DIKULT103 Digital Genres: Intro lecture

DIKULT103: DIGITAL GENRES

General theories and introductionJan 20, 2011

Jill Walker Rettberg, Førsteamanuensis i digital kultur

Readings:

• Egenfeldt-Nielson, Simon, Jonas Heide Smith and Susana Pajares Tosca. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. Routledge, 2008. 294 pages.

• Tribe, Mark and Reena Jana. New Media Art. Taschen, 2007/2009.

• Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Nick Montfort. The New Media Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. (You will only need a few texts from this anthology, so if you don’t need it in other DIKULT courses you may manage by borrowing a copy.)

• A collection of articles (kompendium) to be bought at Studia (315 kr).

Also: a reading list of electronic literature, games, and digital art that you will be expected to be familiar with. These will be presented at the start of each section.

Pre-digital.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4059841348493635424#

Len Lye: Swinging the Lambeth Walk. Video animation, 1937.

Digital.

Chris Milk: The Johnny Cash Project. (2010) http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com

Is there an essential difference between digital art and non-

digital art?

Manovich, 2001.

Manovich, Lev (2001) The Language of New Media. MIT Press.

Media and computing have developed in parallel for 200 years, almost converging again and again.

Image:http://www.bijt.org/wordpress/2005/11/

The Jacquard Loom (1801)

Daguerrotypes as new media infatuation

Difference Engine (Babbage 1823)

Analytical Engine (1837)

The first general purpose computer.

(what if they had succeeded in building computers back then?)

Fabrikkene fortsatte

The Universal Turing Machine

(Alan Turing)

“Zuse strip” – Konrad Zuse used discarded 35mm movie film to make the first punched tape computer programs.(Image from http://www.casualoptimist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/zuse-film.jpg)

Manovich, Lev (2001) The Language of New Media. MIT Press.

There are five key differences between old and new media.

Image:http://www.bijt.org/wordpress/2005/11/

1. Numerical Representation

Media is programmable.

This generates

that.

Ted Warnell: “Poem Binary”http://codepo.blogspot.com/2008/12/poem-binary.html

2. Modularity

“elements are assembled into larger objects but maintain their separate identities”

3. Automation

Numerically encoded modules pulled together on the fly (low-level automation)

High-level automation

Kismet, the MIT robot that responds to your tone of voice (late 1990s)

Easy access to data, search, re-use, remix

“War President” by Joe of American Leftist

4. Variability

content / interface

Customise the work for each individual

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1908113

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenejohansen/3276126816

Reason magazine’s customised covers, 2004.

Customisation using Facebook Connect is popular these days

http://cnnbc.moveon.org/?rc=fbauto.txt5.pic3

Or using Google’s immense databases

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Manovich talks about“branching interactivity”

andhypermedia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M

Press return or Y

Certain words in the text ”yield”

and take you to a new page when you click them – but in this piece,

links aren’t marked

You can also navigate using the control strip.

sometimes pressing return

works

yes

Or if you pressed no:

Sold as a bookafternoon, a storyav Michael JoyceISBN 1-884511-01-5Macintosh eller Windows US$ 25.00

”Well, by ”hypertext” I mean non-sequential writing – text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen.”

Ted Nelson:

Tor Åge Bringsværd”Faen. Nå har de senket takhøyden igjen. Må huske å kjøpe nye knebeskyttere.”

Med Jon Bing, Sesam ’71

Webutgave av nettkunstneren Marius Watz: http://www.evolutionzone.com/faen)

(you’ll hear more about hypertext)

Is variability a useful term for thinking about a game?

Variability seems to fit this well?

(is this an example of variability?)

50 People See Their Own Shadow, by Neil Kandalgaonkar (“Brevity”), 2005. Flickr.com.

Salavon: Every Playboy Centerfold: The Decades

Material principles (axioms)1. Numeric coding2. Modular organization

More far-reaching (but dependent on the first two):3. Automation4. Variability

The most substantial consquence of the computerization of media:5. Transcoding.

5. Transcoding

Manovich, Lev (2001) The Language of New Media. MIT Press.

There is a “conceptual transfer” from the computer world to culture at large. (page 47)

Image:http://www.bijt.org/wordpress/2005/11/

Programmable media

Manovich, Lev (2001) The Language of New Media. MIT Press.

From media studies, we move to something that can be called software theory.

Image:http://www.bijt.org/wordpress/2005/11/