![Sample our Engineering & Technology journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5933/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Engineering-Tech.jpg"})
Notes
In remembrance of creating metadata based on the countless extended footnotes made on Hamlet (Shakespeare Citation2006), when delivering the project HaMLET (Multimedia Learning Environment for Theatre and film) with Colin in the early 1990s, and as a fan of Danielewski's (Citation2000) House of Leaves, Mika wants to deliver this lengthy personal footnote of the past: at the time of HaMLET, I worked as an assistant for theatre director Jotaarkka Pennanen, a Finnish pioneer in multimedia and interactive drama, in the Theatre Academy of Finland. There—in my twenties, very greenly indeed—I coordinated the European research project HaMLET. Colin and the University of Brighton, where he was then employed, joined the project with the research and development of the stage design sketching tool Visual Assistant. Colin's multidisciplinary experience, expertise and creativity—and wisdom, which for me signifies the rare and beautiful union of acute intellect and compassion of a living creature towards others of his kind, and the Others—were essential in carrying the project through successfully. I wrote, or rather learned to write, my first academic publications with Colin and have always owned gratitude to him for that fact and the entire process we were involved in after the very first encounters.
Then, and more and more in the following years, I feel that Colin became both my mentor and friend. I didn't make many decisions concerning my projects and formal education in the Media Lab Helsinki of the University of Art and Design (now the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture) in the mid-90s without consulting Colin.
From various occasions in Brighton and Plymouth, where I joined the first dinner at Colin's and his wife Christine's home, in Helsinki and Malmö (and I don't remember where else in Europe), I most distinctly recollect Colin's warm and serene presence and the calm thoughtfulness of a ruminating scholar. He always enjoyed playing the devil's advocate in order to improve upon my thinking. ‘Interface’ may just be a concept used to falsely place blame on a complex and inseparable part of human-computer systems design. Realistic representation by visualisation software is ineffectual, as it adds cognitively next to nothing to how we already perceive reality. ‘Virtual’ is, virtually, non-existent by definition—why do we use it in describing online worlds and communities, the actions and relationships of which are real?
After Colin's ‘retirement’—I hear from New Zealand that he is a relentless community activist e.g. in the Artworks Community Theatre and the nature preservation of Waiheke Island—we have not met each other face to face. I frequently miss his and Christine's company, and Colin's views and advice. Despite the current geographical distance and long-term absence, my thoughts have allowed me a sense of Colin's presence: I've always been able to consult his wisdom in imagined dialogues and by reading his writings. I owe you, Colin, as a projection of my mind as well as yourself.