Database, Narrative, and the Human Mind (week 2)
In order to be able to predict the future, one needs to do only two things: closely observe and understand human nature. Both Bush and Engelbart are able to do these things and, armed with their knowledge, predict future uses of technology with rather impressive accuracy. What they were able to discern from their understanding of human nature is something that Manovich points out: we have a ?database complex.? Even in the midst of their narrative culture, Bush and Engelbart recognized an innate human desire to group and order information in a way that is easily accessible through intuitive means. Manovich?s descriptions of the interface and the database reveal how in-tune Bush and Engelbart were with the future of technology.
Manovich argues that that the interface imposes its own logic upon media and creates its own model of the world. He claims that the ?interface shapes how the computer user conceives the computer itself.? Engelbart gives a detailed account of this idea in action in his description of the interaction with Joe and the word processing device. The fictional ?customer? originally views the computer as simply something to record their thoughts, much like one would with a pencil and paper. However, as Joe demonstrates the interface that allows one to re-order the thoughts and to build connections, the customer begins, instead, to think of the computer not as a recorder, but as a way to ?work [their thoughts] into shape? (p. 104). The interface was designed to emulate natural human thought patterns. However, this raises the question similar to one that Manovich posed in his earlier chapter: if the interface is designed by another person, but emulates human thought patterns, isn?t it emulating someone else?s thought patterns, not my own?
More interesting than the interface connections, however, are the database connections. Both Bush and Engelbart dedicate a lot of time into describing the idea of the database, although they did not know the term. Engelbart refers to everything associating with our work being a ?single symbol structure? with a number of sub-structures. He points out that these structures can include not only text and thoughts, but graphical forms. As Bush states, the human mind ?operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain? (p. 44). He goes on to say that we cannot duplicate this process, but we should attempt to learn from it. The implication is that what we can learn from the process is how to best structure our information for easy accessibility.
Accessibility and structure are the two elements behind interface and database. I also think that these items are behind the tension between narrative and database, and why the two are ?natural enemies?, as Manovich calls them. Bush describes ?trails? that we follow in our thoughts and associations. Following a trail is a very narrative act. Manovich himself discusses the role that the algorithm (consistent, ordered actions) plays in human behavior. While our thought trails are stored paradigmatically, we need to be able to access the individual thoughts within those trails syntagmatically. Our storage is a database, but our interface is more similar to a narrative (narrative being defined as a linear set of events, not necessarily a coherent story).
I think this is reflected in new media. I can start anywhere on the trail that I want, but I need to follow a certain set of steps in order to view the next trail stop, or even the next trail. Perhaps in new media our narrative interface can jump from one trail to the next, but all that jumping does is create a narrative of trails.
Manovich also points out that that the way we view and think about cultural interfaces is largely influenced by more familiar cultural forms. I would argue that the reason for this is because our present is simply a reflection of human nature (hence my belief that an understanding of that nature gives one the ability to predict the future). Our older cultural interface (Manovich mentions text and cinema) both operate in a narrative fashion. Manovich references the idea of the page, with its information that is designed to be accessed in order. The ?page?, a centuries old concept, is a central piece of our present computer interface. In cinema, the images must be looked at in order. And, as Manovich states, there is a ?dependence on cinema?s mode of seeing and language [that] is becoming progressively stronger.? That dependency is growing because of our own need to experience information (despite how it is stored) in a narrative way.
Narrative, and I think Manovich would agree, is essential to the way we understand messages and media. Manovich claims that ?new media designers and artists?have to learn how to merge database and narrative into a new form.? I think that this is going to require even better models of (or, in Bush?s terms, learn better lessons from) the human brain, because it already works that way.