Bio Lev Manovich
BORN Moscow where he studied fine arts, architecture and computer science. He moved to New York in 1981, receiving an M.A. in Cognitive Science (NYU, 1988) and a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from University of Rochester 1993. His Ph.D. dissertation The Engineering of Vision from Constructivism to Computers traces the origins of computer media, relating it to the avant-garde of the 1920s.
Currently a Professor of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, U.S. where he teaches new media art and theory.
SUMMARY
The article, New Media (NM) from Borges to HTML was commissioned for The New Media Reader, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, The MIT Press, (2002).
The reader is a foundation for the understanding of new media art and according to the editors has three types of audience in mind
1. New Media Professionals
2. Students and professors of New Media
3. The general public seeking to understand new media.
The article outlines the history of New Media and the contents of the Reader.
The title of the article refers to the contents of the Reader.
The first article of the book is from Jorge Luis Borges. The garden of the Forking paths – he describes the hypertext novel (1941), i.e. a short novel with lots of possibilities.
Borges
Born Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges
August 24, 1899
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died June 14, 1986 (aged 86)
Geneva, Switzerland
Occupation writer, poet, critic, librarian
The last article of the reader deals with the web.
- NM is computer based artistic activities.
Important institutions
Siggraph US
Ars Electronica Austria
ZKM
New Media Institute of Frankfurt.
ISEA Netherlands
Intercommunication Center in Tokyo
DEAF
- US was relatively slow to take on new media
Because it doesn’t really fit the myth of the artist or art
Also because of a conservative art market.
By 2000 new media accepted in America.
The reader has two types of articles
1. Theoretical presentations of new ideas or speculations
2. Descriptions of projects culturally realized.
- Manovich highlights the importance of computer programmers, designers music video directors and DJ’s- suggesting that they are the new artists.
New Media is technology and Ideas. 8 Propositions.
Technology
1. New media versus cyber culture.
The difference between NM and Cyberspace
Cyberspace is social and involves networking
NM is the cultural and computing object.
e.g. computer games/ CD ROMs a list that needs to be continually updated
2. New Media as Computer Technology used as a Distribution Platform.
Relies on the computer to distribute information
E.g. Internet, computer games, computer generated special effects. Not TV, feature films – needs to be reviewed as culture becomes more digitally distributed.
3. New Media as Digital Data Controlled by Software.
NM can be manipulated; NM involves the concept of variability and automation.
4. New Media as the Mix Between Existing Cultural Conventions and the Conventions of Software.
NM is a mix between older cultural representations and new conventions.
E.g. the camera view in 3D programs.
5. New Media as the Aesthetics that Accompanies the Early Stage of Every New Modern Media and Communication Technology.
Technologies repeat.
Ideas
6. New Media as Faster Execution of Algorithms Previously Executed Manually or Through Other Technologies.
7. New Media as the Encoding of Modernist Avant-Garde; New Media as Metamedia.
8. New Media as Parallel Articulation of Similar Ideas in Post WWII Art and Modern Computing.
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION
NM art is usually made by teams of people, has NM finally destroyed the myth of the artist or has the myth just been changed to accommodate computer programmers and designers?
EXTRA READINGS
Jean-François Lyotard
The Postmodern Condition A Report on Knowledge (1979)
Jean Baudrillard
Simulacra and Simulations (1981)
from Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), pp.166-184.
