Re: PROVEN: PowerPoint makes you dumb

The November issue of Wired had a similar article by Edward Tufte:

* PowerPoint Is Evil -- by Edward Tufte
      Power Corrupts.
      PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely

      http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

"His new monograph, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, is available
from Graphics Press (www.edwardtufte.com)".

But (just to present another point of view :-), I also found another
article in the same issue interesting in which David Byrne talks
about using PowerPoint as an artistic medium:

* Learning to Love PowerPoint -- by David Byrne

    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt1.html

Apparently, he has a new book and DVD containing PowerPoint artworks
called "Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information".

Here's an excerpt from the Wired article:

[...] "Having never used the program before, I found it limiting,
inflexible, and biased, like most software. On top of that,
PowerPoint makes hilariously bad-looking visuals. But that's a small
price to pay for ease and utility. We live in a world where
convenience beats quality every time. It was, for my purposes,
perfect.

I began to see PowerPoint as a metaprogram, one that organizes and
presents stuff created in other applications. Initially, I made
presentations about presentations; they were almost completely
without content. The content, I learned, was in the medium itself. I
discovered that I could attach my photographs, short videos, scanned
images, and music. What's more, the application can be made to run by
itself -no one even needs to be at the podium. How fantastic!

Although I began by making fun of the medium, I soon realized I could
actually create things that were beautiful. I could bend the program
to my own whim and use it as an artistic agent. The pieces became
like short films: Some were sweet, some were scary, and some were
mysterioso. I discovered that even without text, I could make works
that were "about" something, something beyond themselves, and that
they could even have emotional resonance. What had I stumbled upon?
Surely some techie or computer artist was already using this dumb
program as an artistic medium. I couldn't really have this territory
all to myself -or could I?" [...]

Michael Sinatra writes (12/14/03 at 5:49 PM -0800):
   (Concerning - [Micronet] PROVEN: PowerPoint makes you dumb):

>This NYT article describes a recent essay by Edward Tufte, the great
>information-visualization guru, in which he asserts that slideware (the
>most popular example of which is PowerPoint, but also includes MagicPoint,
>the OpenOffice slideware module, etc.) is often better at obfuscating
>information than clearly presenting it:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14POWER.html?ex=1071982800&en=799ad449b398c2d7&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
>
>I'd also commend Tufte's website, where the essay and an excellent poster
>can be ordered:
>
>http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint
>
>I especially like the "But why read every slide aloud??" thought baloon
>above one of the Red Army soldiers. (Apparently most slideware presenters
>don't think their audiences have progressed to the point of literacy.)
>
>michael
>
>
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Received on Mon Dec 15 11:50:31 2003