Informatrix 3
An Interview with Edward Zajec
Is the (Informatrix) book a result of these investigations or a reason for
them? Could you say that it is a kind of didactic aid for understanding your
visual thinking or understanding the process of creating with a computer?
The book is the subject of my research and is not of a didactic nature. It
is subtitled A Book of Visual Dialogues . The result of a dialogue is an
actual experience gained by exchanging ideas and not just by understanding
something through explanation.
A dialogue is not possible without two-way communication. All previous
media from theatre to film, television and video are one-way communication
media, that is, they dont allow for real time feedback, which is one of the
basic attributes underlying the process of working with a computer.
Another fundamental attribute is that of control. I understand interaction
as the process of delegating control to the machine on the one hand, and to
the user on the other.
The meaning of this transaction is given by the quality of the experience
gained by the user in the process of interaction. Being an artist in creating
with a computer means knowing how to structure interaction in ways that are not
banal. In ways, that is, that give the user the opportunity for creative
involvement. And that was and still is the central goal of Informatrix.
Breda Skerjanec
' B. Skerjanec: An Interview with Edward Zajec ', from the catalogue of the retrospective
exhibition: ' The Artist and the Computer: From the Beginnings to the Present ',
at the International Centre of Graohic Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2007