After today’s class, write at least 250 words summarizing your reading of and today’s lecture on Galloway’s “What is New Media?” Explain the main points that Galloway raises about Manovich’s influential essay that we read for our previous class.
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In Galloways article he discusses The book Manovich writes titled Language of New Media. Ten years after the book was published by Manovich Galloway has much to say about it. He uses peculiar words to describe the book such as poetic, aesthetic , mise en abime, glasnost etc. In the article Manovich’s background culture is brought up and analyzed. Galloway says cinema and computers are similar and because they are similar the new digital age started in the 1980s by cinema. The difference is interaction. People interact with computers and cinemas are no contact. The other thing I liked about Galloways articles is breaking up the new digital media into three parts. Logic, computational and data. Galloways opening states his argument for the article but not explicitly. The article is a harsh critique of Manovich’s book. He uses the old tact of complimenting and criticizing the person whom is being analyzed. I particularly like to here other perceptions. People sometimes don’t have the ability to analyze an idea from the level of the person writing the content. So Galloway writing about it is beneficial. So this confrontational although might seem hostile is actually productive.
Galloway’s “What is New Media?” also brings up the book Manovich that is titled Language of New Media. They use different ways of talking about how new media has evolved and that people are more involved with media on learning about people around the world. They use different type of technology to get the media going but the language is also there because they would make it short and to the point so that people don’t need to read so much to understand the image that is being posted up online. The internet helps media travel fast because people is always on them 24/7 and that they have different people reposting them to get them more notice. People forget that this is how everything started, and that media and photography becomes a big part of the new media nowadays. Both Galloway and Manovich have different perspective of the New Media, but they do agree on some of the things. They both might be different, but their idea is quite similar to one another and that we’re able to learn more about them in the books or article they have written about the New Media. We do look at media different now because we have so many different social media to catch them on and it get really hard to see which one, we want to look at first. This also brings a lot of new ideas to the world and how technologies and media has evolved over time and that we are still using them now.
Summary of Alexander Galloway’s “New Media”
Galloway earned his PhD right when Manovich’s “New Media” was published. Galloway argues the “New Media” is a product of the widespread adoption of the internet. “What is New Media” written 10 years after Manovich’s “Language of New Media” and is rooted in Web 1.0. While Manovich’s layers – appearance, material, and logic- form a recursive mise en abime, Galloway finds Manovich’s approach as being poetic and aesthetic. Galloway gives special mention to manovich’s 5 principles are aesthetic properties of the data underlying the representations made possible by that data. The numbers have a beauty that we can talk about. Interaction between the computer and culture layer has a beauty in itself. Hardware, social interaction, and digital networks all are important considerations to illicit aesthetics. Weakness he identifies have to do with cinema and history. Cinema is the first new media even though it predates first pc by 100 years. Manovich says default condition of the HCI while galloway says it’s too narrow. History of Manovich gives less focus to historical context or influence of media, but instead focused on the media as formal devices. In literary terms formal devices are the means used to tell a story. Media therefore, become formal devices instead of historical systems.Galloway offers a defense to Manoviches glassnost of the digital media. Galloway says we should focus on politics and how the things work. Manovich talks about the appearance layer of new media being cinema.
The material layer of new media is digital technology. The logic layer is algorithmic. Galloway calls this a mise en abime – like a matroshka doll (one thing contains another, which contains another). More formerly a mise en abime is infinite recursion. Simple recursion include acronyms. Galloway gives us- synecdoche – a part comes to stand for the whole. Indexicality – a sign pointing to meaning within the context of a sentence
Galloway gives a deep analyzation of Manovich’s Language of New Media pointing out some issues that Manovich does not express well enough and also giving an opinion on his idea of what new media is. Galloway writes What is New Media after 10 years when Manovich’s Language of New Media was published which was rooted in Web 1.0 (an early adoption of the internet). In the article, he talks about certain flaws of how Monovich does not express enough about cinema and history towards media. Cinema was the first form of media and Galloway said that the first form of new media did not come from “1980s in Silicon Valley; it began a hundred years prior at Étienne-Jules Marey’s Station Physiologique in the outskirts of Paris.” (Galloway 379). This also shows a flaw of how Manovich failed to recognize the history of new media as he focuses on media as formal devices instead of giving a deeper background of the history of new media. Galloway does defend Manovich of how he couldn’t be too knowledgable about the history of new media because as Galloway said “He is not a politicized western intellectual in the Sartrean mold.” though Manovich doesn’t explain the aspect of how politics affect media, Galloway exercises the idea of how politics are also very important not just media, but how it works. Galloway also talks about Manovich’s three layers of a media appearance, material, and logic and how the structure represents “mise en abîme” (Galloway 383).
Alexander R. Galloway is a writer. He wasn’t just a writer but also a computer programer working on issues in philosophy, technology, and theories of mediation. One of his work is “What is New Media?” Which connects to Manovich article which we did previously and has a similar name as this one. Both of these essays have a common interest or idea— although they used different type of technologies to approach their point. Galloway described Manovich book as being poetic and glasnost. Cinema and history towards media were challenged by Galloway because he thinks that they were not well expressed in Manovich book, given that Galloway’s work was published 10 years after. That give him the ability to review the work of Manovich and oppose it. The essay indicates “The open source culture of new media really means one thing today: it means open interfaces. It means the freedom to connect to technical im- ages.” ( Galloway, page 383) which shows that Media has differed from generation before because as we know it became so much easier for information to be transferred to different countries in less time. Which made it spread to the public, especially with the creation of Google and facebook; due to the fact that people rely on it in their everyday lives. Galloway brought up the issue of politics, which wasn’t discussed by Manovich because he wanted to show us how technology could be a weapon that influences us in different ways and politics is one of these ways in order to show how different people might use it to achieve and pursue their self-interests.
Alexander Galloway, born in 1974, is and author and professor in the media culture and communication department at NYU. Galloway is known as being a literature Scholar and Computer Programmer. Galloway’s, “ What is New Media” , was written “ 10 years after Manovich’s,”Language of New Media”. Galloway has earned his PhD when Manovich, “New Media” was first published, which then rooted in Web 1.0. For those of whom , who are unsure of what Web 1.0 was, it was, “the term used to refer to to the first stage of development on the World Wide Web. Manovich has 3 different layers in which he describes. The first is Appearance, which in this manner can be best defined as the layer of media that is cinema. The second layer is the material layer which is digital technology. The last layer in Manovich, “New Media” is the Logic layer. This layer can be described as algorithmic. Manovich says that his layers form a recursive mise en abime, which we defined in class be resemble a Matryoshka Doll (the dolls that are in one another). Hard to explain, best thing to do is look up what a Matryoshka Doll is , unless you already know. Galloway has 5 principles which are aesthetic and poetic. The five principles are aesthetic properties of data which consist of : Hardware , social interaction, network , cinema and history. Cinemas can be described as first media. Also a new term or phrase which is, “ media as formal devices, that in which can be interpreted to saying media used to tell a story. In most of our readings we are able to compare and contrast the between each story or narrative we read. This story about Alexander Galloway has more comparisons with Bruce Manovich than any other story we’ve read. There are some good points in which I believe should be shown and expressed to all just so that they are aware of what’s going on. Language and technology changes us as in return we change language and technology.
In Galloways’ “What is New Media?” he is a computer programmer. He believes in ways of encountering text on screen. The key things that has happened after the ten-year publication after Manovich language of new media then Rooted in web 1.0, where websites were dynamic and no social media during that time. Manovich layers appearance material and logic form a recursive mise en abime. Poetic, was described on how things are moved together in the forms that move something. Novelist tell a story. Aesthetics is the perceptions appreciation, criticism of that which is beautiful. Galloway finds Manovich poetic and aesthetic and Manovich has a book called “Instagramism and Contemporary Image” which is based on the theory on how Instagram works. There are five principles aesthetics properties underlined by those representations through Manovich. Numbers have a certain form of beauty. A photo is aesthetic as well as from the way it is positioned and the way it is colored. The effect on culture and computer layers have played a significant role in the way technology has been able to advance. Manovich explains software application developer. Hardware has its place for social interaction and heroism. Galloway targets Manovich greatest weakness that must do with cinema and history. First off new media, predates over 100 years. Human and computer interface. Manovich and McLuhan give less context. Former devices are the means used to tell a story. A novel former device goes into a laboratory of events which creates former devices instead of social systems. Lisa Gitelman explains social relationships in her recent reading “Always, Already New”. In Galloways defense, he explains the very difficult political structure. Manovich uses the glasnost of the digital Soviet Union reference and how it was thawing of the cold war. Galloway explains Manovich got his feel of politics. Galloway complaint layer metaphor. Manovich talks about the appearance layer is a cinema. Material layer is digital technology. Logic layer is algorithmic. Mise en abime like a small doll where one doll contains another matroshka doll. Form of recursion copy of an image embedded. Richard Stallman started free software society. Users should be empowered
Gneugnots units which represents, GNUs NOT Unix the thing itself.
1.Synecdoche a part comes to stand for the whole. Example refers to boots on the ground. Means the whole soldier military reference.
Suits things that represent them
2. Indexicality- a sign pointing to
to meaning in context of a sentence. Ex. “I” means something different from when I refers to me or I refer to you.
Here is infidelity … discourse changes overtime.
Alexander Galloway was born in 1974 and is known as an author and professor in the media culture and communication department at NYU. Galloway is known as a literature Scholar and Computer Programmer. In Galloway’s, “ What is New Media”, where he emphasizes on the 3 different layers of new media. Just as a background, Alexander Galloway wrote this book 10 years after Manovich’s,”Language of New Media” so this taken be taken to an account hat maybe he used Manovich as an inspiration when discussing this topic. Basically in his literature work he deeply analyses and reflects on Manovich’s ideas and thoughts about new media and elaborates using his examples and beliefs (which are similar to Manovich’s- like this three layers)
The first layer is Appearance – which is the layer of media, which is cinema. Used to to tell stories.
The second layer is the material- which is digital technology.
The last layer is the Logic layer- which can also be described as algorithmic.
He also discusses the five principles of new media which are aesthetic properties of data that consist of hardware, social interaction, network , cinema and history. Galloway believed that politics is as important as media and correlates with media. This is one statement I highly emphasis on because I too agree that politics have a great influence on social media with the way news is being portrayed. For example nation leaders, activists, political parties, and celebrities (basically anyone with great influential power in society) rely on social media in order to portray their messages and gain a crowd of interest in order to advance in society thanks to the popularity their promotions/post/tweets/status gets them. It’s a political scheme because they earn money, power, and status from it.Also to point out, a message that repeatedly get presented in every ready post is that ideology of language and technology changing us, and in return we change language and technology.
The article we analyzed before this was Lev Manovich’s “What is New Media?”. He discusses his point of view on the 5 principles by which we can characterize a medium as new. Ten years later, we have Alexander Galloway’s piece, which goes by the same title. This is a response piece meant to not only discuss his idea of what we should consider new media, but also what his reaction is to Manovich’s point of view. Galloway states that Manovich discusses his POV at what he believes is the start of the internet as we know it. Galloway discusses his observation with Manovich’s layers when talking about transcoding. There is the computerized layer and then the culture layer, but Galloway has a gripe with that. Galloway states that there are three layers within a media. There’s an appearance layer, the material layer and a logic layer. He then brings up mise en abyme, which is in essence the idea of having a story within a story. In this case, a copy copies itself eternally or recurivation. Galloway then touches on the aesthetics of a media, by which the nature of how the new media works is beautiful. With Manovich discussing Numerical Representation, Galloway says that it’s the numbers that have a certain beauty. Media flows in a poetic way, where media is put together in a way where it takes control of us. The five principles Manovich touches on is a poetic description of what new media is.
Alexander Galloway is a literature scholar and computer programmer who uses his understanding of computer code to articulate our understanding of language. He is also an author and professor in the Department of media, culture, and communication and NYU. Galloway earned a bachelors degree in modern culture and media and a Ph.D. in literature in 2001. Galloway’s Ph.D. was received around the same time as Manovich’s “Language of New media” was published. Galloway argues that “New Media” is a product of the widespread adoption of the internet. Ten years later after the publishing of Manovich book, Galloway describes his work as poetic and culturally aesthetic. Galloway deemed Manovich’s work as a product of the first stage of web culture. He exposes a few imperfections in Manovich’s work claiming that he had failed to write the accurate origin of cinema and its history towards media. According to Galloway, “ The dirty little secret of The Language of New Media, and the details that reveals Manovich’s first passion is this: Cinema was the first new media. New media did not begin in the 1980s in Silicon Valley; it began a hundred years prior at Etienne-Jules Marey’s Station Physiologique in the outskirts of Paris” (Galloway, 2011). Galloway expresses that cinema is the first medium to bring together techniques such as compositing, recombination, digital sampling and more. Galloways also touch on Manovich’s five principles, numeric representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding and suggest that these principles should not be understood as universal laws of new media. Instead, Galloway suggests that the principles expressed the “aesthetic properties of data and the basic ways in which information is created, stored, and rendered intelligible.”
Alexander R. Galloway wrote the article “What is New Media?” which came out ten years after Manovich’s “Language of New Media.” He spoke upon how certain things were placed together as though it was a poem. Certain ethics meaning the perception and appreciation of criticism is what made it so beautiful. Formal devices are what is used to create a captivating story.
After the reading of galloways ten years later reflections of Manovich’s,”Language of New Media” i was intrigued by the way in which he discussed new media. Being such the intellectual he was it wasn’t surprising that his reflections was on the piggybacking of another great intellectual. Galloway discussed representation as in how we experience the world through what he called “ new media” versus old media of the more historical times like cinema. And with in this new media he described the number based functions of engineered algorithms that gives us what we expect in our now modern technology. The consuming and producing of this new media is a major influence on our cultures and how we as people interact with these technologies. Our cultures have shifted into a new revolution of media that has moved us from a simple print and press to still images and computer storage capability. These new media are described to only be converged older forms of media that have found a new purpose of use. Galloway goes on to say that numbers represent everything now when it comes to new media. Even though orders of processes are specific like having to follow order by sequence where the process of one to two is very important numbers have made it so that even the result of the process can be manipulated for our desire make new media our own.
Alexander R. Galloway’s “What is New Media” offers an interesting retrospective view on Lev Manovich’s “The Language of New Media”, which was written ten years later. Galloway reminds the reader that of Manovich’s views on new media as software applications for the most part. Galloways also reminds the reader about the ambiguity of the definition of what new media is. There is not a concrete answer to the question. Interestingly enough Galloway is a computer programmer who has a degree in modern culture and media but also studies philosophy. Galloway emphasises that the answer to the question of “What is new media?” has been answered very differently by different people because of the ambiguity of the answer. Different answers make sense but establishing one is probably impossible. Galloway also finds Manovich poetic. Manovich and Galloway both have a background in computer programming with different perspectives into what new media is. Authors all have different opinions and answers to the question. Mark B. N. Hansen describes Manovich’s writing on new media in his book “New Philosophy for New Media” as “rich in detail” but overinvested in cinema. It just goes to show how difficult it is to answer the question because of the ambiguity. People background and experiences play a big role in the way they answer the the question for an example Manovich spent his most of his childhood in the Soviet Union which gave him a phobia of political ideologies. Overall Galloway shows how difficult and ambiguous answering a seemingly simple question can be by comparing and contrasting the views of other authors.
Alexander Galloway’s work “What is New Media? Ten Years After the Language of New Media” demonstrated the concept of the basic web 1.0 and modern web 2.0.
Galloway tries to convince readers what and why someone today might be thinking in reference to what Manovich has written 10 years ago. The key aspect is the shift in internet technology in regard to Manovich’s “Language of New Media.” It characterizes the shift from Web 1.0, when the internet was first popularized, and technology was about building identities online, to Web 2.0 which include social networking and dynamically responding websites. Software and applications such as social media platforms, interactive web pages as well as instant access to databases added to media. The strength of this new media has shaped today’s culture and interactions with the world. Web 2.0 created a poetic form of instant communication with technology. Galloway’s work often recognizes the Manovich five principles used to create media’s dynamic effects. It is vital to understand Galloways wants his readers to comprehend the layers of media: appearance is known as cinema; the material is the digital tech while the logic is algorithmic. New Media in Galloway’s opinion did not start in the 1980’s under cinema like Manovich book states, he thinks new media started a hundred years prior with us being able to group techniques together over a certain medium like computers have been doing only for half a century. In many times Gallloway disagrees with Manoviches’ writing. Galloways believes that what Manovich work is done based on is the web 1.0. As discussed, he mentions the 5 principles and how all of the coding when precepted the right way has more than just numbers and numerical