New Media Production 2 MUMT 303 Week 1 Charalampos Saitis
What is new media?
What is new media?
What is new media? • Internet • Websites • Computer multimedia • Computer games • CD-ROMs, DVD • Virtual reality
Is that all? What is not new media? Distribution versus production
Yesterday • Previous revolutions that impacted the development of modern society and culture • Printing (press) in the 14th century ➡ Affected one stage of cultural communication: the distribution of media • Photography in the 19th century ➡ Affected one type of cultural communication: still images
Today • In the middle of a new media revolution • Affecting all stages of cultural communication ➡ Acquisition, manipulation, storage, distribution • Affecting all types of cultural communication ➡ Text, still image, moving image (video), sound, spatial constructions
What are the ways in which the use of computers to record, store, create, and distribute media makes it “new?”
New media as a convergence of two historical trajectories • Computing ➡ The emergence of computers which have a capability to perform calculations on numerical data faster than by mechanical means • Media technologies ➡ e.g. photographic plates, film stock, gramophone records • Computable media ➡ Graphics, videos, sounds, shapes, spaces
“... in the middle of the twentieth century, a modern digital computer is developed to perform calculations on numerical data more efficiently; ... In parallel, we witness the rise of modern media technologies which allow the storage of images, image sequences, sounds and text using different material forms: a photographic plate, a film stock, a gramophone record, etc. The synthesis of these two histories? The translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible for computers . The result is new media ...” Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media
“While the dominant use of digital compositing is to create a seamless virtual space, it does not have to be subordinated to this goal. The borders between different worlds do not have to be erased; the different spaces do not have to be matched in perspective, scale and lighting; the individual layers can retain their separate identity rather then being merged into a single space; the different worlds can clash semantically rather than form a single universe.” Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media
Lev Manovich’s principles of new media • Numerical representation • Modularity • Automation • Variability • Transcoding ➡ “Not every new media object obeys these principles. They should be considered not as absolute laws but rather general tendencies of a culture undergoing computerization.” [Lev Manovich]
Numerical representation • A new media object can be described formally (mathematically-numerically) • A new media object is subject to algorithmic manipulation ➡ e.g. the use of a filter to remove background noise from audio • Media becomes programmable ...
Modularity • Modularity can be called the “fractal structure of new media” ➡ Just as a fractal has the same structure on a different scale, a new media object has the same modular structure throughout
Modularity
Modularity • Media elements (images, sounds, shapes) can be represented as a collection of discrete samples (pixels, polygons, text characters) ➡ These media elements are assembled into larger- scale objects but continue to maintain their separate identities ➡ Such objects can then be combined into even larger objects or structures, again without losing their independent characteristics
Modularity • In short, a new media object consists of independent parts ➡ each of which consists of smaller independent parts ➡ and so on, down to the level of the smallest “atoms” (e.g. pixels, 3-D points, text characters) • This is analogous to the modularity of object-oriented programming [ OOP ]
Automation • “Numerical coding (Principle 1) and the modular structure (Principle 2) of a new media object allow for the automation of many operations involved in media creation, manipulation, and access. Thus human intentionality can be removed from the creative process, at least in part.” [Lev Manovich]
Automation • “Low-level” automation ➡ The computer user modifies or creates a media object using templates or simple algorithms ‣ Computer software can automatically generate 3-D objects such as trees, human figures ‣ Photoshop can automatically correct scanned images, improve contrast range, remove noise ‣ AL (Artificial Life) is used to automatically create flocks of birds or crowds of people in films
Automation • “High-level” automation ➡ The computer “understands”–to a certain degree– the meaning embedded in the object being generated ‣ Development of computer software for algorithmic musical composition ‣ MIT Media Lab developed ALIVE (Artificial Life Interactive Video Environment), a virtual environment where users interact with animated characters http://vismod.media.mit.edu/vismod/demos/smartroom/
Variability • Traditional media involved a human to manually assemble the textual, visual, and/or audio elements into a particular composition or sequence • The sequence was stored in some material • Its order was determined and finalized • Identical copies could be created from the master • Lack of variability
Variability • New media on the other hand is characterized by variability ➡ Instead of producing identical copies, new media objects give rise to alternate versions ➡ Instead of being created by a human author, they can be created by means of automation • Variability is also achieved through modularity ➡ The elements of an object can be manipulated to generate a variable object
Transcoding • From the human perspective, computerized media objects are displayed as structural representations of images, texts, sounds, etc. • From the computer perspective, the elements of a new media object are structured according to the conventions specified by the computer’s organization of the data ➡ e.g. data structures such as lists, records, arrays
Transcoding • The human structure is transcoded to the computer structure and vice-versa • Think of a computer image: ➡ On one level, humans will perceive the image through their cultural lens – “ cultural layer” ➡ On another level, it is a computer file that consists of a machine-readable header, followed by numbers representing colour values of its pixels – “ computer layer”
Transcoding • From the human perspective, computerized media objects are displayed as structural representations of images, texts, sounds, etc. • From the computer perspective, the elements of a new media object are structured according to the conventions specified by the computer’s organization of the data ➡ e.g. data structures such as lists, records, arrays
Transcoding • Transcoding refers to the computer’s interpretation of the human “cultural layer” and the human’s interpretation of the “computer layer” • According to Manovich, each layer influences the development of the other
“Whose vision is it? It is the vision of a computer, a cyborg, an automatic missile. It is a realistic representation of human vision in the future when it will be augmented by computer graphics and cleansed from noise. It is the vision of a digital grid. Synthetic computer-generated image is not an inferior representation of our reality, but a realistic representation of a different reality.” Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media
Selected texts • The Language of New Media , Lev Manovich (McGill Library, eBook) • New Media: A Critical Introduction , Martin Lister et al. (McGill Library) • Software Takes Command , Lev Manovich (available at the author’s website) • New Media in Art , Michael Rush (McGill Library)
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