Computer as Window

In Manovich's introduction to the New Media Reader, he states that, "All culture, past and present, is being filtered through the computer, with its particular human-computer interface," (p. 16).

Not only do we experience the present through the lens of the computer, we experience the past.

We look up facts and information about the past on computers. We, in essence, "see" the past through the lens of the computer screen as it is our point of entry to that information.

The computer has taken over so many aspects of life today. I come home from work on a computer and I get on my computer...

The computer is also a window into the future (mixing metaphors here!). We can look out at the past and also look towards the future. The future certainly involves the computer. I can't see any other way.

I think an interesting question for the future is how will we utilize the computer in the information age? How will we deal with information overload? How will we decide which information to use and which to discard?

I'll look at some of these questions more after I read Information Anxiety later this quarter.

Technology as Art

One of the most interesting points from the New Media Reader was the comparison by Manovich of new media to the Art movement of the 20th Century.

The idea is that technology is the greatest work of Art of the 20th century. Modern Art and technology have progressed at the same time (and Manovich details more of that interaction in his introduction).

Technolgy as Art.

As a web developer, I can certainly see a kind of perfection in code. There is something very satisfying about creating a web page with good, clean code. Nothing extraneous, just simple code. I'm sure that many programmers feel the same way about coding as well. It is simple, efficient, yet still creatively evoked.

In HTML, there are often a few different ways to do something and if you add CSS on top of it, there are even more options.

Writing good code is like composing an intricate symphony (I'm also a composer). With so many options and varities of instruments and pitches, there are many "right answers" to the question of how to do it, but a good coder will do it artfully.

The Big Picture

I just came across "The Big Picture" on CNET News.com

Wow! This is very cool

Wiki 3

Postscript

Another interesting topic that Daniel Pink raises is the criticism of wikis as too "anti-elitist."

Wikis are THE quintessential post-modern document. Endlessly in flux, co-authored by potentially all of humanity where all voices are counted equal.

There is no formal review process for what's posted, but it's immediately fixed. Pink notes that there were postings about the Tsunami only 30 minutes after the event whereas print encyclopedias can take months to update their content.

Speed is certainly something that is really nice in this regard.

Plus, the post-modernist in me loves it.

WiKi 2

RE: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html?pg=1

Thanks to Professor Dave Farkas for the Link.

Wikis as documents of the future. Wired did this article on wikis that brought up a lot of good issues which I'll outline below.

1. Should we trust an online encyclopedia that allows for everyone to edit it? Or, as author Daniel H. Pink poses: "Is wikipedia a heartening effort in digital humanitarianism - or a not-so-smart mob unleashing misinformation on the masses?"

2 "Are well-intentioned amateurs any replacement for professionals?"

3. "Is charging nothingfor knowledge too high a price?"

These are very good questions! I'll try to address some of the issues Pink raises and look at possible answers.

RE 1 - Digital humanitarianism vs. Misinformation. I think the answer is both. There are very well-meaning contributers out there and there are some with malintent. The good thing is that wikis are very self-correcting (as Pink points out). Wikipedia allows you to keep certain pages on your radar so that you can be informed when they are updated.

The flip side of that coin is that there are some people out there that have edited many pages. For example, as Pink indicates, Bryan Derksen has updated around 40,000 articles!

Personally, I don't know Bryan, so I don't know how much I trust him. I can say the same about just about anyone who contributes to wikipedia. Personally, I take much of it with a grain of salt.

RE 3 - I'm getting here anyway, so, I'm talking about these out of order...

Is charging nothing for knowledge too high a price? I think maybe not. I mean, it's being offered for FREE from a stranger. I'd give it slightly more weight than talking to one stranger on a bus because of the opportunity of millions of people to "fix" incorrect facts.

This brings me to 2.

RE 2 - Replacement for professionals? No, wikipedia is not a replacement-or, at least, it shouldn't be.

There are many wonderful things about it, for example, the speed of updates are almost instantaenous! However, it can't replace a professional.

Pink goes on to talk about the process of encyclopedias over time-from the one man expert, such as Aristotle, to the group of experts that created such encyclopedias as Britannica.

If you want an expert opionion, ask an expert. Google has a service that does this-it costs money, but if you want an answer that you can be sure to trust, you have to pay for it.

If you merely want an answer to a question and you aren't basing major life decisions on it, wikipedia will do. If you're writing a scholarly term paper, it's a great starting place, but not a basis for information. It can lead you to other works and ideas, but I don't know that we're culturally to the place to start referencing it in papers (unless you want to get a good idea of what most people think about something).

New Media and the Computer

After reading the two introductions from The New Media Reader (www.newmediareader.com) I feel like I finally got a clear and concise definition of "New Media" from Lev Manovich's Introduction, New Media from Borges to HTML:

New media are computer-based artistic activities.

This was an "Ah-ha" moment for me. After reading about what new media is and isn't, it finally dawned on me that this broad definition may be the most working definition I've found.

Manovich tends to look at new media in binary terms: New Media vs. cyberculture, for example. New media vs. the artistic world. New media vs. print media. New media vs. cinema.

The one thing that combines all "new media" is the computer. The computer not only holds/stores all new media, the computer creates and combines new media.

The computer allows for endless variation of media and the web is the supreme example of the beauty of endless combinations of media: pictures, text, movies, powerpoint slides, blogs, message boards, wikis... informative websites, personal websites, consumer websites... each fulfilling a different purpose, coexisting, infinitely available to people around the world and existing amongst everything else in a web or a matrix or a potato root system...

Media within media...

When we watch movies on a website, we focus our attention on the film/music video/etc. even though it exists in the grander media of the website... we interpret based on what we focus on. We allow for the blending of media and the subverting of one media (film, in this case) under another (the internet).

Interestingly, the internet can subsume all of what we currently think of as "new media" ... what can't be new media that isn't on the internet?

Language of New Media Part 2 - Information Hierarchy or WWW Model?

Manovich's Language of New Media (p. 16) distinguishes between information hierarchies and the World Wide Web model.

Hierarchy assumes a logical ordering and a distinct place. However, information on the WWW is all equal. Everything is connected to everything else and thus of equal importance.

The question of authority came up in my Knowledge Management course the other day... you can get information from a database or from the help of a reference librarian from a scholarly journal. This information has authority and has been "approved" by intellectuals in the field ... it carries more weight than a quick answer on google. However, google will bring you the most timely information, of course, you have to decide whether or not the source is trustworthy.

Language of New Media

RE: Lev manovich's The Language of New Media
http://www.manovich.net/LNM_SITE_NEW/lnm_main.html

Manovich has a lot of interesting things to say about new media and how it became new. The computer plays a pivotal role in the creation of new media:

"The computerization of culture not only leads to the emergence of new cultural forms such as computer games and virtual worlds; it redefines existing ones such as photography and cinema." (Manovich, 9).

The computer transforms old media into the new. It seems like all media is now seen through the lens of the internet. We relate to media and information in terms of google, immediately accessible and infinitely deep.

Everything is online now as well. We can find everything online now.

Manovich focuses on how language functions in new media, by this, he means the, "Emergent conventions, recurrent design patterns, and key forms of new media," (ibid. p. 12). I like to think of media as language... the concept bears some time to ponder. Language is a vehicle by which we communicate with each other. It is also a set of grammatical rules and structure. Language is a finite way of trying to describe the indefinite, or the unspeakable.

Media takes over where language leaves off. A sonnet can only say things that are within the limitations of the language imposed upon the thought or idea. A picture can communicate many other things that may or may not have the same intent as the photographer, but that same argument works for the sonnet...

As a good postmodernist, I'll posit that we'll always have differing opinions on the "right" or "correct" or "intentded" interpretation of a work of prose just the same as an image or a film.

Manovich also talks about how we exist in an "information culture" (p. 13) that includes the ways information is presented in different cultural sites and objects including road signs; displays in airports, train stations, television menus, graphic user interfaces, layouts of books and magazines, interior design as well as interfaces and software platforms and applications... (ibid.) It is mind-numbing when you start to think about how much information we are given on a daily basis!

PoMo and Hypertext/web theory

This blog is going to be taking a more specific direction. I'm taking an independant study course in hypertext/web theory and postmodernism. I created the syllabus myself and I'm very excited about it. If you'd like to read along with me, please download it here:

http://www.joshlamar.com/Documents/TC%20599.doc

I'll be posting thoughts about the various readings here. Please feel free to comment respond and let's start a dialogue :-)

- Josh