Reading the articles for the first and second week of the course, I chose those related to multimedia and digital art to write and review. Talking about digital art while its background as a form of digital media is studied would be influential to understand its creation, features and trends. To understand better the trends of digital art and history, it is negligible to have a look at the trend of web and its revolution from a pure science to art and design. Before designers invade the web and graphical browsers produce, web was seen just as a source of content. Form did not have a role in the eyes of structuralists. After production of Mosaic as the first graphical browser for the web, designers were more involved in creation of web pages. As images and later on videos were emerged to the web content, web began to have huge audience as a source of information and entertainment. Thus, web commenced to have visual communication with users by interplaying of words and images (Bolter & Gromala 2003).
One of the main results of this visual communication is considering user experience toward media. As audience was attracted by form and content of web pages, producers began to see how to facilitate the content with visual means to be able to send the message clearly. Additionally, how users are influenced by the message and how they are affected by it, they began to take care of user experience design. Thus the relationship between digital technology and the user gained attention by then. In this regard, digital art follows the same logic: “such digital art can be the purest form of experimental design”. In fact, the trend of new technologies show that nowadays it is pointless to separate form and content from each other. Art and design today is the inseparable part of information technologies especially those aim to have bigger audience. Interactive experiences now are part of an effective design and in many cases from digital artists’ point of view, interaction is considered to be influential in their successful design (Bolter & Gromala 2003).
As digital media is a convergence of computing and media technologies, we should consider the features of computing and better to say numerical data on media. Digital media as the features of production is different from traditional media; existing media is translated to numerical data to be accessible by computers. New media or digital media is the result of this revolution which made them computable. This feature gives some principles to new media that should be understood by those who is working with modern media technologies. I discuss the principles of new media here because understanding them is necessary for discussion over digital art. As artist of an digital art form accordingly handle numerical data as well (Manovich, 2001).
According to Manovich (2001), principles of new media consist of five factors:
1. Numerical Representation All digital media objects are numerical it means that they are made of digital codes. These media objects are either produced by computer or converted from analog media sources. Accordingly new media objects are described mathematically and also their algorithm can be manipulated, it means by manipulation of algorithm they van be changed easily. “In short, media becomes programmable”.
2. Modularity Media objects are independent by composing particular elements. Each media element like picture, sound, shapes and so on are a collection of samples like pixels, polygons, scripts and such. It means that if the scale of these objects changes they stay identical and have the same behavior as they have “fractal structure”.
3. Automation By means of modularity and numerical features of new media, it is possible to remove human from the process and make media creation to be automotive. For instance removing noise form a sound tract can be done automatically by special software.
4. Variability Again modularity and numerical features of new media has an effect on the creation of new media which makes it variable. The result is not a fixed object, can be changed and have numerous versions. An example has brought here is hypermedia which allows users to create and manipulate the flow of information by change of relational links.
5. Transcoding The author of the article names this feature as the most substantial consequence of media’s computerization. He declares that although computerized media is a form of computer data, it is still structured and understandable by human. This is the result of transcoding which is one way to software theory and another way to new media theory. For instance, interface and database, as practices of human-computer interface is a way to present the new media objects.
Considering all the features of new media would help to understand the basic components of a digital artifact or object. Nowadays, an artist who aims to create an installation by means of new media or simply create a digital object needs to be aware of these principles which make the process of creation totally different form traditional ways of media production.
References:
Bolter, Jay David; Gromala, Diane (2003). Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency. Massassuchets: MIT Press.
Manovich, Lev. (2001). The Language of New Media. – Chapter “What is New Media?” (pp. 43-65). Massassuchets: MIT Press.
Interactive Media 