
the publisher of the future becomes a content pro-
vider or a rental service: for a flat monthly rate or a
rental fee the subscriber to the Penguin Internet
Service could have access to all their desired book-
titles . This distribution model completely bypasses
the retailer. Therefore, book, record and video
shops will become a thing of the past. They might
be replaced by public unstaffed download stations.
The electronic distribution of content will also ena-
ble publishers to consolidate their losses from
copyright infringement. They will offer a much lower
purchase price on their products in order to make
copyright violation less profitable.
Publications will be customised for individuals.
Content will be assembled and edited by search-
bots . The searchbot scans through all available
information and selects titles according to search-
criteria and individual settings: i.e. interests, rea-
ding habits, preferences of mediatypes. The
searchbot would compile a customised hitlist. This
can be edited but once the searchbot is familiar
with a user profile this should rarely prove neces-
sary. After accepting all or part of the selection the
searchbot initiates the transaction with the various
content providers and the user receives an itemi-
zed bill for each subscribed/rented item.
Referencing software automatically indexes and
hyperlinks the items. The dossier is then transfe-
rred into the display device. Should the user decide
to buy this compilation the searchbot would initiate
the transaction. A purchase certificate would be
sent out and the dossier would be stored on the
user’s personal data-storage space. In this kind of
scenario any kind of content will be handled, mar-
keted and sold like software.

Such information handling is vulnerable to abuse.

Information would be easy to manipulate and sup-
press. An authenticating mechanism should be put
in place whereby abbreviated or changed content is
clearly recognisable. This could be in form of a digi-
tal watermarking system for original content. When
the content is amended in any way the watermark
would be broken or disappear entirely.

The molecular compilation method of the searchbot

will create a new type of content developer: the
modular specialist. Film, literature and music will
allow for the insertion of different modules to cater
to the audience’s individual tastes. (Multiple storyli-
nes and endings in novels, different actors in the
same role for different audiences, or specialised
directors and writers for happy endings and action
scenes). Electronic content will not replace traditio-
nal linear narration but it will stimulate cross-fertili-
sation between the different genres and invite furt-
her integration of media.

The progress of information technology in the 20th

century has witnessed the dominance of the com-
puter in many fields previously thought exclusively
the domain of human operators (i.e. voice recogni-
tion, automatic translation and behaviourist coun-
selling software). This trend will continue. In future
sophisticated computer software will be able to imi-
tate human creativity in special areas (i.e. compu-
ter generated journalism , poetry software or com-
puter generated music ) and be able to produce
content independent of human operators.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Remarks
Titulo del on
ensayo
a digital
emerging media
nombre
Tania Ruiz.
del autor
UIB
tania@kmm.uib.es
e.mail del autor

As soon as all that "cyber", "hyper", "virtual", "multi", "new" fuss will be over, and the
new
hyperbolic astonished way to talk about contemporary technology ceases it will be
time to create sense from it. The main danger of that Novelty worship is that it has
a strong subtext of scorn to history. It tends to omit the details that technology has,
been always new, that hypertext consists of text , that the world has always been
presented to us in a multisensorial way, and that the notions of Virtual and Real go
deeper than those of simple simulation.

history In that sense "multimedia" is in a prehistoric stage, but not because it is new, but
because of the old tendency to believe it is new.

The word “page” comes from the Latin word "pagus", which means field, cultivation
field. There is not limit in digital media for the creation of Pages the size of a field.
What comes to mind is what to sow on them.

Digital Media will certainly go further than the simple juxtaposition of multiple media
language elements. Since it occurs closer to the intersection between those media, it requi-
res urgent consideration be applied to the development of its own language; which
is already probably germinating from the transmigration of concepts from the arts of
time and space.

Transmigration, extrapolation, and displacement of concepts between arts have

always contributed to their enrichment. Musicians and writers compose; rhythm is
in the base of motion pictures and literature. The concept of Edition, which originally
referred to the act of bringing text together, migrated in the spatial axis to magazi-
nes and news illustrative way to organize text and pictures and also in the time axis,
to film and video, as a synonym of montage. The world can not wait longer to see
what Editing will mean to Digital Media, when it get invented, but, for sure, it will be
far away of the "cut" and "paste" unfortunated first approach

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

 The fusion between text and images had its splendour in the
middle age, before text was shifted to margin. Peter
body to text Greenaway's "Pillow book" makes a remarkable attempt to
give back (literally) Body to the text.

Being aware of the enormous expressive potential of

Calligraphy is one of the arguments to seriously
reconsider the limitations of the ASCII, which some
dare to call "new Esperanto" or the "new universal
language".

body to screen
“Pillow Book” is also an anticipation film on the form, it presents both memories and
diachronic events simultaneously on the screen. It is probably an early example of
how the choreography concept from dance is migrating to motion pictures; the ori-
ginal single main figure screen body now has to share the stage with others, and
manage to harmonize internal and external rhythms of action.
body to body
Besides the undeniable influence of media, we must be aware of how far technical
issues are also generating language. For example, Infographic 3D works, from the
very bottom of their creation process; with such an analytical split that characterize
contemporary digital tools, ignore almost completely the sculptural tradition. As a
consequent implication, it often remains representing vacuity over vacuum. Its lab
conditions limit the concept of material to the application of makeup over an empty
skeleton.
aestechnics
That emptiness-make up point is crucial because it perfectly define the point where
the limit is blurred between “technical” and “aesthetical” issues; and take us to the
question of the moment where that decision was taken (and probably also to the
question. Who made that "software"?). 3D is obviously influenced by the contem-
porary concern about "look", "lite" and "clean".

1. Biblia Pauperum. Bavaria, 1414. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.

2. The constellation of Sagittarius. Aratus, Phaenomena. Peterborough c. 1122. London, British Museum.
3. King Ethelbald's visit to Guthlac's shrine. Guthlac Roll. Croyland, c. 1200. London, British Museum.
4. Vivian Wu in Peter Greenaway's Pillow Book. England.1996.
5. David Lynch's Lost Highway publicity poster.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

 Everything loses its weight and its scent. It is 'suggested' constantly to us to lose
weight and scent. Digital media has nothing to lose.

simulation Smell and taste seem so far impossible to digitize, at least until a "direct to brain"
interface is achieved. But what is possible is to synthesize, reproduce and deliver
taste and smell. Whether it will come together or not to "virtual reality" as it is now
defined depends on the moment where entertainment industry (or army) will be able
to seduce specialized chemical research teams to move from perfumes and ali-
mentary industry. Then, we could talk about simulation.

prosthesis The elements that allow us to make a part of a machine could be understood as
Prosthesis, but not to supplant a real organ but to extend the horizons of human per-
ception, without the risk of mystical drugs.

In the same sense of mysticism, Digital Places seem to be trying to come to repla-
ce those lost limbs that remain painful, as well as the 6th sense we supposedly have
left back in paradise. Or “virtual worlds”, like “cave art” was, are only a
kind of consolation for what was not trapped.

Reality had been losing credibility gradually, since actual instruments

simulate simulators. Just like in modern planes where technical repre-
sentation devices make real images less trustable. Just like on thenews.

reality In digital media the immediacy of construction and presentation will eventually cast
aside reconstruction and representation. If an architect can walk into a buildings
during the design phase, there is nothing to prevent us to inhabit them. It will not be
fear that prevents a pilot to take off from a dark runway. If, for a doctor it looks the
same a patient a thousand km. abroad as a fictitious one, there is nothing to make
us more real.

simultaneity Simultaneity, and how it came to break the unity of our sensorial being is a major
issue in concern to the merging of simulation and telecommunication. Since the
invention of vehicles (or maybe since the very first act of motion) our perceptual
relationship between space and time had gradually change by simply experiencing
speed.

Telephone made really a difference by splitting our perceptual apparatus in real

ubiquity
time. It is well exemplified in David Lynch's "Lost Highway". A man talking to a man
in front of him, but "through" his own cellular phone, without opening his mouth and
explicitly pretending to be somewhere else. Going further from the very act of "tech-
noventriloquist" performance, Lynch is making a remarkable analysis of contempo-
rary Ubiquity.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

cosmology Unfortunately, Lynch did not stay away from the cliché of demonizing technology.
Technology can not, as the extension of us it is, be better of worse than we oursel-
ves.

What is actually happening (and make that cliché understandable) is that the coe-
volution of men and machine (human and tool) is taking us to a different way to see
time and reality, which is nothing less than changing our Cosmology.

time The myths, condemned to incessantly change their appearance resist such hiber-
nation. Our awareness off lifetime is still merged in to the Greek myth of Chronus,
the father who devours his children. This approach of what time means to beings is
not exclusive to "west", even Hinduism lays particular stress on the destructive
aspect of time. Everything dies in time: "Time ripens the creatures, Time rots them"
(Mahabharata 1.1.188). "Time" (kala) is thus another name for the God of death,
Yama. Time seems to be for every culture an organizing parameter of the cosmo-
logos discourse.
Digital Reality, through simultaneous simulation and ubiquity, is taking us back (or
further) to a completely different approach not only to reality but to Time Itself
(Emit Selfit to Wim Wenders).As a possible model to those "new" cosmological
views, below are presented two examples coming from cultures we use to talk
about like if they where living in the past:

“The Hopi Indians have two different concepts of space and time. The first is all
that is manifested. This time is objective and comprises all that is or had been
accessible to the senses. The second is all that is manifesting. This is a subjective
concept and comprises all that will be acceptable to the senses. There is no exis-
tence in the way that a painting-by-numbers waits only for a colour. Thus the only
tense which might be considered in the Hopi language could be called "expectati-
duality ve- something about to be manifest or at the moment of inception.” (Whorf quoted
by Parkes in Times, Spaces and Places: A chronogeographic perspective)

At the stage of simulation, when dualistic concepts such as Simultaneity, Ubiquity

an, also dual, Simulacra populate a double world.

"The Australian Aboriginalls envision the world through a cosmology called The
Dreaming. The culture heroes who swell in the "dreaming" not only made this
world and its creatures, but are still continuously concerned with its activities. On
initiation the Aboriginal becomes a part of this experimental "time zone" and sha-
res the life that comes from the dreaming. Trobriand islanders apparently concei-
ve of all past events (real or mythical) as included in a "universal" present. .. Their
creative past is united with the present and the future. .” (Parkes in op.cit)

unity Later, when we will get to a world where distances are abolished and total unity
restored.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Future of Content
When contemplating the future of content, one can
take on the function of either two roles - prophet of
visionary. I choose the latter. The former is no more
than a glorified game of odds like that of guessing
what the Christmas number one song will be. The
latter is a perspective of what is possible. This is a
much more honourable role to pursue as it is when
we think deeply about what is possible that we can
forget convention and forge stronger and broader
foundations on which the future, in this case of con-
tent, can be laid.
Content, in terms of electronic publishing, is that
which fills a space that isn't actually there. Of cour-
se it is there in that we see, hear and believe that it
is there, but in terms of the physical and actual it is
not. This entity which we call cyberspace is at last
a virtual reality where we can be the centre of the
universe. In reality we try to convince ourselves that
the worlds revolves around us on an everyday
basis, only to be put back in our place by the laws
of nature and the cold light of day. In cyberspace
we can hallucinate to our hearts content without
ever actually having been deluded, in fact, almost
without ever actually having hallucinated at all!
In my mind, cyberspace is a cross between a
potential Daliesque heaven and wild west America.
Here we are pioneers, creators of content named
Salvador fighting for the surreal content of our living
canvas like quasi Wyatt Earp's and bounty hunters.
But like it was in the wild west, cyberspace is under
construction. Its content will be created from what
we know exists already and from what we think will
exist in the near future. This means that our canvas
is still morphing and that by guessing what the next
formation will be we are actually creating it and
hence what will be its content.This canvas is also
dislodging itself from the computer and to what
extent it does this will influence how incorporated in
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
nombre
Lisa Salem.
del autor
DIT
l.sale1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor
or separated from the real world this medium and
its content will be. The accelerated advancement of
technology has been paid for at the expense of the
advancement of content. We need to approach the
creation of content with a mind slightly dislodged
from reality and from what we conceive as being
possible in order that we don't merely create a
reproduction of what has already been. By limiting
our vocabulary to words that already exist we are
stunting its growth. Like Dali we must be surreal,
unconstrained by reality, in order to innovate in pro-
portion with the advancement of technology.
After all, content in terms of the future of electronic
publishing, is like Alice falling down the rabbit hole
into Wonderland. Defying the laws of gravity, she
fell slowly and for a long time, taking things out of
cupboards that shouldn't be there and putting them
back in others as she went along, all the time
uncertain as to how, when, where and if she would
land. Like Alice, we do not know where the future of
content will land but we do know that we need to
embrace its creation while it is still falling without
the limited perceptions of what has gone before or
what has been relevant before. Cyberspace, like
Wonderland simulates our collective subconscious.
We create it at the same time as it is beyond out
control.But every thought we have or action we
take has repercussions within it and in this is the
essence of where our control lies. If we approach it
with a mind for the alternative and adventure, that
is what we will find ourselves with. If we confine
ourselves to what we think is possible, that is all we
will end up with. The future of content as the inven-
tion of su-reality.
DIGITAL + COMMS + IT +
ITV + MEDIA =IMM . IMM +
MILLENIUM =EQUINOX
The CPU has to be one of the 7 wonders of the
space age. The 'digital' revolution that it spawned in
convergence with other high end Information tech-
nologies, thrusted the transformation of traditional
creative, media, and communications industries
into the super dynamics of the digital STATE.
Digitisation has produced an information meltdown
of unimaginable scale. The result is what we now
call interactive Multimedia, a convergence into inte-
ractive digital Multimedia, probably one of the big-
gest influences in contemporary lifestyle since
Apollo mission took a photograph of the earth.
Since the birth of digital IMM, a rapid evolutionary
process has taken place as new technological fron-
tiers are pioneered. Old boundaries are knocked
down so fast, that media producers are scrambling
to satisfy the demand for quality production. It is
indeed a gargantuan window of opportunity.
Greater media inter-activity adds a fresh dimension
to communication as we know it, and perhaps also
a hint of promise to generation 2000+, and it is our
responsibility to fashion these dazzling tools in
whatever way possible for greater dignity and civili-
sation of mankind.
Approaching the Millennium, there is an accelera-
ted development of component digital IMM techno-
logies and this swell has produced a new and
potentially bigger and more exciting wave then CD-
ROM or the net as we know it. The arrival of the
high-end of IMM technologies will hail a new age in
digital Multimedia, on a scale that will be giant in
comparison to what we already know as the infor-
mation highway.
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Matthew Sharwood
m.sharwood1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
Falling hardware prices and development in broad-
band communications, frame relay, centralised
RAID data storage arrays, advanced remote and
return path capabilities of digital technologies, and
new delivery platforms at the user-end ,(such as
the intelligent television and greater PC power), will
allow sheer oceans of data, to river interactive
materials, into peoples lives whether at home,
school, work or play.
Massive bandwidth, greater clock speeds, multi-
channel processing, combined with expertise and
advanced authoring tools will undoubtedly produce
the equinox necessary for true video on demand
and the simultaneous execution of many complex
IMM tasks. The days of the internet as we know it
are numbered.
Most importantly, the new high-end component
parts of digital data super highway, will allow digital
authors to create on a new scale.
Greater volumes of digital material(s) will be stored,
an ocean of information rich in video-stream, com-
plex graphics and animation, will soon be able to
pour seamlessly through larger network compo-
nents at real time. The bevy of choice should bring
the price of accessibility and availability down and
users will enjoy an orgy of choice.
Already, we have produced an array of theories and
tools for the design authoring and creation quality
IMM material. But the trick during the next fifty
years will be how to author quality material to scale
for the size of the proposed networks.
User interfaces need to be developed to harness
the sheer delivery power of the new generation
2000: network giants. Contemporary and innovati-
ve authoring methodologies and theoretical formu-
las need to be developed further and proto-typed
for the greater challenge that lies ahead for advan-
ced IMM networks. Models for producing edu-tain-
ment productions, digital interactive fiction and
gaming new types old story-boarding and script wri-
ting need to be authored using the most up to date
technologies so to facilitate the entire production
process from the concept to "interactelivery".
New types of user interfaces for news and archive
database navigation systems need to be tested and
applied so as to facilitate channel surfing. Similarly
new perspectives in sport, documentary and narra-
tive inquiry based navigation systems, are all wai-
ting to be explored. In so many ways its a wide
open field.
The nature of the digital communications industry
will allow innovative entrepreneurial / visionary pro-
ducers and directors such as ourselves to develop
new and exciting design methodologies and user
interfaces for these new technologies. So that we
can begin to learn how to mould them for the futu-
re, it is important to test our theory even in a metap-
horical sense to see where innovation succeeds
and where it fails, and most importantly, we should
note that each time we fail we are one great step
closer to success. With so much at stake and the
sociological power of multimedia still very much an
unknown quantity, much like a sleeping giant, we
must find ways to test its future and fashion it for
the future of the common dignity of civilisation. It is
important to keep in mind that although techniques
exist for the authoring of materials it's no good re-
inventing wheel, and using this analogy we need to
find ways to lift IMM off the ground. We must learn
how we can make it fly.
Recently, Gates has noted, that there is an alar-
ming "lack" of quality edu-tainment games mate-
rials, that takes advantage of the nature of the IMM
and teach, entertain and facilitate our lives through
our natural process of inquiry, for which, interactive
multimedia is particularly suited.
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
The CD-ROM market, and the web-casting market
today sport only a taste of the range of edu-tain-
ment products and services to come, and these
markets have shown us that besides the funda-
mental nature of content, the design of the user
interface is crucial in determining how well an IMM
product works for the user.
Most importantly to me is how advanced IMM can
change the way we think and hence shape and pro-
pel civilisation into the Millennium in its potential
powerful capacity in the delivery of political, socio-
logical, philosophical and ideological messages.
The future of content is a crucial question that must
be answered with quality answers to the responsi-
bilities thrust upon us. We can make a difference to
the future values of society, and the pathway of civi-
lisation. I believe that the inherent nature of inte-
ractive Multimedia engages the minds of its captive
audiences so effectively that we can use it to lay out
the philosophical foundations of a forward thinking
ideology and philosophy such as a new approach
to seeking new world order (goal of the UN) and
find humanitarian solutions to global problems of
mankind. Most importantly we can create emotions
through the media assets of work especially the
iconitry that we create, and that through quality aut-
hored materials for surf fiction, edu-tainment, archi-
ve and news documentary / narrative surf beha-
viour based archive systems and games, we can
inspire renewed momentum towards the realisation
of the humanitarian vision of a world that can mana-
ge its own problems and a truly global civilisation.
The advent of digital IMM (especially across broad-
band is in my opinion the equinox of the millennium
for international society. Let's have the courage to
take this opportunity to make a difference now,
even if the effect is not felt for another thousand
years.
Titulo
Did thedel
picture
ensayo
get moved?

Claudia
nombre
Torres.
del autor
UIB
claudia@kmm.uib.es
e.mail del autor

The
socks in one dra-
wer, the shirt in the
other, the tooth brush in the
bathroom, the dishes in the kitchen,
the pillow on the bed, the lettuce in the refrigerator,
the bread on the table and of course, the fly in the soup, the
shoes on the table, the desert before the first dish, the lettuce
on the bed, the pillow in the kitchen, the tooth brush with the shirt
and the socks...
did the picture get moved?

Order for eating

order for sleeping
order for working, studying and loving.
Order to write and to read the written.

Locker, drawers, recipies, boxes, containers, trunks, bags.

In side- out side, up- down, first- second.

Order that orders life, that orders what we see, what we feel, what we learn, what we do,
what we think.
Order: the ways to organise, the structures that let us apercevoir and learn what we are into.
In particular, what is what we get and what we learn.
Different for each religion, for each government, each economy, for each culture and for
each person. Also different throughout the history and the stories.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

It formulates the frames of what we see and our
perception of it. We have always a camera in our
hands capturing what gets our attention. We carry
navigation instruments to identify directions to
move on, winds and oceans.
But the travel is different if we bring an astrolabe
or a sonar; and the image is different if we have a
picture camera or a video camera. Because what
we see, what we perceive, changes. It’s affected
by the way we see it, by the structure we use to
get close to it, by the order we impose on it.
Does multimedia change our perception? does it
change our way to order what we see, our way to
learn?
JUMP. JUMP. JUMP.
It seems that jump will be the movement that
would let us describe the ways we perceive
actually.
You jump dancing tecno, you jump from one radio
station to another, you watch television jumping
from one channel to the other, comics and movies
jump with an editing style each time faster and
faster, you jump from CD rom, from the beginning
to the end of a game and in internet from
museums in New York to fast food places in
Singapore with just a mouse click.
JUMP. JUMP. JUMP.
Can multimedia propose different perception
orders? different ways to organise the world?
JUMP. JUMP. JUMP.
Jump with different orders. Circular, triangular,
square navigation; red, green, blue; from Japan to
Peru, from Scandinavia to Congo. Hop scotch
does not only go to 1 or 2, to heaven or to hell,
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
but rather we can jump to the infinite places that
exist in between.
Perhaps it has been like that. Maybe we have
always had the possibility to look through windows
were the frame is not restricted, neither are the
drawers in which we organise our knowedlege in
what we learn are not distant. Now, we have a
tool, and its principle quality is to offer the possibi-
lity of constructing different structures of thinking
and knowledge.
Structures that let us jump and establish relations
between what we thought was not possible.
Structure to conceive the knowledge in a dynamic
way, so global and so specialised as it has beco-
me today.
Usually all our body, all our senses are perceiving,
sometimes less sometimes more. Colours, forms,
meanings, smells, sensations, noises, sounds. We
totally participate in the knowledge process and
maybe multimedia is one way of expression that
could make this process explicit. But it isn’t only to
put sound and image together and the option to
interact with them, but the different sensations and
aesthetics, emotions that could be related. We
could say our perception is a like multimedia and
that we try to create technologies, interfaces and
ways of expressions that look to enhance that
situation, even if sometimes technology doesn’t
look human in any manner.
Multimedia and the possibilities which it offers the-
refore appear related, not just in the technological
environments, but also to different ways to see
the world, differents ways to get in touch with what
surrounds us.
... the fly in the soup, the shoes on the table, the
desert before the first dish, the lettuce on the bed,
the pillow in the kitchen, the tooth brush with the
shirt and the socks...
Did the picture get moved?
The Future of content in
the liquid realm
Chris Timmerman.
nombre del autor
LCP
c.timmerman1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor

We are currently in the era info-speed. Vast quantities of data are bombarded at
us as we simultaneously bombard data into a vast vacuum. The quantity of infor-
mation currently retrieved by a net search greatly surpasses the quality. The great
challenge is to able to filter out irrelevant and inaccurate information.

Data becomes information or content once it is decoded, read, understood and

assimilated. In modern media image is displacing print as the primary medium for
discourse, the public use of reason can no longer be limited to print culture. The
visual literacy of the generations to come is therefore of prime importance. As a
child we learn to code and de-code words and their meanings, but little emphasis
is given to this process concerning images.

Images proliferate, the net spreads, the volume rises. No one and everyone is in
control. We lie in a world which is information, not about which we have informa-
tion. Lyotard argues that knowledge and information have been profoundly chan-
ged in two ways:
1. Utility criteria: knowledge and information are produced only where they can be
justified on grounds of efficiency and effectiveness ("performativity")
2. Knowledge and information is more and more a tradable commodity.
This is where the danger arises there will be a price to pay for access to filtered
information. Who decided what seeps through and what doesn't?

The crucial factor for the development of digital media in the next century is to
make sure each individual will be in full control of his or her filter or 'intelligent
agent' as some like to call it and keep them from becoming repressive and
oppressive.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Future of Content

Johnson Tsui / Adam

nombre
de Linde.
del autor
LCP
j.tsui1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor
a.delinde@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk

To view the file "inresmedia.dcr" please ensure your browser has the Macromedia Shockwave plugin for
Director (which can be found at: http://www.macromedia.com). Set your monitor to 800 x 600 pixels or gre-
ater. Open up the browser to its fullest and drag and drop the file into an empty browser window.

This work was realised with Macromind Director and Shockwave, if you are interested in receiving the file-
please contact Johnson Tsui at:

jtsui1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk

Thank you.

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Future of Content

nombre
Lam Wai.
del autor
LCP
l.wai.in1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor

"Multimedia" will be the future of electronic publis-
hing of all kinds - CD-ROM magazines, web pages
even memoranda between colleagues in an office.
At the same time, multimedia should no longer be
"multiple medias" as we see it today, but should be
seen as one single media itself.
In the future, we would expect an electronic publis-
hing user to connect to the publisher or other rea-
ders at any time when he/she needs more informa-
tion on the particular chapter or topic he/she is rea-
ding. In other words the user will be the only person
to decide what information "to get or not to get". So
we should put more effort into the presentation of
different medias presented to the user, in a clear
and well-defined manner, rather than how to incor-
porate a multiple of medias in one single topic as
we are doing today.
The following should be used as a general guideli-
ne for the future of content in electronic publica-
tions:
tions on how a reader MUST read his/her docu-
ment.
- easy to use
Since a future electronic publication user will be
manipulating multiple medias at the same time in
the one document, the layout of these kinds of
documents should be made as user friendly as pos-
sible. For example, a "pool" showing all the down-
load documents; a "status field" showing active
connection(s).etc.
- easy to transfer
As mentioned above, the users will be connected
either to the publisher or even other readers while
he/she is reading an electronic publishing. So all
the concerned documents including text, images or
videos should be optimised to the smallest possible
size to facilitate transference over a standard telep-
hone line.

- easy to find
In the future of electronic publishing, we would
expect a user to be able to download multiple docu-
ments of different nature; text, video, sound, etc.,
from different locations into his/her local drives, eit-
her through the internet or intranet. We must provi-
de the users most "friendly" way to get whatever
information he/she is looking for.

- easy to read
After the user has downloaded all the necessary
documents, the user should be able to arrange
these documents in the way suits his/her reading
habit. For example, some readers might prefer an
image on the left margin with texts on the right and
others might prefer the image on the top centre with
all the text below it. There should not be any limita-

Student Perspectives on the Future of Content

Future of Content
On the planet called Earth -
How far do we think in the future? 1000 years - a
millennium? Is this a science fiction prediction as to
the world we are creating? Yes, in a way, as long as
these predictions can fit within the laws of physics.
My predictions are based on work that is under
development. To go far into the future we will be
looking at earth from a 'ring' bridge built way out
from earth at about the equator. The discovery by
Buckinster Fuller of another form of carbon (C60)
which is stronger than diamond would be a suitable
building material for this ring. It would be a great
saving in rocketry and the cost of space missions.
From this ring new space 'cities' would evolve as
the entire earth population could be housed in one
'tower'. All present sources of power would become
obsolete as a new 'vacuum energy' would be so
powerful that the equivalent of one coffee cup
would be 'enough to boil all the oceans in the
world'. There would be no problem with travelling
huge distances as research into controlling inertia
(object mass) would allow us to travel anywhere on
earth almost instantaneously. Machine intelligence
could store the equivalent of 100 year old mans
memory into one petabit. Even today’s optical
fibres can transmit this amount of information in a
matter of minutes. We will be able to control our
memories and even have somebody’s else’s
memory implanted in our own brain.
Now we are experiencing an emerging digital age
that is in its infancy. What is certain about the futu-
re of electronic publishing is that digital technology
will continue to grow and profoundly change, how
we express ourselves and communicate to others
and how we view and interact with the world. The
media technologies are still crude, awkward and
impersonal and poorly matched to the human
needs of the users, and we are finding computers
less user friendly and cumbersome as a product
Student Perspectives on the Future of Content
Judith
nombre
Whittaker.
del autor
LCP
j.whittaker1@lcpdt.linst.ac.uk
e.mail del autor
and too complex. So the future lies in addressing
these problems and designing to satisfy the needs
of humans. This is the principle technical and
design challenge of the emerging information age.
Electronically charged paper is being developed
that can display different images. It physically
resembles paper but the 'printing' of text and the
images would not involve ink or any additional
resources, so a newspaper printed on electronically
charged paper could be updated automatically
everyday without requiring the viewers to do anyt-
hing. We would miss books and this is an interes-
ting development in bringing the concept of paper
into the digital age. It would have the result of tre-
mendously cutting down on waste paper and paper
needing to be recycled. We will increasingly have
vendor machine that can instantly give us legal
documents on request. Domestic appliances will be
designed with a computer based operating system
such as a vacuum cleaner that works as a robot -
vacuuming the house by itself. Information will be
accessed totally by the interactive multimedia for-
mat with unlimited choice between information and
user. CD-ROMs will probably become obsolete as
information will be accessed by TV. Instead of
being 'told' the user will have choice, and all media
will be designed to have interactively built in. The
future of educational systems will function from a
'national grid' of linked computers that have educa-
tional programs easily accessible at any time so the
teachers role would become less time consuming.
The future content of these educational systems
will be vital to our next generations knowledge. The
internet will continue to become very big and more
intranets will be formed. The future of content
would be vast in size compared with what is availa-
ble now and we will be able to access and absorb
more information. Finally we won't die because our
memories will be programmed into another per-
son's body or a machine.