Porf. Ikuro Choh

 
 
Ikuro Choh 長 幾朗
Professor, Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies, Waseda University, Japan
早稲田大学大学院国際情報通信研究科 教授, メディアデザイン研究所 所長
 
長 幾朗は、欧米各地の大学、研究機関等のコンピュータによる研究と利用状況について調査、および講演や客員講師としてレクチュアを持つ。博士(美術)、美術・デザイン領域における視覚表現理論と制作技術の研究、およびコンピュータメディアやインターネット等における非空間情報の可視化や様々な感覚デバイスを応用したデザインシステムの研究と開発に取り組む。著書に『inermedia メディアと芸術の相関を思考する』( 編共著、トランスアート) 他。
 
Dr. Ikuro Choh Finished Tokyo National University of the Arts. Doctor of Art. Professor of Waseda University Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies. Head of Waseda University Institute of Media Design. He studies theories of visualization for art and design. And he attends to research and develop design system with sensitive devices and visualization of behavioral information for Internet and computer media. 
 
 
Legible Design, Present-day Media and Its Interaction
レジブル・デザインと今日のメディア、そしてそのインタラクション
 
Information Sharing and Decision Making
  The mission of media is to provide communication and publicity. However, the present-day media go beyond the dissemination of information, and are shifting to be interactive. This means media which cannot be centrally controlled and manipulated by policymakers or organizations are being formed. These issues are in a state in which decisions, decision-making processes and conclusions are not easily shown or not completed forever. 
  In such a world, communication goes beyond the current Peer-to-Peer model. It has become participatory like Peer-to-Mass, Mass-to-Mass and Group-to-Group models. In other words, a decision-making environment where fixed leaders and participants do not exist is realized. In this environment, recording a process of information sharing and its changes and grasping its transition will be an issue. In companies, organizations and societies, information sharing and decision making have already been carried out just as a formation process of collective opinions in these environment. However, many decision-making methods and their applications have still been determined by strong leaders.
  A user acts as an individual in computer systems and computer media. A conventional thinking process, in which a conclusion is made as a collective opinion of individuals, is still kept in these systems and media. However, the discrepancy between these environments and the reality has gradually become apparent. A participatory environment and decision-making method is necessary as a means of changing these environments. In other words, a system in which people can randomly participate, their activities are recorded, these records are developed as a seed and the process is evaluated is needed. In such an environment, opinion sharing is not necessarily required. This means, instead of conventional spaces, meeting rooms and a table surrounded by participants, a continuum stretching to external fields can be conceived, which is multiple, flexible spaces or meeting rooms.
 
Interactive Environment
  Our research team and I focus on the following themes.
 1) Relationship between editorial, graphic and product designs and computer   media
 2) Evaluation and analysis of art works, which are based on visual representa-tion theories
 3) Hardware design, including interface design, and its interaction 
 4)  Usability relating to minds and behaviors of users and producers, and software design that 
     realizes excellent accessibilities
 
The purposes of these researches are the following.
 1) Visualization of information processing and invisible information
 2) Visualization of tacit knowledge and skills of adept artists and designers
 
  The issues are to reveal that we have reached a critical point at which functions, materials and forms in the present-day Internet and computer media become detached from practices of artists and designers, who have pursued completeness of their works, and the idea of Pragmatism, which defines that expressions and functions of products are determined by their materials, and that forms follow functions. This means, instead of the traditional situation that is defined by usability, accessibility, functions and forms, a situation or environment that users, viewers and producers themselves can define and understand should be provided.