1. Computation as a Medium LCC 2700: Intro to Computational Media

2. NEW MEDIA?

3. NMR Intro: New Media from Borges to HTML “Computer based artistic activity” Technology remains hidden, esp. in the US –“assumed part of everyday practice” What is “NEW MEDIA”

4. New Media vs. Cyberculture Cyberculture: the study of social phenomena Internet & network communication Online gaming, email, identity online, etc. Problems –Does not directly deal with new cultural objects –New Media as computing & culture –Cyberculture as social and computer networks

5. Computers as Distribution Platforms New Media as a channel Internet, Web sites, CD-ROMs, DVDs We could add digital set-top boxes, digital downloads, etc. Problems –Increasing computer-based distribution is inevitable –Non-specific: doesn’t tell us anything about computers and culture

6. Digital Data Stuff gets digitized Or, digital stuffs are created anew Now they live on computers Problems: –Undue focus on digitization and binary digital storage as the foundational properties of new media

7. Cultural and Software Conventions Computers as tools that reconfigure the ways we do previously non-computational cultural work –Photography, filmmaking, etc. New Media as “old” data digitized and manipulated Reliance on older cultural conventions Problems: –While “remediation” inevitably takes place, the properties of computation exceed them –We’re not just manipulating old media forms

8. An Aesthetics of Early Stage Communication Every new technology passes through a “new media stage” –Cave paintings were once new –Film, Photography, etc. How do people respond to and create on these “new media” What is afforded by a new medium –Better democracy –More transparency –Etc. Problems –A cultural-historical, even anthropoligical focus –How humans treat media, perhaps even as utopic –But, tells us less about particular media

9. Efficiency Computers do boring stuff for us –The same thing thousands of times per second Computers let us do the same things faster –Crunch numbers Computers let us do the same things more efficiently or effectively –Word processors Problems –Cultural value of “efficiency” –These processes are changed through computation

10. New Media as a realization of Modernism Modernism - artistic and cultural movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries Avant-Garde - 1915 - 1928 –Challenges to traditional norms –Responses to political and cultural events Assemblage, collage, found art, etc.

11. New Media as a realization of Modernism Problems –Focus on a particular notion of “multimedia” –Owes too great a debt to the pastiche of 1980s postmodernism –Residue of a particular moment in “new media” of the early 1990s

12. NMR: Inventing the Medium (Murray) The Computer as an Expressive Medium Properties: Procedural, participatory, encyclopedic, spatial (more on these throughout the course!)

13. A new medium Happens rarely in human history Writing ~3500 BCPrinting Press 1455 Photography ~1850

14. Computation as a Medium like Print MediumFormatGenres Printbooknovel, history periodicalnewspaper, magazine Computerhtmlpagewebsite, blog videogameshooter, rpg… databasepayroll, archive

15. Computation as a Medium like Print MediumPower of representation PrintDon Quixote Effect ComputerEliza Effect

16. Other models of computation Technology (like an engine in a car) Tool (like a pencil or slide rule) Appliance (information toaster) Transmitter of other media (network of moving bits) These are valid but more limited Medium is a more inclusive framework

17. Advantages of the Media Model For both design and understanding Historical perspective, analogies to other periods of media transition Rich design palette from legacy practices Connects computation with other forms of cultural expression Focuses us on coherent form

18. What is a medium? Something in the physical world that contains an idea of a person, place, thing, event, or concept.

19. Media vs. Technologies A medium contains (communicates) ideas through conventions of representation. A technology is a set of methods and materials for doing something, such as creating a media artifact. The computer can be thought of as an evolving medium that rests on a set of changing technologies.

20. Converging Technologies/Converging Media Digital television/videogame console hooked to internet Telephone/camera/appointment book/music player Actors merging with animations in movies NY Times producing 1 minute videos on website NBC producing text and still image articles on website Google creating digital, searchable, networked library Replacement of paper, film, audio tape, vinyl records, video tape with digital formats

21. A medium relies on Accessible Practices of Inscription Fixed Practices of Transmission Open Ended Practices of Representation These practices are always cultural and may or may not be technological Cultural = all shared behaviors, interpretations, and values beyond our biological endowment

22. Inscription = Intentional perceptible impression Impression may be temporal or spatial Impression may be auditory, visual, tactile Impression requires malleable material to receive and (perhaps) preserve it Impression requires a means of marking the material What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation

23. Examples of inscription Sounds made by vocal tract, impressed in the form of sound waves Cuneiform wedges on clay Hieroglyphics on papyrus Roman letters carved in marble Moving images on film or videotape Electro-magnetic charges configured as bits What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation

24. Issues of Inscription Temporality (speech, film) Spatiality: capacity, direction Ease of marking Persistence of marking (fired clay) Faithfulness of marking, copying

25. Transmission Impressions conveyed from a sender to a receiver, from a creator to a perceiver Can be transmitted over time (preserved) Can be transmitted over distance (relayed) What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation

26. Transmission Involves Coding Telegraph model: Message -> Coded -> Relayed –> Decoded Examples of standardized transmission codes: –Facial expressions –Cries –Phonemes of spoken language –Alphabet –Binary Digits –Ascii and other conventions What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation

27. Issues of Transmission Coding: how well does the code capture the message? –Alphabet with and without vowels –Binary vs analog codes Noise: how accurately is the code transmitted? –Static on a radio signal Interpretation by receiver –Does the receiver know how to decipher the code? –Does the code mean the same to the sender and the receiver?

28. Representation Assignment of meaning to the transmitted impressions Based on shared experience, conventions of abstraction, conventions of symbolic coding Always an act of interpretation from one consciousness to another (or same consciousness over time) What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation

29. Representation Based on an expanding set of meaningful conventions Set of lines interpreted as house, person, tree Alphabetic text interpreted as sounds, words, meanings Interface icons interpreted as buttons connected to actions What is a medium?: Inscription – Transmission - Representation

30. Mature media have established conventions 30 minute format with commercial breaks Parents and kids Foolish behavior Loving/fighting

31. Established Media Conventions

32. Paragraphs Lead paragraphs Headlines Mastheads News photo Byline Column Sentence Inverted pyramid structure Feature vs News vs Editorial

33. Established Media Conventions Columns Capitals and small letters Spaces between words Initial letters: chapter divisions Page numbers Tables of contents Indexes Title page Handwriting styles Typefaces

34. Established Media Conventions Frame Information encoded by subject matter Color/B&W Rule of Thirds

35. Translation across media both retains and relinquishes conventions

36. Birth of a medium Arrival of the Train at Ciotat Station Lumi è re Bros., 1895 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk&search=ciotat

37. “Invention” of a medium Start with existing genres and import them to new formats Understand unique affordances of new modes of inscription and transmission Maximize these affordances for purposes of more powerful representation

38. NMR Preface Understanding new media is almost impossible for those who aren't actively involved in the experience of new media; for deep understanding, actually creating new media projects is essential to grasping their workings and poetics. The ideas described in these selections can open important new creative areas for beginners and professionals alike.

39. NMR Preface Novels Films Poetry Music …