User:Silviolorusso/thematic2/manovich-databaseassymbolicform
Notes of: "Database as Symbolic Form", by Lev Manovich
The Database Logic
narrative as the key form of cultural expression in the modern age.
narrative vs database (computer age)
no story, no beginning nor end, no development, no sequence.
collection of individual items
why new media favor database?
what relation between database and narrative
computer science: database as a structured collection of data.
fast search and retrieval by computer
types of databases: hierarchical, network, relational, object-oriented
hierarchical: treelike structure
object-oriented: objects, classes, hierarchy
user: view, navigate, search
database and narrative offer a different view on the world
Panofsky: linear perspective as "symbolic form" of the modern age -> database as symbolic form of computer age
lyotard: computerized society -> world as an endless and unstructured collection of items
develop poetics, aesthetics and ethics of database
documenting the dominance of database form in new media
- encyclopedias, cd, dvds, collections
CD-Rom becomes a cultural form of its own
Multimedia cultural project favor database: virtual museum
museum as database, different ways to access it
"narrative" simulation of access, just one method to access data.
CD-Rom devoted to a single figure.
database biography (think of the designer that makes collection of his own life and quantified self)
Internet, HTML, webpage as a sequential list of separate elements
bibliography
uncompleteness of the web: antinarrative
how to keep a coherent narrative within a changing database?
Data and Algorithm
new media non explicitly databases: videogames
task -> narrative: all elements are motivated
narrative shell hide a simple algorythm
similarity between algorythm and tasks of the gamer
games ruled by algorythm logic
player executes algorythm
rules of the game -> algoryhtm
game as a loop between the machine and the gamer
user builds a mental model of the computer model
"projection of the onthology of a computer onto culture itself"
world reduced to data structures and algorythms
data structures: arrays, linked lists, graphs
symbiotic relation between algorythms and data structures
computerization of culture
databases passive algorythm active?
data have to be generated
Shoah Foundation
storage mania (Mediamatic Journal summer 1994)
new cultural algorythm: reality -> media -> data -> database
data indexing
Borges: map big as territory, indexes as data
"map has become larger than the territory"
Database and Narrative
database as cultural form: world as a list of item, refusal to order it
narrative: cause and effect
database vs narrative
the reader of a novel reconstruct an alogrythm
"Do databases and narratives have the same status in computer culture?"
all media objects are databases
new media object: constructing an interface to a database
Jeffrey Shaw: Legible City
Graham Harwood, Rehearsal of Memory
"Database becomes the center of the creative process in the computer age"
past: unique work within particular medium, interface = work: no interface
new media: work separated from interface => different interfaces!
principle of variability in new media
"the new media object consists of one or more interfaces to a database of multimedia material."
redefinition of narrative: hypernarrative, multiple trajectories (traditional narrative becomes a database as well)
criteria to be narrative (Mieke Bal):
- an actor and a narrator - text, story and fabula - contents, connected events
arbitrary sequence is not user narrative!
database is more prominent than narrative
database supports many cultural form to reach even it's opposite: the narrative.
why narrative still exist in new media? (relation to storytelling?)
The Semiotics of Database
database vs narrative = structure of a digital image and languages of contemporary visual culture.
layers, elemns of a database that form two opposite visual languages:
modernist shocking montage vs realism
80's 90's images -> composites
montage is driven by composite structure
why photorealism is still so predominant?
jameson, modernism to post modernism: dominant vs secondary becomes vice versa
define the opposition of narrative and databases: semiological theory of syntagm and paradigm (de Saussure)
elements of a system can be related on 2 dim: syntagmatic and paradigmatic
- related in praesentia, explicit
- related in absentia, implicit
narratives comprehend explicit elements
database of choices (paradigm), single narrative (syntagm)
new media: opposite relationship:
database becomes material, while narrative become virtual. Paradigm wins over syntagm
new media design process: assembling a database of elements
the database is the center of the design process (what is the relationship with the archive? Could be the archive the interface to the database? Not sure, because in this way it will offer a limited number of interpretations)
shift from creation to selection
following a path in an interactive interface is a syntagmatic experience.
why linearity? follows the cinema model (hypotheses)
cinema: assembly line of shots
spatialized narrative in the past
new media: linearity when real culture, molteplicity when just info
filling a form as a precinematic spatialized narrative {example of Laurier}
A Database Complex
database and storage media
database in photography: sander, becher
cinema: storage media non intrinsecally database
super-genre of all movies: tell a story (shooting a movie of an archive in some order (chronological?))
book: both narrative and database
database an narrative as two competitive forces (text on encyclopedia) Frédéric Kaplan - How books will become machines)
hybrids
before than alphabetically: encyclopedias organized thematically
Krauss, video as a psychological medium
what is the psychological condition of the computer age? database complex
minimalism: lewitt, artis's idea as the machine which makes works
Nake, computer as a "Universal Picture Generator"
Whitney: permutations, arabesque, catalog
databases of effects
plug-ins: effects,
new logic of culture: new output from an input, filter
Database Cinema: Greenaway and Vertov
dissatisfaction with computer as a sole encyclopedia or catalog
we wnat new-media-specific narratives
how can database and narrative works together?
Greenaway complains the linearity of cinema
Greenaway's Prospero's books
different approach against obsession of the plot. example: numbers
cinema out of cinema: out of the screen (again! like in pervasive games)
one dimension = inevitable order. Solution? spatialize
Greenaway, 100 Objects to represent the world
database + narration
Greenaway, The Stairs-Munich-Projection (numbers, colours)
Dziga Vertov, database filmmaker, man with the movie camera: reveal social structure trhough editing multitude of phenomena
vertov's film: three levels: 1. cameraman filming material for the film 2. audience watching the movie 3. film itself
3. text, 1,2 metatexts
catalog of film-techniques
vertov, dynamic and subjective database