NEW MEDIA<an introduction>

Traditional media• Image, sculpture, architecture

• Painting, drawing• Carving, molding, fabricating• Planning and building

• Live performance• Music, spoken word• Time-based• May integrate image, sculpture, architecture

Transitional media technology• Printmaking

• Duplication of images

• Photography• Images from life• Duplication of static images

Transitional media technologyPlate from Animal Locomotion book by Eadweard Muybridge, 1884.

Transitional media technologyThe Horse in Motion

by Eadweard Muybridge, 1878.

View as animation.

Transitional media technologyKinetoscope:

Developed by William Dickson for Thomas Edison, 1889-1892.

Transitional media technologyFilm:

Roundhay Garden Scene, 1888.

Earliest surviving celluloid film, recorded by Louis Le Prince (12 frames per second, runs for 2.11 seconds)

New media (digital media)•Media technology combined with computing

•Media technology: Signal processing and transmission (sound, image, data)•Computing: Use and/or development of computer software and hardware

Very brief history of new media

Babbage’s Difference Engine Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace

• Created plans for how Babbage’s Analytical Engine could calculate Bernoulli numbers.

• Considered to be the first computer programmer.• U.S. Department of Defense named a language

“Ada” in her honor in 1979.

Very brief history of new media• Computer• Internet• World Wide Web

New media genres• Digital art• Computer graphics• Computer animation• Virtual art• Internet art• Interactive art• Video games• Computer robotics• Art as biotechnology• …and more!

Language of New MediaLev Manovich:

•Numerical Representation

• Eric J. Heller• Shaurya Kumar

•Modularity• Cyriak• Android Jones

•Automation• Aleph Null• Six Sided

Strange

•Variability• Theyrule.net• Google Maps

•Cultural Transcoding

"Since new media is created on computers, distributed via computers, stored and archived on computers, the logic of a computer can be expected to have a significant influence on the traditional cultural logic of media......The result of this composite is the new computer culture: blend of human and computer meanings ..."

New media• Still image:

• How does it compare to painting and drawing? Printmaking? Photography?

• Linear vs. Non-linear narrative• Interactive:

• How does it compare to film? Theatre? Still image?