Lev Manovich. "Media After Software." Forthcoming in Journal of Visual Culture, volume 12, number 1, April 2013.
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Manovich.Media After Software.2012.pdf (1.7 MB).
Dieter Rams. Braun record player, 1956. Rams can be called the first interface designer. His designs of media recording and access devices – cameras, record players, magnetic tape players, etc. – created the aesthetics of interface, and defined a new type of consumer object dominated by controls.
"For users who interact with media content through application software, the 'properties' of digital media are defined by the particular software as opposed to solely being contained in the actual content (i.e., inside digital files). For example, depending if you open an image file in the default media viewer of your computing device, or in Photoshop, its 'properties change dramatically."