Summer Work

Before the start of the course, we were set two briefs to be completed over the summer months. Firstly we were asked to write a short article, with the question "Are tools and toys or film and television new media's closest living relations?" as the focus for our answer. We were also asked to create three picture postcards insired by the places we visited over the summer. Below is the work i did for these briefs.

"Are tools & toys or Film & Television new media's closest living relations?"

If we are to obtain a meaningful understanding and conclusion to this question, we must first fully understand what we define as ‘New Media.’ 'Media' refers to technologies used to communicate messages and include mass media (newspapers, TV, radio), popular media (film, books) and digital media (computer games, the World Wide Web, virtual reality) and others. New Media itself is a relatively new field of study that has developed around cultural practices with the computer playing a central role as the medium for production, storage and distribution.

The first age of media dawned with the invention of the printing press, around C11th. Information could now be distributed through leaflets, books and eventually newspapers. It could be said that Paintings contain messages to its viewer and are a recognized form of media today, but it was the printed word that allowed information to be passed to a mass audience. The next significant change in face for media would not take place until the C20th, which ushered in the radio age. The radio brought about a change of approach. Instead of viewing information in print, a newsreader or DJ read out the information across commercial broadcasts. The face of media continued to change in this centaury with the invention of film & cinema and later on the television. With both these mediums, the receiver of the information is not only a listener, but now a viewer as well. Television opened up a whole new medium to cast news and with later developments in technology, broadcast to anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world.

It was not until very recently that the computer and subsequently the internet came into existence, dawning the age of new media. The internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computers, which allows us to transform data openly. Internet access these days is not just confined to computer users; it is available through a mass of different mediums. People can access digital information through their PDA, Mobile Phone, even through their television sets by using an Internet Box to name but a few examples. The information available on the internet (News, Radio, Television programs, games, movies, etc) that can be downloaded or viewed is on a huge scale and is expanding rapidly.

In his book ‘The Language of New Media’ Lev Manovich likens the internet to a Russian living in his apartment under the suppression of a Communist dictatorship. Suggesting the internet is not as free as we may think. Some would consider this a radical claim, but this can only be paralleled with those who feel these views incredibly grounded. Manovich also makes several other interesting observations about present day media. Manovich states that modern media tends to try and externalize the “mind life” in an attempt to try and standardize the process so that everything can be controlled. The user follows the instruction on the computer and work in specific steps. This is particularly interesting when concerning video games. Survival in such games then ultimately depends on how well this ‘user’ can learn or assimilate the operations of the computer and then act flawlessly according to its set patterns. Whether you, the ‘user’ operates in Doom or MS Office, the principle remains the same. In that view a video game, which is often celebrated as being very liberating, becomes almost negative, an attempt by the game designer to solicit a certain response.

So according to Manovich, progression lies in breaking beyond linear set pretences. So what does this mean for the future of media? He makes the claim the next generation of digital cinema (broadband or macro cinema) will add multiple windows to its language. One important aspect of visual culture is the status of the screen creating two realities instead of one, two different spaces divided by a frame. According to Manovich, spatiality which was suppressed in the twentieth century will return in the twenty-first.

Television, Radio, newspapers and magazines drove media up until the explosion of the Internet. I believe these instruments of media will stay with us, in one form or another, but none less they are slowly becoming less preferable to the Internet. If you take a news article, the same article can be found, viewed or heard on all of the for-mentioned mediums. The main advantage of the Internet though is that the article can be accessed at anytime. Where as television and radio may only feature it once. The clear positive in this is that information is becoming ever more interactive and easier to manipulate.

It is certainly easy to trace back where modern day media came from. Where it is going though is a little less clear. Media is all around us and will continue to be. Using the transition of paper to radio to television to Internet as a model, it would appear that it is only a matter of time before something new is created, more than likely based on what has come before.