2005.01.20 - SLIDE 1IS146 - Spring 2005 What Are New Media? Prof. Marc Davis & Prof. Peter Lyman UC...

2005.01.20 - SLIDE 1IS146 - Spring 2005

What Are New Media?

Prof. Marc Davis & Prof. Peter Lyman

UC Berkeley SIMS

Tuesday and Thursday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Spring 2005

IS146:

Foundations of New Media

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Lecture Overview

• Review of Last Time• What Are New Media?

– Questions for Today– Summaries of the Readings

• Bush “As We May Think”• Manovich “From Borges To HTML”

– The Web as New Media

• Preview of Next Time– Representation

• Communication Theory• Sign Systems

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Lecture Overview







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Section Consolidations

• Section 101 stays as is

• Section 102 now includes Section 103

• Section 104 is cancelled

• Section 107 now includes Section 105 and Section 106

• Please update TeleBears with your new section

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IS146 Course Design

Basic Concepts The Telephone

The Camera

The Web

Computer Games

Representation

Technology

History

Culture

Design

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IS146 Course Design

Basic Concepts The Telephone

The Camera

The Web

Computer Games

Representation

Technology

History

Culture

Design

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Lecture Overview







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Key Questions for Today

• What are New Media?

• How do New Media reshape people, technology, time, and space?

• What makes New Media new?

• How is the web an example of New Media?

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Lecture Overview







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What Is A Person?

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A “Skin-Encapsulated Ego”?

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What About Our Use of Technology?

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We Cannot Exist Without Technology

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What Is A Person?

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Can “A” Person Exist Alone?

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We Cannot Exist Without Other People

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We Are Techno-Social Beings

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How Social Science Sees “Identity”, Others, and Things• Irving Goffman

– Self is a social construction, by sending messages to others (talk, nonverbal messages), and receiving feedback (talk, nonverbals)

– We play roles, other people know the script, we know how to interpret our messages

• Csikszentmihalyi– Self is also dependent upon the objects that we use: our self is

dependent upon the objects we own and display

• Baudrillard– Our self is a “lifestyle” (the style of your car, your music)– What are the key objects you observing in “sizing up” others?

What new media are key “self statements”?

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Vannevar Bush (1890 – 1974)• Vannevar Bush is the pivotal figure in hypertext research. His

conception of the Memex introduced the idea of an easily accessible, individually configurable storehouse of knowledge. Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson were directly inspired by his work, and, in particular, his article, "As We May Think."

• In 1919, he joined MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering, where he stayed for twenty-five years. In 1932, he was appointed vice-president and dean. At this time, Bush worked on optical and photocomposition devices, as well as a machine for rapid selection from banks of microfilm. Further positions followed: president of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, DC (1939); chair of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (1939); director of Office of Scientific Research and Development.

• During World War II, Bush worked on radar antenna profiles and the calculation of artillery firing tables. The mathematics involved was complicated and repetitive. Bush proposed the development of an analogue computer; this became the Rockefeller Differential Analyser. Unfortunately, his research was rendered obsolete by 1950 with the invention of the digital computer.

• Bush is most famous for his Memex, publicized in the aforementioned article in Atlantic Monthly (1945) and most readily available in Nyce and Kahn. Yet this same article also contained descriptions of devices rarely cited. These include the Cyclops Camera: "worn on forehead, it would photograph anything you see and want to record. Film would be developed at once by dry photography;" advances in microfilm; a thinking machine (actually a mathematical calculator); and a vocoder, "a machine which could type when talked to".

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“What Dr. Bush Foresees”

Cyclops CameraWorn on forehead, it would photograph anything you see and want to record. Film would be developed at once by dry photography.

MicrofilmIt could reduce Encyclopaedia Britannica to volume of a matchbox. Material cost: 5¢. Thus a whole library could be kept in a desk.

VocoderA machine which could type when talked to. But you might have to talk a special phonetic language to this mechanical supersecretary.

Thinking machineA development of the mathematical calculator. Give it premises and it would pass out conclusions, all in accordance with logic.

MemexAn aid to memory. Like the brain, Memex would file material by association. Press a key and it would run through a “trail” of facts.

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Memex

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Memex Detail

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Cyclops Camera

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Vocoder: “Supersecretary”

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Investigator at Work

• “One can now picture a future investigator in his laboratory. His hands are free, and he is not anchored. As he moves about and observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be connected by radio to his recorder. As he ponders over his notes in the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed record, as well as his photographs, may be both in miniature, so that he projects them for examination.”

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Memex

• “A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”

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Associative Indexing

• “[…] associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing.”

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Is the “V. Bush” story the way it happens?

• Is history made by the works of “genius” whose inventions change history?

• OR, are inventors part of a social process in which the users of inventions determine the future?

• Future readings:– Rogers “Diffusion of Innovation”– Fischer, “America Calling: A Social History of the

Telephone to 1940”

• Genius builds inventions, but users create innovations – the patterns of adoption of new ideas

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Discussion Questions

• Kevin Chicas on Vannevar Bush– Dr. Vannevar Bush argues that "a record, if it is to be

useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted." With the introduction of computers, electronic databases, and forms of portable storage (cd-rs, memory cards, etc.), a tremendous amount of data has been extended and stored, but is it easier to access? Do users have the capacity to sort through usable or unusable data with the facility that Dr. Bush proposed in his idea of a "memex"? If not, what can be done about it?

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• Kevin Chicas on Vannevar Bush– Dr. Vannevar Bush states that humans have

"built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully...and not become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory." If he were living today, how would he respond to critics who argue that human beings are more dependent on technology (Internet, cellphones, video games, etc.) than in the past, and are suffering from "information overload"?

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• Kevin Chicas on Vannevar Bush– A wide span of time has passed since Dr.

Bush's ideas of a "cyclops camera," "thinking machine," or "memex" influenced the development of digital cameras, calculators, and personal computers. Why did it take so long to bring these ideas of life? Is "cultural lag" a factor?

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• Onesta Francis on Vannevar Bush– LIFE magazine's introduction places more attention

on Vannevar Bush's wartime success. How does this affect the subsequent reading?

– Bush seemed very confident that each of these inventions would soon become commonplace. Was he overly influenced by the rapid technological expansion during the first half of the 20th century?

– Bush was also very specific in describing his predicted inventions (i.e., Cyclops Camera and Memex). Was such specificity necessary or overly hopeful?

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• Onesta Francis on Vannevar Bush– Could we further define the use of stereoscopic

cameras and the stenotype? Bush did not go into great detail regarding the utility of these two inventions.

– Is Bush proposing that everyday people convert to using machine acceptable math scripts and language?

– The Memex was supposed to remember trails of information. Without the advent of internet, how did Bush plan on acquiring initial information for the Memex?

– The primary uses for Bush's potential inventions were scientific and academic. Was he misjudging public and governmental support for such activities?

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Lecture Overview







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Lev Manovich• Lev Manovich (www.manovich.net) is an Associate

Professor at the Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego where he teaches new media art and theory. He is the author of The Language of New Media (The MIT Press, 2001), Tekstura: Russian Essays on Visual Culture (Chicago University Press, 1993) as well as many articles which have been published in 28 countries.

• Manovich was born in 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.

• Manovich has been working with computer media as am artist, computer animator, designer, and programmer since since 1984. His art projects include little movies, the first digital film project designed for the Web (1994), Freud-Lissitzky Navigator, a conceptual software for navigating twentieth century history, and Anna and Andy, a streaming novel (2000). His works has been included in many key international exhibitions of new media art. In 2002 ICA in London presented his mini-retrospective under the title "Lev Manovich: Adventures of Digital Cinema."

• Currently Manovich is working on a new book Info-aesthetics. His most recent art project is Soft Cinema which was commissioned by ZKM for the exhibition Future Cinema (2002-2003; traveling to Helsinki and Tokyo in 2003-2004). DVD which contains 3 films created within Soft Cinema project will be published in the Spring 2004.

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Manovich on New Media

• Technology– Computer Technology Used as a Distribution Platform– Digital Data Controlled by Software– Faster Execution of Algorithms Previously Executed Manually or

through Other Less Advanced Technologies – Mix between Existing Cultural Conventions and the Conventions of

Software• Representation

– Encoding of Modernist Avant-Garde / Metamedia• Culture

– New Media v. Cyberculture • History

– The Aesthetics that Accompanies the Early Stage of Every New Modern Media and Communication Technology

• Design– Parallel Articulation of Similar Ideas in Post WWII Art and Modern

Computing

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New Media and Computation

• Technology– Computer technology used as a distribution platform– Digital data controlled by software– Faster execution of algorithms previously executed

manually or through other less advanced technologies – Mix between existing cultural conventions and the

conventions of software• Key Points

– New Media are programmable media– Personalizable and customizable

• End user can modify the form, content, and interaction of the media object

• The media object can adapt to many different users

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Old Media vs. New Media

• “Old Media”– Authorship

• Based on the romantic idea of authorship that assumes a single author making something from nothing

– Object• The notion of a “one of a

kind” art object• Work has an “aura” (cf.

Benjamin)

– Distribution• Control over the

distribution of such objects takes place through a set of exclusive places

• “New Media”– Authorship

• Collective and collaborative authorship of media from media

• The user can change the work through interactivity

– Object• Potentially infinite copies• Many different possible

states of the same work

– Distribution• Network distribution

(which bypasses the art system distribution channel)

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The Politics of Information

• Power has been focused on central control of the distribution of media– Print = legal monopoly of the right to own printed

“expressions of ideas” called “copyright” = enforced by controlling of the right to copy and distribute “intellectual property”

– What happens with copyright for new media?– Everyone can distribute text, can change the content

of text = impossible to enforce copyright = community use

• Similarly “mass media” = TV, Radio, Cinema– For example, P2P exchange of media on KaZaa

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The New World of Information• Networked computer medium means that

no one can control the publication and distribution of knowledge

• The reader controls distribution and content, not the “author” = “the creative commons”?

• How much information = the case of print:– Print is no longer the medium for distribution,

it’s the network– Print is by the individual centralized power

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Cyberculture vs. New Media

• “Cyberculture is focused on the social and on networking: new media is focused on the cultural and computing.”

• “Cyberculture” = online communities, online multi-player gaming, the issue of online identity, the sociology and ethnography of email usage, cell phone usage in various communities, the issues of gender and ethnicity in Internet usage….

• Cyberculture and new media are different, perhaps, but how do new media change the way groups create communities?– Examples: Moveon.com, Meetup.org, Friendster, blogging,

email?

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• Talia Holden on Lev Manovich– What exactly is New Media?– What are some examples of New Media?– Does all artistic activity performed on or with

computer technology constitute New Media?– What is the difference between media and

new media? Is there old media?

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• Talia Holden on Lev Manovich– Why does there need to be a separate New

Media field now?– What is the concept of a cultural memory and

how does it relate to New Media?– What is meant and argued by the notion of

parallelism in the development of modern art and computing?

– Lastly, what is the significance of the title of the article?

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• Tiffany Louie on Lev Manovich– How can we define what "New Media" is? Consider

the 8 different definitions Manovich discusses.– What is Cyberculture? Please give examples.– Why are Alan Turing and Norbert Wiener important

and/or related to technology?– What is the difference between Art and New Media?

How are they the same?– Can you name some famous artists?

• Why are they famous?• Why are New Media artists not as recognizable/respected?

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Lecture Overview







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The WWW circa 1945

• “It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together from widely separated sources and bound together to form a new book. But it is more than this; for any item can be joined into numerous trails, the trails can bifurcate, and they can give birth to side trails.”

• “Wholly new forms of encyclopaedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.”

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The Web as New Media

• “The greatest hypertext is the Web itself, because it is more complex, unpredictable and dynamic than any novel that could have been written by a single human writer…the greatest interactive work is the interactive human-interface itself the fact that the user can easily change everything which appears on the screen, in a process changing the internal state of a computer.”

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Lecture Overview







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• What are New Media?– New Media are computational technologies for

representation and communication

• How do New Media reshape people, technology, time, and space?– New Media create new configurations of people and

technology redefining their boundaries– New Media enable us to connect across time and

space in real-time– New Media enable us to programmatically shape the

objects, processes, and places we are interact with

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• What makes New Media new?– Programmability– Networking

• How is the web an example of New Media?– Connects people and documents across time and

space in real-time– Programmatic access to content (databases)– Programmatic control and personalization of content

(mass customization)– Programmatic control of connectivity (networks)

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Lecture Overview







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Points on Discussion Questions• Discussion questions should be at most a short

paragraph long and two or three sentences can be adequate

• At the same time, your discussion questions should be in-depth enough that– It is clear that you understood the reading– There is the potential for discussion

• It's okay to ask discussion questions to which you don't know the answer, or where you suspect there may be no correct answer

• Remember these are "discussion" questions.• The best questions are usually the ones that no

one will agree upon

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Strategies For Asking Questions• Ask us to clarify or expand some aspect of the reading• Ask us about apparent inconsistencies in the reading• Ask us to compare and contrast some aspect of the

reading to related readings• Ask us to examine the origins of the reading and how

they affect it• Ask us to speculate about the future development of

some aspect of the reading• Ask us to think about unintended consequences of the

reading• Ask us how the reading relates to some aspect of our

personal and collective experience

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For Next Time

• Readings– Michael Reddy. The Conduit Metaphor: A Case of

Frame Conflict in Our Language about Language. In: Metaphor and Thought, edited by Andrew Ortony, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 284-324.

• Discussion Question Volunteers– Phoebe Delacruz

– John Fiske and John Hartley. Reading Television, London: Methuen, 1978, p.37-58.

• Discussion Question Volunteers– Ashley Olividri

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Michael Reddy Reading Questions

• What is the “Conduit Metaphor”?

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• What is the Toolmakers Paradigm?

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• How are the Conduit Metaphor and the Toolmakers Paradigm different in their models of communication?

• What implications do the different models have for how we analyze and design New Media?

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• What are the signifier, the signified, and the sign?• What are the similarities and differences between

linguistic signs and visual signs?

John Fiske Reading Questions

Signified

Signifier

“dog”“dog”

dog

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John Fiske Reading Questions

Paradigmatic Axis

Syntagmatic Axis

A

C’’

C’

B C D E

C’’’

• What are the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes and how do they differ?

• How do they relate to New Media production and reception?

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Recommended Special Event Next Week

• The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium– Monday, January 24– 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm– 160 Kroeber Hall– Making and Breaking Rules:

Game Design as Critical Practice

• Katie Salen, Parsons School of Design

• Eric Zimmerman, gameLab, NYC

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Recommended Special Event in 2 Weeks

• SIMS Distinguished Lecture Series (http://sims.berkeley.edu/events/dls/)

– Wednesday, February 2– 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm– 202 South Hall– Personal, Portable,

Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life

• Mimi Ito, University of Southern California

2005.01.20 - SLIDE 1IS146 - Spring 2005 What Are New Media? Prof. Marc Davis & Prof. Peter Lyman UC...

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