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.
I think the claim that New Media Art has finally destroyed the myth of the lone artist falls flat.
ReplyDeleteThe notion of art as individual products by individual artists has long been contradicted by performing arts - its exchange between performers and audience present in the becoming of the work... which has its roots even earlier in communal ritual.
This notion is furthermore contradicted by collaborating architects, animators, filmmakers, dialoguing authors, etc. that precede new media technologies.
In fact nothing seems more isolating to me than programming and editing at a computer.
The myth of the lone artist still exists for the same reason that we are taught that Christopher Columbus alone "discovered" the New World - it is how we like to write our histories.
i'm not sure that new media has altered the myth of the artist as solitary. i think it's just expanded the stereotype beyond the man in the beret in front of an easel to include the guy in the 'geek-chic' glasses in front of a mac computer.
ReplyDeletei do, however, wonder if perhaps it has affected the notion that artists create work designed to be experienced by a particular and narrow subset of culture that might even be as isolated as the myth says the artist is. so what new media may not have done for the myth of the artist, it may have done for the myth of the artist's audience, in broadening its range.
...of course, the work of our "mythical artist" requires people to physically gather in order to experience it, while the work of new media artists does not always require such community mobilization...
I believe that computer programmers and designers collaborating along with artists using other media - choreographers, theater directors and actors, poets, painters, sculptors, authors, etc - illustrates how interconnected and expansive collaborative artistic projects can be. If we are thinking about it in this realm, as new media coexisting with other media, I think it could be part of a larger conversation about melding of media and how artworks are hard to categorize (and growing harder, I think) by the name of their media.
ReplyDeleteI think more widespread use of new media has made it harder to define what dance artists do -- not because it itself has changed a myth, but because its use within dance can blur boundaries. I think specifically of a performance by John Jesurun I saw at DTW last year - if I had to define its contents, it was mostly acting and new media (live video, recorded video, projection, many computers, etc), yet DANCE Theater Workshop was presenting it. The lines are definitely blurred. If the "myth of the artists" is changing, I think it is because of many individuals working in many media being transparent about their process and crossing boundaries to incorporate many elements into their artworks and performances.
I also think it's important to remember, as Janice states, forms of collaboration both within a set medium (two choreographers working together to create movements on bodies, for example), or by mixing their backgrounds and approaches (a composer, a dramaturge, a director, a physical theater artist all working together on one work) have existed in the arts previously, before "new media" became a force.
On another note, the team atmosphere within a new media project may be very different than that in a collaborative dance project, but since I have not experienced the former it is hard for me to make a judgment. For me personally, not knowing much (if anything) about computer programming or editing or new media technology, I feel the culture isolates me from participating (but not from viewing, as Sarri's comment illustrates). Right now, I would feel comfortable inviting a sound designer to use her knowledge of digital sound design to compose a score for me, but would not be able to create my own score. In the past I have "specialized" in dance and relied on collaboration with artists in other media to fulfill my vision. I am interested in acquiring the knowledge and skills to produce and edit my own projections, for example, but once I work this way it could potentially lead to a greater feeling of isolation. In reflecting, I discover that I desire the ability to be self-suficient in my implementation of new media within my work and still greatly value collaboration with others, and feel an importance to continually break the "myth" of the solitary artist.
when i first think of computer programmers i definitely think of someone alone late at night working working working, and then pausing to play a video game or surf the web. I think these images are definitely from TV and movies, because i honestly don;t know any computer programmers. then there is the image of the poor, starving artist, on the street painting his way through life. hmmm, i don't know if this has changed. i do think that with new media there is a collaboration among artists that seems active and alive and not so depressing. but we're still chipping away making ends meet and trying to do what we love. there's still the struggle, always something, but that's why we do this, right? i never liked the easy route..... it's an ongoing, hopefully constantly changing journey. Does the stereotype change too? I think it has to, to an extent. but by baby steps.
ReplyDeletei don't like thinking of the "artist" as solitary. i think an artist is constantly surrounded by ideas that are moving and because of these ideas the artist is not alone. something/someone is always there, present somehow. maybe this makes me crazy, but i don't feel alone when i'm dancing.
Very insightful comments. When you have creative work to do you never feel lonely. However you need to be alone at times to listen to your own internal voice that assists in creative endeavors. The more confident you become in that internal voice the easier it is to share and collaborate (maybe!).
ReplyDeleteStereotype VS Boundary
ReplyDeleteNowaday, I feel that we are required to be multi-talented, no matter what discipline that you belongs to. The boundary of specialist is getting blur. A dance artist could also be a sound editor, video director, and costume designer at the same time. If I have to catagorize myself, it would be a challenge for me.
As we talked in the class last week, the myth seemed like stereotype, the impression of something is set. However, as a dance artist, I don’t like to be stereotype. To make work is not because of I wanted to be a specific type of people, it just because I need/ enjoy to do it. Since what we did become what we are and every artist have their own way in their creative process of making. I agree with Katie, “Artist is constantly surrounded by ideas that are moving.” And the way of making work may also keep changing because of technology. It may change the “myth of artist”, however, as an artist/ dance artist, do we care what the "myth" is?
wow everyone, thanks for your beautiful comments!
ReplyDeletei was very inspired by the article and it made me want to talk back to the writer, so i'm happy we have this blog.
as i said in class, i felt a need to comment on lev manovich's universalizing and categorizing way to make statements, like:
- in europe there is plenty of government money in the arts:
- yes, this is true for some parts of europe and some arts, but this is a myth that needs breaking. i might as well argue that in europe the universities have been, until the past couple of decades, independent to search and research, to spend time on what the researchers think is interesting, instead of having to answer to capitalist demands, and that this results to there being openings for play and collaboration between the arts and computer sciences... but this is all changing now, too.
- the statement that the arts world lives with a romantic notion of a lone artist as the single author of the work:
- one of the first books i was given when i went to study in the university 1993, was Death of the Author, written i believe in 1977. to me it sems like these ideas have been bubbling in the arts and philosophy world since the 60'es - or as simone pointed out, maybe since the 20'ies - and that new media art fits neatly into this continuum as a branck of the same tree, not a new tree. it feels like manovich is trying to make a point to legitimize new media art in the arts field, but for me he is missing his point by creating artificial opposition, where i feel we need to instead build bridges.
- that the computer scientists are the most important artists in our time:
- how do you define an artist?
at this point in my thinking, i would define art by intention, not by artifact. how could an artist ever create something greater than the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki? how could an artist ever change our ideas of space and time like the dudes who build airplanes? how could an artist ever get an audience like big brother reality show? but are they art?
in my view, art is what happens in the meeting of the work and the audience, it is something un-forecastable, something that creates itself in the moment of witnessing.
art also can deconstruct great narratives. it can be a message that evaporates before it is written, it does not have to be monumental. art is the meeting that creates new meanings.
about collaboration, others have said it much better above. i liked the rest of the article, i liked his 8 ways of approaching the subject, i liked that they were at times contradicting each other, giving the article the kind of polyphonia that i imagine is possible in new media art - and any art.
now, on new media and my a$$ - or where i stand in connection to it:
one important issue for me here is [b]access[b/]:
by nature, the new media art, and new media, is something that is accessible only for those who have electricity and computers. we have been brought up to think that this globalization, brought around through internet and world wide web, is something that bridges gaps between people. and in one sense it is true. it bridges gaps between privileged people - but at the same time doesn't it widen the gap between those who have access to the media and the information, and those who do not.
and i'm left with the question: is the globalization just another great narrative, that we need to deconstruct?
these are all unfinished thoughts - continuing buzzing in my head.