One of the questions Manovich discusses, is what makes new media different from old media? He points out that scholarship has yet to define new media (at least in the ways he feels it should be defined as) and he proceeds to explain some basic principles of new media. He talks about new media as ‘objects’ which exist in some kind of numerical data. There is modularity between the different parts of new media. New media is created through automation. There are variable versions that can exist of new media. And finally, new media can be transcoded.
Manovich talks about new media in a revolutionary sense. He argues how just as the printing press and the photograph each had their own revolutionary culture shifts, new media is the current catalyst of cultural revolution in the present-day. He seems to argue that this new media revolution is more far-reaching. He says compared to the press and photography, “the computer media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage, and distribution; it also affects all types of media -- texts, still images, moving images, sound, and spatial constructions” (19). Then later when he’s talking about the metalanguage, he says “it will be at least as significant as the printed and cinema before it” (93). It seems like Manovich puts new media at the same level as the printing press and photograph sometimes, and then at others he seems to favor new media as being even more revolutionary. This is something that stuck out to me as I was reading, and which I will present a few thoughts about.
On the first quote I inserted, I feel like the same statement could be made with both the printing press and the photograph. The printing press allowed for storage and distribution of knowledge in ways more profound than pre-press. Printing can be easily manipulated - insert a type-block here, rearrange there...Next thing you know you have the “sin” commandments. The spread of literacy affected how language was acquired. Photography affected the way we communicate, as they say “a picture tells a thousand words.” Clearly, photography can be distributed and manipulated (especially, even more so).
Manipulation is not a new concept with the transition from analog to digital, as many of us have pointed out in our previous blogs. The issue is the frequency of ‘retouching, but I think the existence of manipulation even in analog is proof that the technology is just an enabler to the ideology that drives the need to retouch an image. I guess I take the angle that a technology is how you choose to use it. Why did the first movies look like plays? Why did computer technology follow in the footsteps of cinema, which followed in the footsteps of photography?
I have a hard time seeing a new media as being anything profoundly different than previous mediums. The printing press was an new media in its day, and there will be some other kind of new media in 2 years, 10 years, 20 years. In my opinion ideas rarely, if at all, just fantantiscally and radically change from the previous. And if they are so different, they’re not going to be understand in the moment by any sort of mass of people, because most people don’t accept beyond their capacity of knowledge. Originality is the building upon previous work, using different parts to create new whole. But the important thing is that those parts exist and came from something before them. Movies wouldn’t exist without photography and theater, which wouldn’t exist withought painting, and the simple need of humans to tell stories. “There’s nothing new under the sun.” New media is different than old media. Digital is different than analog, but they’re both ways of communicating, of creating, distributing, and translating knowledge.
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I’ll say one thing about this class’ readings: nothing is as simple as it seems, this weeks especially. In some ways I found Manovich an easier read than others we’ve had. The language seems easily understood, but then I found myself reading something and being like, “yea, yea that makes sense, wait, what did he really mean there” and then I would have to re-read. Maybe it was because I kept starting to read at 10-11 pm the last couple nights, when I was least mentally strong. Maybe it’s because I’m not used to talking about databases and interfaces and feel a little like I’ll never fully grasp these concepts. This blogging thing is helpful though. I really like reading everyone else’s blogs before going to class; it's a nice jump start to Parry’s lessons.
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I thought the same thing--that Manovich was promoting the idea of new media as a revolutionary break from the past. But at the very end of our reading he back-tracks on that and says, "I wanted to create trajectories through the space of cultural history that would pass through new media, thus grounding it in what came before."
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that it was easy to read, but also required serious concentration. My take-away was that in many cases new media could be used in more profound ways than is currently being done (as of when the book was written). Particularly regarding the cinema / database relationship, but also the way navigable space is designed.
Well written post. I also found Manovich fascilated between arguing that new media is evolutionary vs. revolutionary. In some ways it seems to be both, but if we define "revolutionary" as how new media changes our cognitive processes, meaning how we see mediation as achieving something we could have never dreamed of before, then current changes in media do arguably fall in with the introduction of the printing press as a revolutionary change. And I'm the guy who's been pushing back on the concept of revolutionary change. Sure, new media borrows from the traditions of the past, but it gives rise to possibilities never before imagined. This will be an ongoing semester-long debate.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I'm not the only one that has a hard time seeing new media as anything profoundly different from the past. Though I'm an active user of new media, I have the same problem. It seems to me like we're still trying to do the same thing - communicate a message, idea, etc. The only thing that has dramatically changed is how many people we can reach by utilizing new media to deliver our messages, ideas, etc.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Monovich probably erred on the side of revolution, based of his discussion of how so much of what we consider unique to new media, really isn't that unique after all. Although technology has clearly grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years, it has had to leap off of something.
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