COM257: Media History and Theory

This week’s reading by Farley discusses the history of mobile telephones (cell phones) with their roots grounded in two way radios that were popular in the 1930’s. In 1946, The mobile radio-telephone service was introduced by AT&T and Southwestern Bell. By the 1960’s, the cellular radio was well known among telecommunication companies and manufacturers. In the 1970’s as well as the 1980’s, portable telephones were flooding across America. Phones were used in cars and able to be carried in briefcases. In the mid 80’s, the Dyna-TAC was invented. It was a relatively smaller cell phone that was able to be carried around in a purse, but was too large to be carried in a pocket, much like phones are now. In the 90’s, America started to use a digital standard. During the same century, the number of wireless channels and carries increased and increased in technology: the internet was now available on phones. And finally in the new millennium, the first camera phone was made.  

It is interesting to me to think of a time before cell phones. In today’s society we rely heavily on cell phones for communication and entertainment. We see more and more applications available for phones. I remember the first cell phone I had, had 3 games that I could play; Tetris, Snake, and Brick Breaker. Now cell phones have an infinite number of games available through use of the World Wide Web. Internet is used on many phones, and many individuals use devices such as Blackberry’s to manage their busy lives. I use my cell phone so much that if you were to ask me what technology I would be least willing to give up, without hesitation I would answer my cell phone. Now my phone is not the fanciest of phones out there. I do not have a Blackberry, nor do I have an iPhone. I simply have a small LG slider phone with limited capabilities. It does not have internet or any other new revolutionary technologies, but still it comes a long way from the large, cumbersome cell phones that were first invented.

-Tara Wakeley

This weeks reading, by Juul, was entitled “Introduction.” This article describes video games rather in-depth and describes them as being “half-real” in that they are a mix of reality and imagination. An example of this is given by the concept of slaying a dragon. Although the gamer kills the dragon on the screen, it is not actually a dragon that he or she has killed in real life. According to Juul there are two basic ways in which games are structures: emergence and progression. “Emergence is the primordial game structure, where a game is specified as a small number of rules that combine and yield large numbers of game variations for which the players must design strategies and handle…Progression is the historically newer structure that became part of the video game through the adventure genre.” The classic model of a game consists of six features that work on three different levels: “The level of the game itself, as a set of rules; the level of the player’s relation to the game; and the level of the relation between the activity of playing the game and the rest of the world.” The six features are as follows:

1. a rule-based formal system

2. with variable and quantifiable outcomes

3. where different outcomes are assigned different values

4. where the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome

5. the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome

6. and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable

All in all, this article talks about how creators of a video game must establish a defined set of rules in order for the gamer to advance in the game to meet the required objective.  Juul even says that “the rules of a game provide the player with challenges that the player cannot trivially overcome. It is a basic paradox of games that while the rules themselves are generally definite, unambiguous, and easy to use, the enjoyment of a game depends of these easy-to-use rules presenting challenges that cannot be easily overcome.

I am very fond of video games and I would estimate playing video games somewhere around 5 hours a week (sometimes more sometimes less, depending on what video game I am playing at the time.) My boyfriend and I just finished playing “Lego Indiana Jones” on our Xbox 360. As Jull describes, there is always a set of rules or guidelines that you must follow in order to get to the end of the game. In addition, some of the sequences that are completed in the game must be completed in a sequential order, in order to progress to the next series. For instance, there was a scenario where a bridge was broken and 2 characters must cross the bridge in order to get across. Indian Jones carries a whip and was able to swing across the gap, with little effort. The problem was getting the female character to the other side. In order to get her across, Indiana Jones must first swing across the gap and fix the bridge from the other side and then the girl could safely cross.

-Tara Wakeley

This week’s reading discusses the internet and its history. Abbate begins this article by discussing the adversity that internet faced in its introduction. In the beginning, the internet was used primarily for military purposes. The uses soon grew to encompass uses in universities, as well as businesses. Cheaper methods were soon utilized through phone wires and universities began to uses ARPANET and the military used MILNET in order to retrieve the information on the web. Also the article discusses the PC being more commonly used in homes and more adaptable to technologies such as Ethernet. The internet also led to the formation of the Domain Name System. ARPA divided domains into six different categories which are as follows: educational (.edu), government (.gov), military (.mil), commercial (.com), other organizations (.org) and network resources (.net). As time progressed more networks were popping on to the map such as USENET and NSFNET (National Science Foundation). Networks such as BITNET and FidoNet soon allowed users to connect to Email which facilitated communication between individuals in a way that the telephone could not. Soon individuals in the virtual world got fed up with text only versions of programs. America Online, CompuServe, and Prodity took notice of this and added graphics to the pages. HTML, Hypertext Markup Language, and HTTP, Hypertext Transfer Protocol soon came to exist and the internet changed from being a research tool used by military and universities to being a commercial tool. Individuals soon were able to create their own webpages and the internet grew from there.

This makes me think about the purposes that we use the internet for now. We use programs such as Facebook and Myspace for entertainment. We can also use the internet to simplify our lives by shopping online for household items and even do our grocery shopping online so that it is ready in the store to pick up. Many companies count on the internet as a form of advertising of products and services. Without this medium, the products and services would not be able to reach the same amount of people that it would without the internet. Pizza places allow for individuals to order exactly what they want online and the individual’s order can be brought directly to their front door without ever having to pick up the phone. Other places like Google allow for companies to advertise on the side of the screen when key words are typed into the search domain.

-Tara Wakeley

Aarseth begins this week’s reading by talking about nonlinearity and how it is grounded in mathematics rather than being inspired by “modern physical sciences,” as described by Katherine Hayles. According to Webster’s New Twentieth-Century Dictionary, the concept that nonlinearity is based in mathematics is defined as “those properties of geometric figures that remain unchanged even when under distortion, so long as no surfaces are torn.” Aarseth goes on to sort texts into groups which he names as topology, dynamics, determinability, transiency, maneuverability, and user-functionality. More in-depth coverage of these topics can be found in Texts of Change. According to Aarseth any text can be discussed in terms of any one of these categories. Agrippa, as the author describes is “a rather unusual combination of a static, determinate, and transient text with completely controlled access to scriptons.” To simplify matters he reduces the six previously mentioned categories to four including simple nonlinear texts, discontinuous nonlinear texts, the determinate cybertext, and finally the indeterminate cybertext.

In the section entitled “The Readerless Text” Aarseth describes how a text can achieve nonlinearity, “the simplest of which is a script forking out in two directions on a surface, forcing its witness (the user) to choose one path in preference to another.” This can be seen in Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School. Another example given takes form in ancient Egypt with wall-inscriptions. Also the author takes notice of I Ching or Book of Changes which was used for thousands of years for meditation and as an oracle.

Hypertext is simply a direct connection from one place to another but as noted by the author it can signify at least three different things. The first of which is the general concept of hypertext as mentioned above (as a direction connection from one position to another.” The second is “an implementation of the concept, usually a computer application called a hypertext system, which idiosyncrasies and enhancements that make it different from other systems.” And last of all “a text embedded in (and defined by) such a system.”

Cyber is a word that was derived from cybernetics (coined by Norbert Wiener.) Cybertext, on the other hand is a “self-changing text, in which scriptons and traversal functions are controlled by an immanent cybernetic agent, either mechanical or human.”

When Aarseth spoke of nonlinearity I could not help but think of the presentation about Myst. According to the author, to achieve nonlinearity, the text must “[fork] out in two directions.” In the game, Myst, the player must choose the path that he or she desires in order to get to the end. It does not matter so much how the player wins the game, as long as he or she does get to the end. This is in direct contrast to something like reading a book. In reading, the order of events matters. The characters must first be introduced, a problem must arise, the climax of the story takes place, and finally a resolution is made and the book ends. It would not make sense for a book to be assembled in any other way.

-Tara Wakeley

Part II of this week’s reading deals with The Age of Television, again by Briggs and Burke. The last article (The Age of Broadcasting) dealt more with dissemination of information by means of the radio, whereas this section focuses more on information transfer by means of the television. The Television was first introduced to the public at the New York World Fair that took place in 1939. Networks started emerging and competed with one another in terms of ratings. These three networks are still around today and are referred to as “The Big Three,” which are NBC, ABC, and CBS. It was thought, in the beginning, that television would be only a thing that well off individuals would be able to enjoy, but soon America discovered otherwise. Between the years of 1947 and 1952 “the production of television sets rose remarkable from 178,000 to around 15 million.” This rise in TV circulation inversely correlated to cinema attendance. With more people being able to view programs in the comfort of their own home, less people felt the need to pay for a movie ticket. The introduction of televisions into homes had a positive effect on the economy. It created jobs for individuals doing a variety of tasks, either working in factories that produce TVs or in the television stations that air the shows. 

Television was becoming a common house hold item that was necessary for entertainment, but not every country wanted TV to go in this direction. Italian film-makers were at the height of creativity during the post-war period. They realized the danger of having TVs in every house, in that it would cut down on their profits. Soon the color TV was introduced and its popularity spread like wildfire. America used the color TV before Britain accepted the new technology. By the mid 1950s, the United States was using around 36 million TV sets, where as Britain and Europe combined used a little more than 9 million sets all together. Ten years later television stations existed in more than 90 countries and reached an audience of over 750 million viewers.

Both the radio and the television both stretched social limits. They were both able to bring information directly into the home making information easier and faster to access. Both provided jobs for Americans and individuals in other countries that used these technologies. When the television was introduced, it put both the cinema and the radio in the background. There was no need to spend more money to see a movie in the theaters, if one could be entertained at home. Likewise, the television replaced the radio in the living room, which forced the radio to find new, more portable uses. Today we have taken the technology that was created so long ago and made it new again. We have satellite radio available for our homes and our cars. We have hi-def TVs and even shows that can be viewed in 3D. It will be interesting to see how the technology that we have today will shape the technology of tomorrow.

-Tara Wakeley

In the chapter entitled Information, Education, Entertainment by Briggs and Burke, the two discuss broadcasting, both in the form of radio as well as television. Before television was even invented, most people relied on the radio to receive news, stories, and even entertainment. The radio brought news of war that could be spread from place to place with more detail than the telegraph allowed for. Nazi Germany also took advantage of the radio and within two years of the war “most European broadcasting stations were in the hands of the Nazis.” The Nazis used this power to spread propaganda and rally support for the war. Franklin D. Roosevelt also used the radio to communicate messages to his followers during his ‘fireside chats’ in order to make citizens feel that he was “present with them in their homes.”

Radio broadcasting was first introduced by a gentleman by the name of Reith. He believed that broadcasting should not only be used as a form of entertainment, but it needed to be used to bring knowledge into homes, by educating individuals. The article also sets apart differences between US broadcasting companies and Britain’s BBC. As the article points out, “the main difference in international approaches to radio… was in relation to advertising.” Britain paid for broadcasting use from licensing fees and not from general taxation. This method of financing was in stark contrast to that of the US which paid for broadcasting through advertising, “which involved rating of sponsored programmes and the taking off the air of such programmes if they did not attract sufficient listeners.”

Briggs and Burke go on to discuss how each country utilized the technology offered by the radio and how each differ, but yet are similar. He concludes by stating that the radio reaches a ‘public sphere’ and mentions that the goal of every broadcaster is to reach as many listeners as possible, by giving the people what they want to hear. He talks of how far the radio has come from its roots to the broadcasting system that we have today.

Even still today the goal of broadcasting is to reach the maximum number of viewers to ensure a larger interest on the part of advertising companies. For the most part radio has stayed the same; maybe fewer late night talk shows and war updates, but all in all the radio does the same thing for us now as it did at its introduction. We have even taken the idea of the radio a step further by providing devices such as “Sirius” satellite radio that is provided commercial free with finely tuned genres that allow for all users to find the station that is right for them. Today, however, we have more stations to chose from than we did in the past. Although, the radio spectrum has not changed, we have developed more advanced technologies that allow us to take advantage of more stations than ever before. It will be interesting to see where radio technology will go from here.

-Tara Wakeley

This week’s reading reading, by James Carey, discusses the telegraph, the first major communication technology and its impact on society. The impact of the telegraph could be seen across the United States. When before in order to communicate a message, the sender had to be in close physical proximity to the receiver, now messages could be sent when the receiver was hundreds of miles away. Although the telegraph was first used as a toy, people soon became interested in the more practical use of this new technology and how it could facilitate the communication of messages.

Although this revolutionary technology enhanced the lives of citizens it was met with some opposition. Adams even believed that it was “a demonic device dissipating the energy of history.” Many things changed after the introduction of the telegraph into people’s lives and three relationships were challenged. First off, the relationship between the telegraph and the monopoly capitalism changed. The telegraph influenced the US to become a capitalistic system because it forced the market to become more competitive. Since messages could be spread over a large area, people would buy goods and services from whoever was selling at the lowest prices. Secondly, the telegraph influenced religion. With the introduction of the telegraph religion, including Christianity was able to travel to more isolated areas and spread the Word to more individuals. Finally the impact of the telegraph and technology is discussed, which still needs further investigation.

Carey goes on to discuss how the telegraph affected journalism. Instead of traditional news in which information was jam packed into an article, the telegraph lead to clear, concise stories which presented the bare facts in order to save on costs.  Another important change that was brought about by the telegraph was the distinction of the words “transportation” and “communication.” Before, and as mentioned previously, in order to communicate with an individual the two needed to be in close physical proximity. The telegraph allowed for messages to be sent to anyone anywhere.  

It is interesting that the first really revolutionary communication technologies is still used today and has inspired the use of even more communication technologies. The telephone uses the same principles of sending a message over a wire. In the case of the telegraph the message is a code, a series of dots that hold meaning, and the telephone the message is spoken words. It is also interesting where technology has expanded on the idea of using wires to facilitate the transport of message via the internet. Instead of just dots being sent through wires, now pictures, still images, video, sounds, and more can be sent over the internet, not to mention cable TV. We are now trying to make these wires obsolete by making everything wireless. Cell phones require the use of towers, not wires, in order to make calls, along with wireless internet that allows for access to the web without wires tying you down.

-Tara Wakeley

This article starts by introducing Michel de Montaigne, a pessimistic 38 year old retiree from the parliament of Bordequx. Death surrounded him from his brother to his father to his dear friend. In order to cope with the misery he “refurbished a tower of his chateau as a library retreat from mundane distractions” in hopes that he could fill that ever present gap with wisdom and tranquility. However the substantial size of his library just added to the unruliness of his mind.

Printing has broadened the “intellectual landscape. It enabled Europeans to secure their heritage of classical texts against the threat of loss or corruption…[encouraged] the development of modern science and medicine. And printing was the fulcrum of the Reformation, enabling religious dissent to inspire a mass movement.”

Philosophy soon became to take form during this time, along with rhetoric. And as the text puts it “whereas philosophy used logic to prove truths, rhetoric used eloquence to persuade of probabilities.” Medieval advances in scribal production were taking place. The “codex,” a book format for manuscripts, and parchment (instead of papyrus) were two great achievements during this time. Parchment made the production of medieval books easier and the process to make the books simpler.

“Glosses” were used in order to distinguish between text and commentary during lectures during this time. Glosses were used especially in the study of the Bible and the Roman and canon law, probably due to the importance of these documents and the need to discern who wrote what. Similar to the Gloss, the summa or “summary” tried to cut down the amount of information by simply collecting a range of theological issues into groups. Later on Peter Lombard composed his Libri quattuor sententiarum (Four Books of Opinions) which followed a similar pattern as the summa. The Libri quattuor sententiarum began with a question and then listed the contrasting pronouncements of Scripture from there, and finally ended with a conclusion to the question posed in the beginning. Commonplace books were books that “were all alike in that they comprise encyclopedias of classical culture” (where encyclopedias refers to a “circle of learning”).

This article reminds me of many of the lectures in my COM 250 class. We talk about the spread of language and how it is changed and adapted to fit a specific cultures need. In this case with the evolution of printing, papyrus was no longer the most efficient means in which to write down a message. Now parchment was now the norm. Also, the way in which they were categorizing information was changing, it was becoming more standard and more sophisticated. There was a need for a way to classify things, store things in a manner that would make it easily accessible to others and themselves. At this point I could not help but be reminded of my own closet at home. I have a very extensive wardrobe and a very specific way in which I categorize my clothes. I must first start with all of the whites hanging up on the far left, then I move into the yellows, then the light pinks, then pinks, to the hot pinks, next comes the maroons, then the reds… and so on and so forth, finally ending with the blacks. Without such a such a specific setup It would be impossible for me to find the specific shirt I was looking for without having to sort through every shirt until I finally found the one that I was looking for in the first place.

This is very similar to the need for the categorization of information and books. Without having a common way of doing things, massive amounts of information would have to be sorted through in order to find that one piece of information that was needed.

Tara Wakeley

This chapter entitled “The Condition of Virtuality,” by N. Katherine Hayles discusses the idea of virtuality. Hayles describes it as being “the cultural perception that material objects are interpenetrated by information patterns.” She goes on to say that “the definition plays off a duality- materiality on the one hand, information on the other.” In this article Hayles also discusses molecular biology and how it is one of the important sites for the construction of information and materiality. She continues by saying that it is no surprise that molecular biology and other science information flourished immediately after WWII due to the fact that information was in high demand, and the speed at which that information could travel was of immense importance. Later on Hayles states that there is also “significant differences between a mind-set that identifies human being with the soul and one that identifies with information.” She elaborates by talking about how spirituality is linked with discipline both mentally and physically. Another example of duality that Hayles supplies, is between information and noise. Take for instance the virtual book. The information is written in words which is no new concept, but with the virtual book, the information is incorporated with new technology and information which gives it its “virtuality.”  The third section addressed in this chapter is “Spatiality and Virtual Writing.” In this section Hayles points out that “not all virtual books, of course, have their verbal content placed by codes.” She talks about how hypertexts, or electronic documents, are “structured as networks as discrete units rather than as a linear sequence of bound pages.”

This section reminded me a lot of the readings of Manovich and of the discussions that we had in class. Hayles discusses interfaces, as we learned from Manovich, and how they are our way of interacting with technology. Also new media is necessary in order to even have virtuality. Without the technologies that we have today, the idea of having virtual space would not even exist. Take for instance, this document that I am writing on, it does not have a physical existence outside of the computer, until I print it. Until then, it just floats around in a virtual world.

Tara Wakeley

In this section, another by Lev Manovich, Manovich discusses the idea of augmented space. In the very beginning he poses some questions that he later discusses: Does the form become irrelevant, being reduced to functional and ultimately invisible support for information flows? Or do we end up with a new experience in which the spatial and information layers are equally important? He then goes on to define augmented space as the “physical space overlaid with dynamically changing information.” Manovich states that we should think of “augmentation as an idea and cultural and aesthetic practice rather than as technology.”

The section Augmentation and Monitoring discusses the changes in the 1990s. He discusses that in the first part of the decade, America was dominated with the obsession of VR (virtual reality) and in the second half by dot coms. By the beginning of the 21^st century physical space was filled with electronic and visual information. For instance, Manovich discusses the prevalence of video surveillance almost everywhere. It is used by the military, the government, in taxis, in stores, and by everyday people. Cellspace is defined as the physical space that is “filled” with data, which can be retrieved by a user via a personal communication device (IE: a GPS). Lastly he talks about electronic displays that act as an interface from user to the information that the user wishes to access. From these three examples, Manovich cites a number of research paradigms that are being conducted on pages 6-8.

Later on in the section Manovich poses some more questions: What is the phenomenological experience of being in a new augmented space? What can be the new cultural applications of new computer and network enabled augmented spaces? What are possible poetics and aesthetics of an augmented space? To answer these questions, Manovich recommends that we approach the design of augmented space as an architectural problem. In order to create more layers of information, a “foundation” must first be set, in order for another layer of information to be placed on top of it.

Manovich includes in this work, a section entitled White Cube Versus Black Box. This section starts by discussing GPS, wireless location services, etc. These devices in theory if not in practice, contain a continuous field that completely covers physical space. He then states that “the ultimate goal of the modern surveillance paradigm is to be able to observe every point at every time.”

The section talking about GPS’s in theory being a continuous field that covers physical space relates to my life very well. A few months ago I was going to Georgia to visit my aunt who had recently purchased a house in a brand new neighborhood. My Garmin was unable to identify what the location of her house was because of how new the neighborhood was. As frustrating as it was to get directions to my aunt’s house was, the idea that there may possibly be a surveillance system in the future that can locate any given thing every single moment is disturbing to say the least. Also, in my COM 250 class we discussed the difference between how information can be portrayed. First we talked about the children’s book, How the Leopard got its Spots? Originally, the story was spoken, passed down from generation to generation. Next, the book was in a small, portable written form so that men on horses could easily carry them. Next, the book took form in a larger version with elaborate pictures. The story was then converted into a VHS tape that read the book aloud to the children, using pictures from the previous book. Finally, the story took form in a CD as an interactive computer game. In every instance, as the words of the story stayed the same, the manner in which it was portrayed was different, which changes the message that the reader takes away from the experience.

In this chapter Kellerman discusses “personal mobilities, notably technologies.” Kellerman talks about the idea of space and place. It used to be in order to talk to someone, you had to physically be near them. Now with the emergence of technology, we can communicate with others when we are half a world away. The first section is entitled “Personal Mobility Technologies.” Two main forms exist: transportation and communications. In this section Kellerman talks about private vehicles and their environments that are termed as auto-centered transport systems. These provide “for spatial, physical and autonomous mobility of individuals.” This means that technologies such as the automobile allow for individuals to go from one location to another location without having to tell the vehicle how to do it.  Also in this category you find electricity, automobiles, and trains. Communications includes writing, printing, Internet, telephone, and fax. Virtual mobility, in the form of telephones, the internet, etc, allow for individuals to have real-time contact with another individual who does not necessarily occupy the same space.

Kellerman also discusses three technologies that mark historical waves. “The first wave marked the ability, as of 1878, to transmit information directly from personal terminals, namely telephones, rather than from the public and mediated telegraph machines located in post offices…The second wave was the introduction of the car in 1893 and its mass production as of 1908, marking the availability of fast corporeal personal mobility, jointly with other passengers and commodities, if so desired…The third wave in the availability of free personal mobility has emerged as of 1994. It was marked by the human ability to personally move and retrieve all forms and types of information via the Internet, and in any form (text, picture and voice.)”

The second section of this chapter is entitled “Technologies, Space and Society.” In this section Kellerman focuses on walking and cycling. As it seems, walking is older than human history itself, but as Solnit points out from her exposition Wanderlust, “walking as a conscious cultural act rather than a means to an end is only a few centuries old in Europe.”  This is most interesting, because this claim states that at one time, walking was not regarded as a tool in which to physically move oneself from one location to another, but a mindless act without a purpose. It is within this section that Kellerman says that walking requires thought, strategic thought. The walker needs to have a plan about where he or she is going, how to get there, how they should walk (fast, slow, etc), if there are barriers that will get in the way, etc.

In conclution this chapter:

1.  Discusses personal physical mobility and personal virtual mobility

2.  Discusses automobility, telephony, Internetness, and wirelessness as being the three spheres of individuals, society and space.

3.  States two common threads of significance- freedom and pleasure, as they relate to walking.

and 4.  Discusses that automobiles and telephones complement each other in their use

This is relevant to my life because I use technology everyday. I take for granted the fact that to talk to my cousin in Florida I do not have to take a 13 hour car trip down there just to see how her day is going. I also thought that it was interesting; the notion that at one time walking served no cultural purpose. I don’t believe that I have ever walked without some sort of purpose, whether it be just to waste time, for exercise, or to get from point A to point B. No matter what, there was always a method behind the madness. As Manovich describes interfaces as anything that serves as a mediator between two things, walking can then be described as an interface. Walking links a person to a place.

-Tara Wakeley

            This chapter begins with the introduction of Razorfish Studios, a company founded in 1995 by two partners in their East Village loft. Two years later the company grew to have a staff of 45. By 1999 the company grew to consist of around 600 employees. It then goes on to talk about “forms.” The first form it discusses is the database. A database is used to store any kind of data. Databases allow an individual to more easily find information, compared to a collection of documents. It also allows an individual to “sort and re-organize millions of records; it can contain different media types, and it assumes multiple indexing of data, since each record besides the data itself contains a number of fields with user-defined values.” For instance, think of a library’s database. It keeps a record of all of the books, articles, magazines, encyclopedias, etc, that a particular library (or in come cases a group of libraries) contains. The database allows an individual to go in and search for the particular book, article, etc that is needed.  The second form he describes is the narrative: computer-basted form, dealing with “3D navigable space to visualize any kind of data.” The second form is illustrated by computer games, motion rides, VR (virtual reality) computer animation, etc.

            Manovich devotes the majority of this chapter elaborating on the Database. He breaks it down into The Database Logic, Data and Algorithm, Database and Narrative, Paradigm and Syntagm, A Database Complex, and Database Cinema: Greenaway and Vertov. In the first section, The Database Logic, Manovich describes the CD-ROM as “becoming a cultural form of its own. Take for instance, he says, the “virtual museums.” Just as it sounds, it allows you to take a tour through the museum collection and also allows you to look up things within the museum based on date, country, or artist. The second section discusses how “not all new media objects are explicitly databases.” For instance, computer games are experienced by the player as narratives. The individual must complete certain tasks that are well-defined in order to be victorious. In the section entitled A Database Complex, Manovich poses several questions: To what extent is the database form intrinsic to modern storage media? Why does technology sustain database, while in the case of cinema it gives rise to a modern narrative form par excellence? Does this have to do with the method of media access? Shall we conclude that random access media, such as computer storage formats, favors database, while sequential access media, such as film, favors narrative? Furthermore, he goes on to say that “digital computer turns out to be the perfect medium for the database form.” He describes this like a virus, how databases are able to infect CD-ROMs and hard drives.   

            While reading this chapter, especially when Manovich speaks of the narrative forms, including video games and virtual reality, I thought of the rides at, for example, Disney world. They allow you to feel like you are actually in that environment. The space ride depicts such a life-like image of what space would actually be like. The dark atmosphere, the art that surrounds you, the sounds that play in the background, all add to the feeling of being in space. Also the short virtual reality movies that make you feel like you are actually there. There was one that I went to at an amusement park that made it feel like you were exploring a pyramid in ancient Egypt. The seats tilt when the video showed the explorer walking up a hill, water misted your face when the explorer splashed water from his water bottle on himself.

by Tara Wakeley

The second chapter of this reading, “The Interface,” starts by introducing Ridley Scott. Ridley Scott was the director of Blade Runner and then was hired to make a commercial introducing Apple Computer’s new Macintosh two years later. He discusses how Blade Runner depicted the post-modern vision and how the Graphical User Interface (GUI) depicted a more modernist vision. The reading suggests that “the role of a digital computer shifted from being a particular technology to being a filter to all culture.” Manovich goes into much detail about “The Language of Cultural Interface” and “The Screen and the User.”

“The Language of Cultural Interface” looks at 1.Cultural Interfaces 2. Printed Word 3. Cinema and 4. HCI: Representation versus Control. The section entitled Cultural Interfaces defines the term human-computer interface (HCI) as the ways in which the user interacts with a computer. Take for instance files, folders, a desktop, etc. Also more tangible forms can include the mouse, keyboard, and the monitor. Printed Word discusses the text found among media types. This section discusses how text is coded to represent 3D objects, pixel values of digital images, and formatting of a page in HTML. Cinema describes the “general trend in modern society towards presenting more and more information in the form of time-based audio-visual moving image sequences, rather than text.” HCI: Representation versus Control talks about “different applications for access and manipulation of cultural data and cultural experiences [and how] their interfaces still rely on old metaphors.”

The second part of the chapter discusses “The Screen and the User.” This part consists of 1. A Screen’s Genealogy and 2. The Screen and the Body. A Screen’s Genealogy discusses the definition of a screen and the properties of a classical screen: it is flat, rectangular, intended for frontal viewing, etc. It says that the screen is aggressive and functions as a filter. It goes on to talk about the origins of the computer screen  originating from around the middle of this century but not becoming a public presence until much later. “The computer screen represents an interactive type, a subtype of the real-time type, which is a subtype of the dynamic type, which is a subtype of the classical type.” Secondly, and last of all, this chapter discusses “The Screen and the Body.” This section discusses the imprisonment of the body and how it takes place on both the conceptual and literal levels. Mainly this section talks about the “Body” of the computer and the relationship and role it plays with the Screen.

We deal with interfaces every day. I work as a receptionist at a car dealership and must deal with interfaces in order to make my job less difficult. People call on the phone (ß the interface) and I transfer the call to another department or person using yet another interface, the switchboard. Also, I must check out keys to salesmen/women that are showing the vehicle to guests. In order to make sure that no keys are lost, we must log them into an Excel spreadsheet by means of the keyboard, and often times the mouse. I also must deal with printers, copy machines, fax machines, debit card machines, label machines, and many other devices that allow me to interact with some time of machine. Understanding how these machines work (or how a human can interact with a computer) is critical for accomplishing the task at hand.

The term “new media” is a broad topic with non-permanent boundaries. It questions what new media consists of and why some media is considered “new,” while other types are not.  This article examines new media and breaks it down into five principles including: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. After addressing each of the afore mentioned principles, the author elaborates on each, providing plenty of explanations and examples. Furthermore, the article logically suggests that old media is needed to produce new media. For instance, the technology for still photos was needed in order to make moving images; the computer was needed before the internet was built; and so on. It goes on to say what new media is not and scrutinizes each of the “popularly held notions.

This article has extreme relevance in everyone’s lives today. Technology is everywhere in America. Everyday that you wake up, the technology that you have is outdated. We currently are using the concepts from older technologies in order to create these “new” technologies. One point in particular that was made by Manovich, is the idea of the transition from analog to digital. This is something that will affect every American with a TV set. On February 17^th of this year, all broadcasting will switch from analog to digital, requiring some individuals to purchase a converter box. Furthermore, and on a completely different note, I have fallen victim to lossy compression-“the technique of making image files smaller by deleting some information.” If you have ever looked up a video on YOUTUBE and clicked on the full screen version, you normally get a fuzzy, unclear picture. This is probably due to the fact that while uploading the video, the computer cut the size down, deleting pixels, creating a lower quality version of the original video.

-Tara Wakeley