Media Space, After 20 Years

One origin of Media Space was research in design during the 1970s that sought to integrate design models with design processes. An approach was demonstrated in the 1980s to represent design processes in Media Space. The approach extended the concepts and vocabulary of physical design, centered on physical space, to organize emerging technologies for capture, transmission, storage, and indexing of video and audio, in combination with digital information systems. That approach juxtaposed video and audio to represent process with design representations, but did not integrate them. With the maturing of technology over the past 20 years, and with nonphysical design increasingly replacing the primacy of physical design, technical possibilities for integrated technology in Media Spaces have increased, and, at the same time, the concepts and vocabulary of physical space have become misleading in their development and use.