Simplicity

Simplicity is the wishful pipe dream of a society overwhelmed by technological revolutions and endless streams of information. Simplicity is the ideology of both technophobic naysayers to progress and a new generation of information designers. Has there ever been a concept laid claim to by so many different quarters? And, as an expression of the central challenge of these times, what call could be more urgent? Which options and features could we possibly do without? And which would we dispense with gladly? In this volume artists, software designers and scientists conceive and construct new strategic and tactical approaches to managing complexity, streamlining information, creating simplicity--a spectrum of ideas bound by resistance and adaptation, and a spectrum of work featuring creatively designed alternatives, poetically useless machines and innovative new developments.