Manovich Research Report 1

Examine how the theoretical framework that Lev Manovich presents for New Media can influence your approach to interactive multi media. Using the slide presentation format within Flash, develop and present a 10 minute slide show that clearly and convincingly answers the question or proves or disproves the statement you select below.

Procedure

Read: The Language of New Media, by Lev Manovich, pages x to xiii and 1 to 93

Select a partner that you can collaborate with on this project.

Select statement: Choose one of these statements or questions to be researched. Selection of the statement is on a first-come-first-serve basis. No two research groups are to investigate the same statement.

1	What do you think of this statement by Manovich: “ Today, those few who are able to resist the immediate temptation to create an “interactive CD-ROM”, or make a feature–length “digital film”, and instead focus on determining the new-media equivalent of a shot, sentence, word, or even letter, are rewarded with amazing findings.” ?
2	What does Manovich have to say about hierarchical vrs. Non-hierarchical?
3	Do you agree with Manovich: All new media objects can be described formally (mathematically). For instance, an image or a shape can be described using a mathematical function?
4	Do you agree with Manovich: Media becomes programmable. A new media object is subject to algorithmic manipulation.
5	Do you agree? Or disagree? Explain: A new media object consists of independent parts, each of which consists of smaller independent parts, and so on, down to the level of the smallest “atoms” – pixels, 3-D points, or text characters.
6	How does Manovich define these three levels of automation: “low-level automation”, AL, AI? How would you define them? Give some examples of each.
7	Explain: According to Manovich, computers can pretend to be intelligent only by tricking us into using a very small part of who we are when we communicate with them.
8	Explain: "If the logic of old media correspond to the logic of industrial mass society, the logic of new media fits the logic of postindustrial society, which values individuality over conformity."
9	In “What New Media is Not”, is Manovich oversimplifying comparisons to make a point? What point?
10	What is your reaction to Manovich’s response to “In contrast to analog media where each successive copy loses quality, digitally encoded media can be copied endlessly without degradation”.
11	What do you think of Jaron Lanier’s claim “that virtual reality (VR) will lead to the age of "post-symbolic communication”, communication without language or any symbols?
12	What is your response to the idea that because of hypermedia, we have a new rhetoric or aesthetic that may have less to do with the ordering of time by a writer or an orator, and more with spatial wandering?
13	Do you agree with Manovich, "Rather than being merely one cultural language among others, cinema is now becoming the cultural interface, a toolbox for all cultural communication, overtaking the printed word."
14	Give examples of what Manovich has in mind when he writes that “more than any other medium before it, HCI is like a chameleon that keeps changing its appearance, responding to how computers are used in any given period.”

Research: Using the assigned reading, linked references and collections of pertinent interactive screen images (or other relevant images), find visual and written or vocal evidence for your interpretation of the statement, and/or your arguments for or against the statement.

Select images: Show at least ten images.

Write headlines: bullet statements for your screen. Do not use long paragraphs of text on the screen which can not be read by your viewers during the time you show the pertinent slides, while they are also listening to what you will speak or read out-loud from your narration script.

Other visuals: Develop diagrams, charts as needed to aid the understanding of your statement and/or to substantiate the statement or its evidence.

Narration: Write and type in easily readable form (14 point double spaced type) the statements to be read (or spoken from memory without direct reading) that will accommodate the screens you present as part of your slide presentation.

Present: In class, present your audio-visual observation with the evidence and proofs. The total time for your team’s presentation will be 15 minutes, with seven to 10 minutes for presenting your material and 5 minutes for group discussion.