Multimedia

Discussion of text:
Manovich, The Language of New Media PDF (first two chapters, pages 43 to 114)

My first comment on this text has to be a distracting number of grammatical errors. I'm not even sure 'grammatical' is the way to describe it. More like typos where the incorrect letter still resulted in a real word and the spellchecker didn't catch it. Apparently the author wasn't into proofreading. I bring them up first because of quantity (there are at least four on pages 50-51 alone and they only become more frequent thereafter), and severity: some of them were bad enough that I had to reread the sentence a few times to figure out what he actually meant to say. I hope the international students in the class aren't bogged down by them. The author's name, Manovich, suggests that it's possible their first language isn't English, and therefore a certain level of mistakes are understandable, but some of the errors are grievous enough that they cannot be pinned on a language barrier alone (Van Gog, for example, on page 53). [An addition as per the discussion in class: I maintain even as a first draft there are an unbelievable number of mistakes. Particularly those referring to proper names are mind boggling.]  

As for the content, honestly I walked away from the text with a very limited understanding of what the author's point was. At the beginning of each section I could follow what topic he was going to be discussing, but by the time I slogged through a series of cultural references (most of them, in my opinion, used to keep the book 'hip' and not because they helped explain the idea) I had completely lost the thread of what he meant. For example I understand that he disagrees with the five points that supposedly define 'new media' but I have no idea what he thinks actually defines it. But this is starting to sound like a book review, and that is not the point of this blog.

I fundamentally disagree with the author's assertion (on page 87) that the printed word is being surmounted by cinema. In the context of what he's talking about, I am pro multimedia: being exposed to the same issue through different formats can only increase understanding, but neither in computers nor in the rest of world is text losing importance. If you want proof just look at the slew of movies being produced that are based on books; if printed works weren't being produced cinema would be lost. Even in terms of webpages, while the YouTubes and Flickers of the world have become incredibly popular, I would need to see some VERY convincing statistics to believe that sites where text is a major component (if not the main component) are not multiplying faster.

I did, however, enjoy his discussion of modern computer screen capabilities and limitations, for example that, unlike previous mediums, modern screens can present realtime changes but is still limited to a single perspective and limited actions. I remain skeptical that virtual reality monitors will negate the latter problem; ultimately the user is still going to be tied to what was programmed  into the system, and I maintain that no matter how no matter how diligent the programmer a user will inevitably find a way to move which was unanticipated and the system won't be able to handle. As amazing as a holodeck would be, I don't think anyone alive today is going to live to see one. 


One of the most interesting ideas the author brings up for me, though one that goes away to some degree from multimedia, is the punchcard controlled Jacquard loom. Manovich discusses it as an early example of computers being used to produce images, but I find it fascinating in the context of computerized production. In a world of mass production and automated assembly lines, computer use in industry is now a common-place occurrence, but I had  no idea it went back to 1800. Maybe earlier. I'm not really well informed on history past about 1700. Bringing it back to multimedia though, I'm thinking less of making cars, for example, or even textiles (though this is the obvious continuation of Jacquard's invention), and more of the creation of precise three-dimensional didactics by first modeling them in a computer and then having the said computer build a physical representation (usually out of plastic) layer by layer. I have seen such projects (out of the U of A actually) done to recreate archaeological sites, showing what the buildings would have looked like thousands of years ago. This is more an example of computers being used to create multimedia than multimedia existing in computers, but if Manovich gets to go off on a long discussion of performance art then why not.