Meta BlogNote

Here an update of my musings on transcoding metaphors, in the form of an article which has been submitted to Configurations.
Comments are welcome!

Interfacing by icons and metaphors

In this article I explore the role of mediating metaphors in our daily use of software. More specifically, how we deal with the desktop interface and its common 'icons', such as the mailbox icon. It will be shown how digital iconicity tends to metaphorical condensation and reification, a material-semiotic process which not only represents but also depresents what is going on inside a computer on the level of code and machinic transferences. This instance of reifying 'icontology' obscures the indexical transferences set in action by software. The article will show how and why computer interfaces are different from other machine interfaces, and how its buttons and switches function as condensed metaphorical sign-tools, usually in the form of 'icons'. These sign-tools have to be analytically decomposed in order to see what they hide and how they perform their signifying and executing job. The mailbox icon will be subsequently considered as a Peircian sign, as a Heideggerian tool, and finally as a material metaphor, in order to open up the black box and disentangle the sign-tool-machine oscillation at work in our computing practices.

Complete text: Interfacing by icons and metaphors