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The considerable breadth and depth of projects and programs at the
Media Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) are explored in this special double issue of
the IBM Systems Journal. The Media Lab has long been
recognized as a leader in probing beyond the boundaries of the current
and conventional understanding of systems technologies and their
interactions with people, and for articulating its findings and
innovative results across a wide span of media. This is the second time
the Journal has presented the work of the lab, the first
being four years ago in Volume 35, Numbers 3&4, 1996. Much has happened
at the lab since 1996, and much is new since then.
This issue contains an introduction to the broad themes bearing on the
work of the Media Lab, followed by an essay on why the lab is able to
produce such innovative results. The remaining 34 papers and essays are
presented in three parts, roughly reflecting the three programmatic
elements of the Media Lab’s projects: arts and media, learning and
expressing, and everywhere computing. Each of these parts has a summary
essay at the front and another at the back–bookends in a sense–that
provide, respectively, a description of the current environment and a
glimpse into the future. We are indebted to W. Bender of the
Media Lab and D. A. Boor of IBM Corporate
Headquarters, who represents IBM at the lab, for their
considerable efforts in bringing together the many people and papers
necessary for an issue of this breadth and scale.
IBM has been a major supporter of the lab since its
inception.
The introduction to the Media Lab’s themes, authored by Negroponte,
provides a quick look at the forces shaping the projects and programs
of the lab, as they might be viewed from a broader social context. It
describes the way in which the digital world has grown and changed
during the last decade or so. Negroponte reflects on the impact that
dramatic change has had on the lab and on the ways we think, the means
by which we translate thoughts into actions, even what we think about.
That brief introduction is followed by a definitive look at the culture
of the Media Lab and how and why the lab works, written by Haase. The
author discusses form, content, and style along a number of dimensions
that shed light on the culture and what makes the lab function
successfully. Haase then shows how the elements of the form and the
breadth of the interdisciplinary content might be successfully
duplicated elsewhere, whereas the diversity and characteristics of the
culture may be harder to replicate.
The three parts follow, each representing a point of view for
understanding the work of the Media Lab and a focus for separating and
distinguishing a segment of the lab’s overlapping areas of endeavor.
In large measure, these parts are in line with the current thinking
about the creation of three new organizational entities within the
lab–the renamed Media Laboratories as a central focus, with a lab for
each of three experimental contexts, intertwined and interdependent,
but with each having its own focus and perspective.
The first part and its collection of papers is on the perspective of
arts and media. The introduction, the front bookend, by Lippman,
describes the ways in which content and technology continue to interact
to change the human experience, and provides a brief introduction to
the papers. The view toward the future, the back bookend, by Machover,
looks forward to the contributions the digital world can make to a
renaissance in artistic and creative expression. The papers in between
show how broadly and deeply the Media Lab has explored the confluence
of the arts and media.
The perspective of learning and expressing is the subject of the second
part and its suite of papers. The introductory essay, by Bender,
contains a discussion of a shift toward learning through expressing,
with a summary of the papers. The future is outlined at the end by
Resnick in an essay that critiques the information-oriented view of
what can be accomplished with systems and encourages a richer view
focused on learning and innovation. The papers illustrate the scope of
possibilities for systems as agents for the creation and dissemination
of ideas.
The third and concluding part, with its assembled papers, treats the
perspective of everywhere computing. It begins with an introduction by
Pentland that prepares us for a world, and a set of papers, populated
by seemingly everyday physical objects, now imbued with capabilities
for computation and communication. This part ends with a view by
Gershenfeld into the future of bits and atoms and the formidable
challenges of networks of billions of intelligent devices. The papers
in this part demonstrate the ways in which the physical sciences
interact with computational sciences to create new and exciting
computerized devices.
The next issue of the Journal will describe some of
the emerging technologies for e-business, including transcoding, the
Java** language, and the Extensible Markup Language
(XML).
This is my final issue as editor of the Journal. I have
thoroughly enjoyed my twelve years as editor, working with readers,
authors, referees, issue coordinators, and editorial and production
staff. I go on to my next role with happiness for what you have shared
with me and with sadness for what I am leaving behind. Please join me
in welcoming John Ritsko, the current managing editor, as the new
editor of the Journal.
**Trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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