1. The Database from The Language of New Media by Lev Manovich

2. The Language of New Media  Seminal text in media theory  Attempts to position new media with respect to other media  Heavy on the cinema references  Ignores many political issues  Somewhat dated already  Mentions the web, but fails to explore all of the implications  But thorough in describing his theories

3. What is a database?  Quickly access, sort, and reorganize data  Multiple data types  Multiple indexes (or indices, if you prefer)  Every new media object is an interface to a database  What about broader definition of database?  The Web as a database: URI is main index, but there are others  Meta-data about websites – portals, personal home pages  The art of creating indexing tools (ie: google)  Creative indexing can suggest relationships that weren’t apparent before

4. Map the size of the Land... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography. -Jorge Louis Borges

5. Syntagm vs. Paradigm  Originally used in linguistics by Saussure  Expanded by Barthes for all semiotics  Syntagm: A specific sequence or construct  Paradigm: All possible constructs of a particular type  Syntagm: one Madonna song  Paradigm: all possible Madonna songs

6. “Currier and rum king” from A Singular Christmas

7. Traditional Media vs. New Media syntagm vs. paradigm (cont)  Traditional media  The syntagm is explicit, and the paradigm is implied (like the Madonna song)  Traditional media object has one interface per object  A sculpture has one interface – the sculpture itself; it is the same as the object  New media  the paradigm is present, and the syntagm is implied  Multiple interfaces to the same object  Number Munchers, Carnivore

8. Data / Algorithm  In computer science, everything can be characterized as either data or algorithm  Data is passive, while algorithm is active.  “…the passive/active distinction is not quite accurate because data does not just exist – it has to be generated.”  Mud = active?

9. Database / Narrative  Every database needs a narrative to be realized  Narrative = the users path through the database  The narrative is the syntagm of the database, which is the paradigm  Follows the dominant semiological order of the 20 th century

10. Narrative according to Mieke Bal  Actor  Narrator  Text  Story  Fabula  Series of connected events caused or experienced by the actors

11. Database as cultural form  Linear media considered “high culture”  Other non-linear forms  (comic books, technical manuals)  considered “low culture”  Are comic books really non- linear?  Database is the new symbolic form of the computer age  We need development of database aesthetics and ethics

12. Database Filmmakers  John Witney  Permutations  Peter Greenaway  The Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story The Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story The Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story  Dziga Vertov  The Man With the Movie Camera

13. Database vs. 3D Environment Database 3D environment literarycinematic accessimmersion representationaction workleisure YahooRiven “If CD-ROMs and Web databases are cultural manifestations of one half of [the computer ontology] – data structures – then computer games are manifestations of the other half – algorithms.” (p223)

14. 3D Environments as Databases  Can be considered databases of spatial data  Data is so complex that most people don’t think about it as a database  Programs like Maya happen to be primarily WYSIWYG editors

15. Manovich, Lev. “The Database." Manovich, Lev. “The Database." The Language of New Media. The MIT Press: Cambidge, Massachusetts, 2001. 213-243.