Five Principles of New Media Considered and Reconsidered

by Art Fag City on September 22, 2008 · 20 comments Events

Tom Moody provides what first appears to be visual examples of theorist, artist, and professor Lev Manovich’s principles of new media, outlined in The Language of New Media (and summarized in Wikipedia). A closer look however reveals Moody’s take may indicate the fields are a little broader than Manovich defines them. I’ve reposted Moody’s examples with a few annotations below.

1. Numerical representation: new media objects exist as data

lovid.jpg
LoVid, 30 Stripes. Image via: Artnet

I don’t know the original LoVid project the above image was taken from but I would guess this object is informed by data, not the data itself. Marcin Ramocki’s Torcito Project, pixel portraits that literally become a score of music to be played, presents a good example of Manovich’s first principle.

2. Modularity: the different elements of new media exist independently

cpb.gif

Drawn from modular programing, which according to Wikipedia is a “software design technique that increases the extent to which software is composed from separate parts, called modules. Conceptually, modules represent a separation of concerns, and improve maintainability by enforcing logical boundaries between components. Modules are typically incorporated into the program through interfaces“.” I have no idea what that means, or how it applies to art. The picture suggests that while everything comes from a root source, sorting is critical. Perhaps the John Michael Boling, Guthrie Lonergan, Bob Ware collaboration Pic-See, an open image directory visualizer is a worthy example of this?

3. Automation: new media objects can be created and modified automatically

artist-mouse.jpg

Or not. Working with a mouse is fairly hands on. For some reason I’m struggling to come up with a basic example of objects made and modified automatically.

4. Variability: new media objects exist in multiple versions

arc.jpg

arcangel-salavon-compare.jpg

moma_4×4.jpg

This principle seems fairly clear, though Moody’s pictures also suggest a tendency towards repetition in new media. Aron Namenwirth discussed the mutability of new media as a new concern for gallerists with me last April on Rhizome.

5. Transcoding: a new media object can be converted into another format

picture_1_sharp.pngpicture_1.png

Moody presents two png file formats one modified, the point being presumably that variation with in the same file format is just as interesting. Coincidently a good example of Manovich’s fifth principle will appear in my masthead shortly. That cat gets out of the bag next week.

{ 20 comments }

Donald Frazell September 22, 2008 at 4:58 pm

In my work field, digital imaging, most of these are what you call computer gliches, not art. See em all the time, andn its not a good thing, waste of material. Same here.

Donald Frazell September 22, 2008 at 11:58 am

In my work field, digital imaging, most of these are what you call computer gliches, not art. See em all the time, andn its not a good thing, waste of material. Same here.

1f54tom moody September 22, 2008 at 5:36 pm

To Donald Frazell:
There is a rather solid tradition in visual art of errors and accidents providing visual interest or leading to new content.

To Paddy:
All of my considerations of Manovich were meant as sardonic jokes. My conception of new media is about 180 degrees from his. The LoVid patchwork (a page with it and others is linked to on my page) is the antithesis of numerical data–it is made of video “noise” printed out on cloth and hand sewn–a unique unrepeatable object. The “tree” from CPB’s blog, translated from French, reduces the priorities of the network to images, dogs, and cats. The mouse scribbles were an over-the-top literalization of the concept of “automatic writing.” Your description of Item 4 was what I intended: repeatability of an idea is not necessarily good. And item 5 is a Mac misreading a crisp animated GIF by adding undesired anti-aliasing effects.

1f54tom moody September 22, 2008 at 12:36 pm

To Donald Frazell:
There is a rather solid tradition in visual art of errors and accidents providing visual interest or leading to new content.

To Paddy:
All of my considerations of Manovich were meant as sardonic jokes. My conception of new media is about 180 degrees from his. The LoVid patchwork (a page with it and others is linked to on my page) is the antithesis of numerical data–it is made of video “noise” printed out on cloth and hand sewn–a unique unrepeatable object. The “tree” from CPB’s blog, translated from French, reduces the priorities of the network to images, dogs, and cats. The mouse scribbles were an over-the-top literalization of the concept of “automatic writing.” Your description of Item 4 was what I intended: repeatability of an idea is not necessarily good. And item 5 is a Mac misreading a crisp animated GIF by adding undesired anti-aliasing effects.

Art Fag City September 22, 2008 at 5:47 pm

Looks like I missed some of the specificity in those visual queues, though it’s clear you weren’t buying Manovich hook line and sinker. Interestingly, I wasn’t translating cat, so I was reading it as chats.

Art Fag City September 22, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Looks like I missed some of the specificity in those visual queues, though it’s clear you weren’t buying Manovich hook line and sinker. Interestingly, I wasn’t translating cat, so I was reading it as chats.

salvo cheque September 22, 2008 at 5:49 pm

For #3:
Sabrina Raaf?

salvo cheque September 22, 2008 at 12:49 pm

For #3:
Sabrina Raaf?

1f54tom moody September 22, 2008 at 6:06 pm

Not everyone agrees with me that fuzzy gifs on a Mac are bad (it happens when you try to enlarge them using HTML). Sorry to belabor my own obscure jokes, I just want it clear that to the extent I have an opinion on Manovich I’m against him. He is just too rational. I look to art more for subjectivity and monkey wrenching.

1f54tom moody September 22, 2008 at 1:06 pm

Not everyone agrees with me that fuzzy gifs on a Mac are bad (it happens when you try to enlarge them using HTML). Sorry to belabor my own obscure jokes, I just want it clear that to the extent I have an opinion on Manovich I’m against him. He is just too rational. I look to art more for subjectivity and monkey wrenching.

Donald Frazell September 22, 2008 at 6:31 pm

Errors, or strange technical aberrations, are only useful when used for some purpose, contributing to something. This is nothing but an everyday occurance. You are making mountains out of a pimple. Just squeeze it, and its nothing but ooze.

Really, get a job, and i guess art will be everywhere. It really is, just not in sterilized galleries that try to squeeze every ounce of life out of a dead thing. You know, pimple juice.

Art collegia delenda est

Donald Frazell September 22, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Errors, or strange technical aberrations, are only useful when used for some purpose, contributing to something. This is nothing but an everyday occurance. You are making mountains out of a pimple. Just squeeze it, and its nothing but ooze.

Really, get a job, and i guess art will be everywhere. It really is, just not in sterilized galleries that try to squeeze every ounce of life out of a dead thing. You know, pimple juice.

Art collegia delenda est

stephe? September 23, 2008 at 6:29 pm

EXEC-LENT!

stephe? September 23, 2008 at 1:29 pm

EXEC-LENT!

regina hackett September 24, 2008 at 6:37 am

Come on. Cough it up. Chris Jordan.

regina hackett September 24, 2008 at 1:37 am

Come on. Cough it up. Chris Jordan.

Art Fag City September 24, 2008 at 6:48 am

Regina: LOL! I don’t think anyone on this thread is going to be able to top that comment!

Art Fag City September 24, 2008 at 1:48 am

Regina: LOL! I don’t think anyone on this thread is going to be able to top that comment!

tom moody September 24, 2008 at 12:35 pm

As to Item 3, kidding aside, a new media staple is art purporting to convert datum X into datum Z using automatic algorithm Y. It is hard to remember them, though.

Looking back at the 2007-2008 Rhizome commissions I found a few last year. Behold the spirit of Manovich:

–Ebay-Generator (Y) will generate songs (Z) based on the public data mined from Ebay sellers and buyers (X).

–ShiftSpace is an Open Source platform (Y) that … provid[es] a new public space on the web. By pressing the [Shift] + [Space] keys, a ShiftSpace user can invoke a new meta layer (Z) above any web page (X) to browse and create additional interpretations, contextualizations and interventions using various authoring tools.

–The Wrench will recast Primo Levi’s The Monkey’s Wrench (X) into a mobile phone text-message exchange between participants and an artificially-intelligent agent (Z). Taking place over the course of a week, the dialogue is not pre-determined; it employs Knifeandfork’s nonlinear narrative software engine (Y).

–zHarmony is an addition (Y) to Rhizome that will combine the Compatibility Matching System of online relationship services like eHarmony with Rhizome’s existing database of artists (X). zHarmony will produce a unique artist profiling system that can automatically match artists with like-minded collaborators (or groups of collaborators) based on multiple points of compatibility (Z).

tom moody September 24, 2008 at 7:35 am

As to Item 3, kidding aside, a new media staple is art purporting to convert datum X into datum Z using automatic algorithm Y. It is hard to remember them, though.

Looking back at the 2007-2008 Rhizome commissions I found a few last year. Behold the spirit of Manovich:

–Ebay-Generator (Y) will generate songs (Z) based on the public data mined from Ebay sellers and buyers (X).

–ShiftSpace is an Open Source platform (Y) that … provid[es] a new public space on the web. By pressing the [Shift] + [Space] keys, a ShiftSpace user can invoke a new meta layer (Z) above any web page (X) to browse and create additional interpretations, contextualizations and interventions using various authoring tools.

–The Wrench will recast Primo Levi’s The Monkey’s Wrench (X) into a mobile phone text-message exchange between participants and an artificially-intelligent agent (Z). Taking place over the course of a week, the dialogue is not pre-determined; it employs Knifeandfork’s nonlinear narrative software engine (Y).

–zHarmony is an addition (Y) to Rhizome that will combine the Compatibility Matching System of online relationship services like eHarmony with Rhizome’s existing database of artists (X). zHarmony will produce a unique artist profiling system that can automatically match artists with like-minded collaborators (or groups of collaborators) based on multiple points of compatibility (Z).

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