REMEDIATED IMAGE #1 - ROSARIO, ARGENTINA This image was originally a black and white photograph, a medium we are accustomed to viewing in a gallery or a high art magazine. This artist has remediated that medium and old ideas about what a black and white photograph can be and where it can be displayed, by scanning the photo and printing it on everyday typing paper. I saw beautiful images pasted and displayed like this all around Rosario. I didn't need to go into a gallery or museum to be immersed in art.
Paul Levenson defines the concept “remediation” as “the anthropotropic process by which new media technologies improve upon or remedy prior technologies.” David Bolter and Richard Grusin extend this definition. They state remediation is the “formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms. Along with immediacy and hypermediacy, remediation is one of the three traits of our genealogy of new media.” (Bolter/Grusin 273:1998) In other words, the “new” in new media refers to modifications of older practices either through processes of “immediation” or “hypermediation.”
Immediation refers to visual representations that strive to deny media that was used during the creative process. The viewer often forgets the presence of the media and focuses primarily on the end product. The process vanishes. Photography and film are good examples of this. Sometimes while watching a film or seeing a photograph, we become so immersed in the perceived reality of that space that we forget there is an artist (or artists) behind it all. Bolter and Grusin reference Virtual Reality machines as an example. These machines are meant to have the same result, striving to make the viewer forget the media that affects them. However, the current machines are crude, with bulky hardware and cartoonish graphics. The futuristic film Strange Days introduces a “remediated” device called “the wire.” This is a slender skullcap that instantly records and transmits the sense perceptions from your cerebral cortex. “If the ultimate purpose of media is indeed to transfer sense experiences from one person to another, the wire threatens to make all media obsolete” (3:1998).
Just as William Gibson’s cyborgian ideas have become increasingly less shocking, it is apparent that Bolten and Grusin wrote this book nearly a decade ago. The wire may seem far-fetched to some, but developers and scientists are already creating interfaces that reflect similar ideas. During the late 1990s, when the internet was just emerging in the public sphere, plans were being made for computer interfaces to create three dimensional space and what Bolten and Grusin call an “interfaceless interface” (23). The user can move through the space and interact naturally, rendering the enabling technology transparent. Today, technological advances have made it possible to run this kind of system. However, just because we have the technological sophistication to mediate every aspect of our lives with an “interfaceless interface,” a pressing question might be, “Should we?”
The second dimension of remediation is hypermediation. Bolter and Grusin define hypermedation as visual representation that functions to remind the viewer of the medium, even accentuate the medium (272:1998). Popular culture is full of hypermediation. The West is media driven, where large quantities (of food, emotion, volume, and so on) and size, bright colors and speed are the most valuable factors in visual representation. Bolter and Grusin state, “The logic of hypermediacy multiplies the signs of mediation and in this way tries to reproduce the rich sensorium of human experience” (34:1998).
Live audio mixing is an example of the process-emphasis of hypermediation. Not only does the listener become entranced in the spontaneous sounds, losing desire for a formal, finished body of work, the DJ shows off his or her “media/medium” by displaying a laptop as part of the creative process. According to Bolter and Grusin, Hollywood cinema is an interesting mix of hypermediation and immediation. “While transparent immediacy remains important in contemporary Hollywood film, a recurring fascination with the medium distances and frames the viewing experience; the viewer oscillates between a desire for immediacy and a fascination with the medium” (82:1998).
I feel it’s important as media makers to consider how and when to remediate. We need to consider whether hypermediation, transparent immediation or a mix of both will benefit our concepts. I am interested in how these concepts relate to documentary issues and ethics of representation. In the past, with a background in analogue photography, I usually strived to make images with a transparent immediacy approach. I wanted my audience to think only about the image, not about the process or medium. Now, utilizing new technologies in my music, documentary projects and visual art, I feel it’s important to address why I am using new technologies to strengthen my concept. As Hollywood cinema has a duality of remediation approaches, I also strive for a balance in my work. I want to acknowledge the media I use and why this acknowledgement strengthens the concept, but not to the point of distracting from the story or the aesthetics.
The question that I have as a critical artist and user/student of technology is this: How can we, as media makers achieve this balance in our work?
Old and New... A sock monkey and a scan...
Lev Manovich was born in Moscow and now teaches at UC San Diego. He studied art, architecture and computer science in Moscow and then earned his Masters in Cognitive Science at NYU and his PhD at University of Rochester in visual and cultural studies.
Manovich’s book “The Language of New Media,” put him on the map of new media theorists, and he is often considered a contemporary McLuhan. He takes us on the timeline of technological advancements, starting with the first computer, which was a punch system of 35 mm movie film, developed by Konrad Zuse in 1936-1938 in his parents Berlin apartment. He makes many comparisons between new media and cinema.
As an attempt to define “new media” he begins by describing the differences between analogue, or old media and digital, or new media through five factors. These factors are numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and transcoding.
All new media elements are digital and are therefore made of numbers. Therefore new media elements can be described formally through mathematics and they can also be manipulated algorithmically.
All new media have a modular structure meaning they have their own identities. They can be assembled into larger scale objects, but they still maintain their discrete identities. A contemporary, digital movie is a good example of this. The whole body of work is one media element, yet it is comprised of thousands of individual frames and audio files. When you press play, all the files come together to form the body of work.
All new media elements can be automated. New media elements being numerical and modular can contribute to a new media element being automated. Manovich claims this sometimes allows human intentionality to be removed from the process. Is he considering the artist here? He goes on to describe “low level” automation, through applications such as photoshop actions, blog templates, word processing, etc…
He then describes “high level” automation that is being developed where a computer will have to sense meaning or semantics of the objects generated. Manovich describes this research as a component of Artificial Intellegence.
Another result of the numerical and modular components of new media elements is what Manovich terms the variability of new media. Mutable or liquid are other terms he uses. I can understand liquid reflecting something malleable, but I don’t understand the term mutable. I am more familiar with the term “versioning,” which is the idea that a new media object can exist in infinite forms. This is a major difference between “old” and “new” media. Before digital technologies most authors or artists had to develop a body of work completely by hand and also make copies laboriously by hand. New technologies allow us to experiment and make copies instantaneously by pushing buttons. Automation can also contribute to variability. Manovich mentions that in new media the authorship is not limited to the human. “The computer can contribute equally, as it does with web pages automatically generated by databases using templates created by web designers.” (36)
The fifth and final priniple of new media which Manovich can’t stress enough is the importance of transcoding. Transcoding is changing or translating something into another format. This is important in two aspects. It’s important the language matches the data system of the computer and it’s even more important the language matches the cultural system of the users. “It can be expected to significantly influence the traditional cultural logic of media” (p. 46) In other words computers effect and reflect culture.
In the next chapter Manovich scrutinizes six popularly held beliefs on what constitutes new media. He points out errors such as “new media is interactive” claiming this term is too broadly used. He explains interactivity is nothing new because all computers are interactive just by their nature. When we use the term interactive we need to be more specific. He suggests, “menu based interactivity, scalability, simulation, image interface, etc…” (56)
Another of the six assumptions, is the claim that Digitization inevitably involves loss of information. In contrast to an analogue representation, a digitally encoded representation contains a fixed amount of information.” (49) He states this is focusing on something that is irrelevant. “By the end of new media’s first decade, technology had already reached the point where a digital image could easily contain much more information than anyone would ever want.” (53)
Manovich coins the way in which computers present and allow us to interact with cultural data a “human-computer-interface” (HCI) He speaks of the importance an HCI plays into the computer’s cultural significance and how these interfaces have had to change with time. He discusses Blade Runner and Apple computers both being released in the mid eighties, and paving the way for an aesthetic we still follow today. It’s important in a media, visually driven culture, to have an interface that is more reliant on images than text.
Responding to Manovich’s Who is Author?
Glass house with swimming pool roof (Paris, France) by Rem Koolhaas and... engineers, various architects, designers, construction workers, etc...
Manovich contributes in his article Who is the Author? to a contemporary debate over issues of authorship regarding new technologies. This is a popular debate as new technologies allow and encourage various forms of collaborations, remixing, sampling and branding.
He begins his essay discussing issues of authorship among different individuals or collectives. He calls this “social culture” or “new cultural forms” of new media and explains how new forms of technology have had an enormous effect on how people connect and communicate. He discusses how new “networking” contributes largely to contemporary culture no matter how intangible the results may be. It’s hard to pinpoint one author here. It seems many people, from the direct group collaborating to the developers who have made this communication possible, are equally responsible for any results.
He follows by refuting the idea that authors and users are often collaborators because they both bring their own ideas to the work. Manovich claims that the author creates a work with no idea of how it will be received by the user and the user has no idea what the author’s intentions were. Therefore the user and author cannot be considered collaborators. “Instead of collaborators, the author and the user are often two total strangers, two aliens which do not share a common communication code.” He goes so far as to say, interactivity leads to miscommunication.
I think it’s important to consider whom Manovich is referring to as “author” here. It sounds like a perspective of a software engineer more than a visual artist, for example. Either way this brings up an interesting topic. How much do new media artists consider the audience and what ideas they will bring while viewing or interacting with an artwork? I think it depends on the artist, the venue, the project and the audience, however, if a new media artist is really taking the audience into consideration and even creating interactive elements, can we consider this a collaborative authorship?
Manovich also brings up “authorship by selection.” This is when a user can feel like an author by choosing from different menu options and constructing their own version of a guided application. Manovich questions if the user or the software developer are responsible for the creation? In this case, is the user collaborating with the software developer or company?
Perhaps the area that leaves us the most room for questioning authorship is remixing. He distinguishes the term remixing from appropriation, stating appropriation is a more direct form of copying, while remixing is reworking an older version into something with new elements. He uses the web as an example of when remixing really became a movement. “The World Wide Web redefined an electronic document as a mix of other documents. Remix culture has arrived”
The Open Source model is one that has redefined the boundaries of remixing. The Open Source model encourages people to share their creations, and often authors create work thinking of it being remixed from the start. Considering there are around thirty different types of licenses in the Open Source movement, this new concept is breaking ground and finding a balance to address the controversial issues of remix culture.
The part of Manovich’s essay, I found the most interesting was the concluding paragraphs where he compares authorship approaches behind the brands of corporations to the brands of individuals. Although Nike, Prada and Sony have thousands of creative people behind their products and their marketing, they discourage individualism and aim to present just the brand. I imagine this is what sells more. However the way we are socialized to think about bands in popular culture is a good example of a shift in this perspective. Again we generally are not trained to think about the collective effort, the individual members of a band that form the sound and image we see and hear. In this case, we focus on an individual to represent the whole. Manovich brings up designer Rem Koolhaas as an example. “A museum hires Rem Koolhaas to have a building by Rem Koolhaus – not because it wants the skills of a particular media designer, lighting designer, or an architect working for Koolhaas.”
Manovich’s Who is the Author brings up some important points that we must address as makers, remixers or any citizen immersed in a media driven society. How do we form a new perspective of authorship that finds a place between traditional, socialized ideas of authorship and contemporary remix culture? Manovich claims we must redefine our language to address some of these issues. Raq’s Collective introduces a new term “rescension” to address collaborative authorship. Manovich feels this new term is an effective compromise between a tight control of traditional copyright practices and a completely open model.
Response to Critical Art Ensemble’s Flesh Machine
Steve Buscemi as a Cyborg (Artist Unknown)
Critical Art Ensemble, a collective of artists exploring the intersections of art, technology, radical politics and critical theory, credits three components when defining post-modern rationalism. They refer to these components as machines; including the war machine, the sight machine and the flesh machine. CAE defines the war machine as “the apparatus of violence engineered to maintain the social, political and economic relationships that support it’s continued existence in the world” (53). The sight machine is the war machine’s counterpart. The sight machine is the visualization, the mapping of social order. CAE claims the sight machine has two purposes, “to mark the space of violent spectacle and sacrifice and to control the symbolic order” (53). The most primitive and controversial component is the flesh machine, which deals with global eugenics. In a society reigned by a regime of pan-capitalism, where production and consumerism is the driving force of humanity, it is believed humans must reconfigure their bodies to function and adapt.
CAE refers to natural human body parts as “organics” and describes these reconfigurations as a blending of the organic with electro-mechanical. A cyborg is considered post-human, a digitized being. Can a Cyborg be a human that’s using any form of technology as a body enhancement, from contacts to artificial limbs? Post human discourse stresses that a cyborg is a being that is better integrated into the social through the use technological enhancements. Ars Electronica takes this argument to the next level by claiming that adaptation to these ideas is necessary for survival, bringing social evolution to the table. In the announcement for the 1996 Ars Electronica conference they claimed “The next generation will not survive unless they adapt to technological advancements. Coping with technological tools and advancements are evolutionary fitness” (36).
Supporters of eugenics believe this approach can create healthier people and decrease human suffering. Some claim if the Flesh Machine is eventually widely accepted and further developed, ideally it will reduce or eliminate the use of many pharmaceuticals. CAE devotes an entire chapter to pharmacology and social order. In a pan-capitalist society, one must neutralize intense or disruptive emotions to ensure productivity. However, this action can negate itself if taken too far. If humans become completely void of emotion, they will no longer react to advertising, they will lose their desire to consume. Therefore you must simply balance or neutralize disruptive emotions. CAE discusses the Flesh Machine eventually finding this balance. It is believed as the Flesh Machine creates ideal, custom designed beings, the dependency on steroids, anti anxiety, diet pills, pain relievers, and other drugs may also be eliminated.
Frederick Osborn predicted that eventually eugenics will be socially and morally accepted. “Parents will want to design their children to help them adapt and advance economically and socially” (125). This is already happening to a certain extent if one considers giving parents the information and choice to terminate a pregnancy in the case of defects. This action is already eliminating imperfections and working towards a more “productive” gene pool.
CAE claims that attaching cell phones and computers to our bodies could be an early step to being seduced by technology to the point of modifying our bodies with technological implants. They comment on technology commercials idealizing the use of technology 24/7. The consistent crowd at the Apple store on any given day will prove this seduction is well under way. The internet also contributes to capitalist culture and the seduction of technological communication over personal interactions. The western world is becoming increasingly homogenized through trends advertised on the internet and increasingly isolated through communication over the internet. Could we already be approaching a mindset that could be open to a new wave of eugenic consciousness due to consumerism and isolation brought on by new technologies?
While reading Flesh Machine, I didn’t really understand where CAE stood amidst these controversial issues of cyborgs, designer babies and new eugenics until I read the appendix. I feel not knowing their opinions throughout the reading made the book stronger, but it was perhaps harder to follow that way. I felt I had little to grasp on to.
CAE views the internet as the fall of humankind. Okay, perhaps that is going a little too far, but their viewpoint leaves little to be desired. The internet started by the military as a means to control and now in addition to control, it’s all about marketing. CAE feels it’s a way of tracking humans by making us merely data, by making us void of our humanity. Perhaps this is a major step to changing perspectives, to Osborn’s prediction of an eventual, wide acceptence of eugenics. With free marketing, it also builds consumerism to the greatest height in history. According to the argument that humans main purpose is to produce and consume, the internet has us right where we should be.
Medium is the Message -vs- Medium is the Massage
Mediation for Breakfast (Photo: Eugene Anthony)
McLuhan and Fiore’s (1967) multi-media book on ways that technologies change society is often cited somewhat incorrectly by scholars of new media. McLuhan and Fiore are frequently credited with saying that when it comes to the role of technology in shaping culture and society, “the medium is the message.” But the title of the book is plain: the medium is not the message; it’s the massage. This misprint of the title by the book’s original publishers, one that the authors liked so much that they kept the incorrect title, still reveals the meat of their argument, while also illuminating a subtle critique of this approach.
Beginning with the explicit intention of the authors, the axiom “the medium is the message” means that certain communication technologies (media) come to have an increasingly influential effect on society. The authors write that
The medium, or process, of our time—electric technology—is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and reevaluate practically every thought, every action and every institution formerly taken for granted (8).
It is not just that technologies have shaped society. It is that the nature of specific communication technologies is responsible for the wide-sweeping impact of media on society. The authors argue that it is the connecting nature of new technologies that change society so dramatically.
Technologies that push us together—telephones, email and the internet, flight, and so on—do have an impact on society. The authors point out how children of the “television age” are literally connected to systems of technological communication, while simultaneously they are disconnected from the traditions and ways of being of the past. This is why, apparently, out-dated modes of schooling are ineffective on today’s mediated youth.
The medium is the message means that societies have evolved to a point where that which we create comes back in turn to create us. We are a technological world; we are our technology. The question is, again, in the misprinted title. Is the medium the message or the massage?
I think that the latter, intentionally misprinted version is revealing. The medium as massage brings to mind the visual image of a massage—a person giving a massage. The person being massaged is certainly affected, but she or he is being affected by a whole person, not just their hands. The typical interpretation of McLuhan and Fiore is that media is the whole person, the masseuse, but I believe that media, while critical to changing society, is only one part. It is the hands. The whole social body is made of the various parts of society that also become influential. The internet, for example, would not have been invented without demands of war, military and higher education. Certainly that technology has changed society dramatically, but its origins are in non-technological realms. McLuhan and Fiore’s argument has been critical for new media students to place a greater emphasis on technology’s role in changing society, but it should be tempered with an appreciation of how technology works in concert with other social and cultural, as well as individual, factors of the social body.
Thoughts on the New Media Reader
New Media is not easily defined and has a short history. The New Media Reader is a compilation of articles from significant artists, scientists, engineers, architects, designers and cultural critics whose work or writing has helped develop this multifaceted discipline for the past fifty years.
The introduction is written by two leading media theorists, Janet H. Murray and Lev Manovich. Murray provides a historical timeline, explaining how and when the computer became a media for expression. She briefly mentions philosophers Deleuze and Guattari offering an optimistic viewpoint to those fearing the rapid technological advancements of the 1980’s. The philosophers offered a metaphor serving as a bridge between humanists and machines comparing computer networks with a “rhizome” or a “potato root system.” “The potato root system has no beginning, no end and grows outward and inward at the same time. It forms a pattern familiar to computer scientists: a network with discreet, interconnected nodes” (9). I assume this description may be where the online New Media forum and periodical “Rhyzome” took it’s name.
Manovich also provides a brief history of New Media, while focusing on the initial struggle of digital technology merging with fine art world, especially in the United States. In the 1990’s digital mediums were met with great resistance in the United States fine art world. Manovich states this is logical because of the inherent differences between traditional ideas of authorship versus the New Media ideas of collaboration and interaction. The second factor contributing to this struggle is perception of venue. Fine art traditionally has been viewed in galleries and museums, while new media objects can be viewed in these setting but are more often viewed outside of these settings. The third factor is the replication of new media objects. Traditionally fine art objects have a limited or single copy. New media can be replicated and modified without limits. This is even encouraged in the practice of New Media. In addition, New Media artwork was met with resistance in U.S. galleries and museums because exhibiting these approaches require ample equipment and technological expertise, which in turn require funding. Compared to European museums and galleries, the United States was not prepared for these rapid changes and fell behind leading countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, who seem to have encouraged New Media artists from the start.
Reading some of these articles in the New Media Reader was empowering for me, as a New Media artist. Reading one of the first compilations, chronicling the short history of this multifaceted approach to art, I feel like I am part of something larger; part of a movement. I was particularly inspired reading about the organization “Experiments in Art and Technology.” The idea of artists and engineers working together to create cutting edge, interactive projects which connect communities, engage the public, and challenge preconceived notions of what art is, and where it belongs, is very exciting to me. I often have complex ideas for projects, which eventually I hope to pursue, but if the idea involves technology that intimidates me, or technology I have no time or energy to learn, I often lose sight of my creative goals. If I could team up with an engineer or computer scientist that was passionate about collaborating with an artist, I feel I could take my work that much further.
Dear Mr. Benjamin
Stained Glass of San Chappelle
As a photographer I often have conversations about the technical, aesthetic and evaluative criteria brought on by the development of digital photography over the past decade. Less than ten years ago, I was studying in a very traditional, large format, chemical photography program. My mentor at the time was very suspicious of digital approaches to this medium. He predicted digital photography would make images too easily made, to the point of making them disposable. He claimed they would lose their value, through a loss of history, a loss of craftsmanship and a loss of traditional exhibition. He also predicted anyone could consider themselves a photographer, no matter the level of commitment, furthering a loss of value for artists which take this medium seriously.
Reading Walter Benjamin’s Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction reminds me of this conversation. Benjamin argues that art risks losing its’ “aura” when reproduced or when mechanically made. Benjamin shares the term “aura” with his friend and colleague, Theodor Adorno, and other critical theorists (neo-Marxists) from the Frankfurt School. Aura refers to the sense of awe a viewer experiences when in the presence of a unique work of art. Art that is reproduced or mechanically made loses an extent of authenticity, originality, restricted exhibition, historical line of ownership, and cultural value.
The term “mechanically made” is in reference to work that uses some sort of mechanism for easier duplications and also leaves less room for unique, handmade marks. For example, Benjamin explains the technical innovations throughout art history (up to the 1930’s) that led to a more systematic, mechanical approach to art. Painting and sculpture were soon replaced by more rapid and practical methods, such as printmaking and photography. Some of these changes came from needing more rapid, practical approaches to art as it was no longer only relevant in a gallery or museum but also for mass communication. Benjamin expresses that mechanical reproduction frees art from its dependence on ritual and art begins to be based instead on politics.
As an artist that is not only immersed in photography, but also in digital media, I appreciate art being “emancipated” from constraining tradition. Although obvious politics are not at the center of my work, I still take advantage of art being outside of the gallery or museum and prefer new modes of dissemination and exhibition. This includes showing work online and in public spaces. Also as an artist concerned with sharing stories, duplication is crucial to communication and dissemination.
I can stand in front of a painting by Michaelangelo or under the stained glass details of the San Chappelle Cathedral and feel the aura Benjamin describes. I can also find a video online that leaves me speechless. I appreciate how far art has come since the 1930’s when Benjamin wrote this famous manifesto. We can experience art in many ways and in many places today. I hope that Benjamin (and Adorno) would agree and appreciate this as well. After all, the mechanical reproduction that he speaks of is a specific form of artistic evolution that is inherent in the production of art. Art has always relied on some enabling technologies; it is what we do with these technologies and the dissemination of art that can and has changed. And the politics of art are embedded in these realms of production and distribution, rather than in production and distribution itself.
