For today’s after class assignment, write at least 250 words summarizing the important points that you gleaned from the read and your lecture notes from today’s class.
If you want to learn more about Lev Manovich’s work in new media, watch these videos from YouTube. You may incorporate them into your summary, too.
Lev Manovich:The Language of New Media.
Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media offers the first systematic theory of new media. He places new media within the histories of visual and media cultures of the last few centuries. He discusses new media’s reliance on traditions of old media, such as the rectangular frame and mobile camera, and shows how new media works create the illusion of reality, address the viewer, and represent space. He also analyzes categories and forms unique to new media, such as interface and database. Manovich uses concepts from film theory, art history, literary theory, and computer science and also develops new theoretical constructs, such as cultural interface, spatial montage, and cinematography. The theory and history of cinema play a particularly important role in Manovich’s analysis of new media. Among other topics, Manovich discusses parallels between the histories of cinema and of new media, digital cinema, screen and montage in cinema and in new media, and historical ties between avant-garde film and new media. Manovich explains that data is continuous. Digitization is the process of converting continuous data into a numerical representation. Old media may be sampled but not measured. Manovich uses the example of motion picture film. The film has been sampled into frames, but these frames are not numerically represented. He explains why the idea of individual representation became a component of old and modern media and not limited to new media. He defines language as being parallel to the discrete tendencies of media, “without discrete units, there is no language…we speak in sentences; a sentence is make from words; a word consists of morphemes, and so on.” He concludes this assumption saying, “We may expect that media used in cultural communications will have discrete levels.” Human language epitomizes communication, and media connects different forms of communication; therefore it can be concluded that the discrete units that make up language would be present in media. Manovich asserts that new media represents a convergence of two separate histories. It is a convergence of media technologies and of digital computing. However, the idea of a digital by itself can hardly separate new media from the old. What is essential is not that media is simply translated into a digital code but that through this translation it becomes subject to computation. Manovich outlines five principles of new media: Numerical representation: new media are “composed of digital code” and thus can be “described using a mathematical function” and can undergo “algorithmic manipulation” Modularity: The logic of computer programming and the makeup of new media objects reflect this modularity. Automation: numerical coding and modular structure allow much of the “creation, manipulation, and access” Variability: “A new media object is not something fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite versions”. Transcoding: the “reconceptualization” which occurs during computerization, the transformation of media into computer data. The mapping of concepts such as plot, sentence, family portrait, or summer blockbuster into the computer’s text, packet, pixel, or other data structure, creates a composite “blend of human and computer.
In Lev Manovich’s “The Language of New Media”, Manovich discusses the new media revolution. He sees the origin in new media through the history of image and image as technology. He goes on to reference the punch card programming where code was punched into a threaded belt and this was the central loon of general history of computing. Manovich wants to emphasis on the placement of computer in the production, he believes that we should not privilege computer as media consumption over media production. By this he means we shouldn’t just be using the computer to consume, like using it mainly for social media or entertainment but rather use it for production meaning to use it more as a producer. The media revolution that we are in now is more profound than the previous ones. The printing press only affected one stage, newspapers, and photography only affected one state, still images, while computer media revolution affects all types of media not just one. Computation is now taking over all forms media. The history of computing has converted into the present and the result is new media which includes graphics, moving images, texts and much more. Manovich then discusses his five principals of new media and this helps distinguish old media from new media. Manovich’s principals have a progressive order. The first and second principals are the foundation and the rest follow from them. These five principals are:
1. Numerical Representation
2. Modularity
3. Automation
4. Variability
5. Transcoding
Numerical Representation refers to all new media objects are composed of digital code. Modularity is the fractal nature of new media. Automation is the numerical coding of media in Modularity that allows us to automate many objects. This manipulates the computer data to help us save work time. Variability is what new media is characterized by and Transcoding is new media that is thought of from two layers, the cultural layer and computer layer.
In the article Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media offers us theories of new media. The first theory is about how new media has a history of visual and media cultures from the past. Lev Manovich explains how new media is birthed from the past of old media. Things like the camera and the frame have slowly developed the media in terms of creating a illusion, assisting the user, and the physical shape of it. Manovich goes on to explain his three types of theories which are film, art, literary theories, and computer science which creates an entirely new chances of evolution. In new media these elements of theories are in in new media and its what makes it completely new. Manovich tells us how we should not be using technology for production, but more of a producer. Manovich also explains how we should not just use computers for the sake of entertainment and social media we should expand and use it to better ourselves. The media revolution now has been changing from the phones without internet and are only able to display phone numbers to a phone that can use the internet and display things like websites with a bunch of hardwired things like LTE and WIFI. To separate the new and old media we have to look at how they were developed. New medias have a digital code, automated objects, manipulating computer data, and coding of media. Compare to the old technologies which don’t have any of these and it’s only function is to call.
In his article, “The Language of New Media” Lev Manovich talks about his theory on new media. He starts off by giving examples of what he thinks new media is. The internet, websites and computer games can all be considered as forms of new media. However digital compositing and 3D animation can also be considered as new media, as well as photographs, advertisements and illustrations. Manovich’s point here is that new media doesn’t only have to be internet and computer based. He however makes it clear that “There is no reason to privilege computer in the role of media exhibition and distribution machine over a computer used as a tool for media production or as a media storage device.” He then goes on to talk about mass media and data processing. He believes that these two technologies are complementary of modern mass society, and that work and develop together to make this generation of media what it’s known for today. For example through the nineteenth and twentieth century calculators started developing and were slowly becoming more popular and faster. During this time, media also became popular, in which you can store images, and sounds in different forms. Manovich came up with five basic principles of new media. Numerical representation is when all new media objects, are composed of digital code and are numerical representations. Modularity is when a new media object has the same modular structure throughout. Media elements, are assembled into larger-scale objects but they continue to maintain their separate identity. Automation is the idea that humans can be removed from part of the creative process. Variability is the fact that new media objects are not something fixed once and for all but can exist in different, potentially infinite, versions. Transcoding is new media that is made up of the cultural layer and the computer layer, and they each influence each other.
In the article “The Language of New Media” by Lev Manovich he argues that the history of the image and the history of computing have converged in the present with the translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible for computers. The result being “new media” which he defines as “graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces, and text which become computable that is simply another set of computer data”. Often this manipulation can be seen in our time on the classroom desktops. Later he adds “media becomes new media” meaning any media today is going to become a new form of media afterward. Five principles of new media are given by Manovich, the first two being the foundation that all of them require and the latter three build on the former. The five principles are as follows:
1.Numerical representation – numerical data formally or mathematically described and manipulated with computer algorithms – using these numbers to change the data in different ways
2.Modularity – fractal structure of new media or how new media objects can be combined or disassembled out of many reusable or interchangeable parts
3.Automation – the way in which computer templates and code can automate creation and manipulation of new media
4.Variability – not being fixed and potential to an infinitely many different versions
5.Transcoding – translation on two layers, bits of data changing from one format to another.
The idea of fractals is when looking at something fractal nature the more you zoom in on it, the more it still resembles the way the object looks on the map or scale.
In the article Remediation by J. David Bolter and Richard Grusin they say all media tend to operate between two poles – immediacy or erasure of the medium or less apparent transparency. The other pole is hypermediacy or promotion of the medium or making it more apparent – this tendency for media to multiply itself to be on face, to emphasize itself. Immediacy and hypermediacy draw attention to the borrowing and repurposing that new media do with old media, this is called “Remediation” which is what new technologies do that is “find itself a relationship to earlier technologies of representation”. The new media borrow from and refashion old media such as painting, photography, radio, television, and film. It can also include technologies underlying the media such as the vacuum tube and radios which was repurposed to make television possible. Their principle is that all mediation is remediation, that no media technology is invented in a vacuum, it has to rely on anything that came before it. From that incorporation it lead to something new and unexpected technology. All media exists in relation to other media but also mediation works in both directions, they “this attempt shows remediation operates in both directions, users of older media can seek to appropriate and refashion digital graphics just as digital graphics artists seek to refashion film and television”. Where we think of user interface choices by designers to make our interaction with technology easier so that we don’t notice it as much.Like one of the end goals is speak commands and the computer responds – technologies that admit to erase media. Desktop metaphor, that certain aspects of the user interface trying to make themselves more apparent so can see, pay attention to them and we use them.