This book studies interfaces as images and images as interfaces. By interfaces, I mean specifically graphical user interfaces; the systems which we use to interact with information displayed on an electronic support.

My interest on this topic has grown over the years and it reflects both personal motivations and professional work as a teacher and researcher. As someone who has always been fascinated with technological objects (I remember as a child programming a VCR, discovering how to change the time in an LCD watch and climbing to the rooftop to redirect the TV antenna), I think one of the best ways to approach a domain is to “touch it”, to do things with it, either under special supervision or under our own risks. I hope this book will provide inspiration to the reader in producing his/her own examples and prototypes, either by hand or with software applications or with computer code.

I have had the opportunity to discuss many of the topics included in this book with colleagues and students. I learned a lot about computer graphics and 3D software while serving as a program director of the BA in Animation and Digital Art at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Toluca, Mexico. Later, I could appreciate the intricacies of web design and human–computer interaction for the web when I was appointed as a program director of the MA Interface Design at Université Paris 13. More recently, data culture, data visualization, digital humanities, semiotics, cultural analytics and software studies appear on a daily basis at the heart of my current professional family at Université Paris 8.

I want to extend my thankfulness to colleagues and students around the world who have kindly invited me or deposited their trust in me to collaborate somehow. Friends in Mexico at Tecnológico de Monterrey, UAEMex, Centro Multimedia, CENART, UAM Xochimilco; in USA at Cultural Analytics Lab and UCLA; in Belgium at Université de Liège; in Italy at Università di Torino; in UK at King’s College and Winchester School of Arts; in Sweden at Lund University; in France at médialab Sciences Po Paris, ENS Paris, ENSAD, MSH Paris Nord, IEA Paris, MESHS Lille, Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle; in Brazil at UFRJ; in Spain at Universidad de Castilla La Mancha; in Argentina at Universidad Nacional de La Plata and Universidad de Buenos Aires. I hope we all meet together at the same space and time one of these days.

Everardo REYES-GARCIA
August 2017