Interfaces [Transcription of Video]

Nelson: The paradigm, which I have lived in for 35 years, is that we would have new media objects of arbitrary dimensionality. I loved arbitrary dimensionality. I had been into n-dimensions since I was a kid. So, we would have this new media of arbitrary dimensinality, which could be tacked together, stretched and flipped at great speed with interfaces that I would picture as somewhere between a thermion and a bicycle. Now, a thermion, as you may or may not know, is a wonderful musical instrument devised by a Russian count, who was a hero of Lenin's regime for a time. You played a thermion in the air, with one hand on the side for volume and the other hand above it was for pitch. It was simply an analog device with cross modulation, so you had this eerie sound that was popular in 1950s science fiction movies. I liked the idea that you didn't have to touch the thing, and that you just delicately shaded it. This I liked, because it was tedious having to be explicit and do things one soggy step at a time. I wanted it to have a great kinesthetic sense. When I was a teenager, my bicycle was very important to me. The great sense of swoop and turn was wonderful. I believed that kind of control was what you should have for your arbitrary travels through the new space of the media of the heart and mind.

Editor's comment: Does that describe how you use your computer today?

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