Deconstructing HER

Christopher Noessel is keeper of the blog scifiinterfaces.com, and co-author of a book from the same project, Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction (Rosenfeld Media 2012). On his site he publishes deep analyses and critiques of interfaces seen in science fiction films and television.

For Øredev’s Man Love Machine theme, Noessel will deconstruct one of the most compelling and yet flawed technologies seen in recent sci-fi cinema: The eponymous OS1 in Spike Jonze’ Her. He’ll walk step by step through the narrative in which Theodore Twombly uses and falls in love with Samantha, an artificial intelligence sold as an operating system. In analyzing OS1 as an interface, interactions, a wearable computer, and a service, we’ll see how Jonze’s vision illustrates the edges of a design problem for the future of artificial intelligence, as well as the existential problems of falling in love with a machine.

Finally, Noessel will conclude by talking about the future of technologists, designers, and lovers in a world where artificial intelligence exists.