To a mathematically trained "The structure is the end result" mind, there's something extremely interesting about Buttons, the lensless camera that downloads a flickr image taken at the exact time one clicks the camera button, instead of shooting its own. Structurally, the camera is simply a mobile phone photo downloader. But that is so far from the experience one has with the camera in hand that it is close to irrelevant to mention.
I hesitate to even say this for fear that some idiot would get the idea that I think we're entering the dream society after all (full on bullshit treatment here). The observation I'm getting at is almost the direct opposite in fact, of the dream society nonsense. What I'm saying is simply that our rational examination of the world has more modes than (language embedded) conscious thought and that these matter a great deal indeed.
You can capture some of the experential differences in thought quite easily though. A good example is the extremely simple facade and direct action of Buttons compared to the indirect and involved symbolic acts of locating a program on a cell phone, starting the program, locating the "shoot" action in the interface, triggering the "shoot" action and so on. I talked to Sascha Pohflepp about it during the NEXT exhibition. How the notion of technology you don't actively use - but that just yields its results around you - is tremendously interesting. Julian Bleecker of course loved the idea and I remember almost blogging it alongside this story on a related idea from Sony.