Don't you love it when scholars make up new terms?

My title is a little tongue-in-cheek. I always roll my eyes when I read English texts where scholars make up their own definitions for common words or make up their own words for ideas that already have words...all with the result of pulling their reader through a vocabulary matrix and long, winding definition-paragraphs. (Rather, I get annoyed when they do it unnecessarily or when they do it ineffectively.)

Manovitch has winding definition-paragraphs, but the section I'm going to paraphrase below was well done. Manovitch's prose (while it tends to wander more and more as the document goes on) is actually pretty clear to read. The words he chooses to describe the principles of new media are aptly chosen and build off the reader's intuitive understanding of the word without falling away from the definition.

Let's start with the Numerical Representation of new media objects. As his first principle, Manovitch points out that all new media objects can be represented as numerical data. All of it, every image, video, web page, disk, text document, etc., can be reduced to those little ones and zeroes we use to transfer information from one computing machine to another. This is the core of new media, the principle that allows most (if not all) of its functionality and social consequences to exist: every new media object was created using, or can be translated into, a universal language.

An example of this might be a handwritten document I scan into a computer. The document wasn't created on a computer, its lines and nuances weren't originally sampled or digitized using binary code. But as soon as I scan it into my computer, I could look at the numerical representation of that object (or have my computer look at it) and manipulate the document using the numerical data. This allows me to do precise, over-arching, and algorithmic edits on the image, like changing the color of the ink I used without rewriting or erasing the text.

A very similar principle to numerical representation is the Modularity of new media texts that Manovitch describes. Basically, digital or digitized documents have a structure where individual elements of an object are stored individually, instead of being fused with the whole. With new media, we've built legos out of smaller legos, out of smaller legos, out of smaller legos, and all the layers of legos can be shifted around and modified to change the whole piece.

My brother-in-law showed us a video this weekend of a clip from Star Wars. (I'm sure some of you have seen it by now.) It's the scene where the characters are being awarded medals for their heroics...only someone took the music away. Although the video still functions and isn't broken, the experience of watching the scene is quite different without the dramatic song playing in the background. The only sound you hear is Chewy growling, and it sounds like he's being tortured...

Now, if you have an overwhelming supply of information and objects that can be manipulated mathematically and divided into thousands of layers of component parts, this allows you to automate some aspects of new media creation. Automation, as Manovitch points out, is another defining principle of new media. It allows artists to simplify and magnify new media objects using simple and higher forms of automation.

Minecraft terrain generation is a great example of this automation. Sometimes I love just wandering and wandering for hours through an amplified Minecraft world, admiring the majestic cliffs, deep cave systems, and villages that are half-submerged in lava. None of this was sculpted or crafted by an individual. All of it comes from algorithms that randomize the generation of cubes of different materials.

 Memes are a simple but fitting example of Manovitch's principle of Variability. A new media object has the capacity for infinite alteration; it is not static. Taking a picture and adding or changing the text on it to suit the moment or to make a statement about the original picture/text is a great example of this. This behavior goes viral, and soon there are hundreds (or thousands) of variations of that original new media object.

And last, we have Manovitch's principle of Transcoding, which is basically to say that there are (at least) two categories for the coding of new media objects; new media can be interacted with through its cultural interface or its computer interface. Manovitch's commentary about the mixing of these two codes is interesting. Over time, they are becoming less separate as people become more familiar with computer code and workings. I don't think they'll ever meld together seemlessly, but it's an interesting thing to think about.

A great example of this transcoding is the text editors blog building sites use. (Like the one I'm working in right now.) I can create a post without actually typing a single bit of html code. Or I can go in and manipulate the exact presentation of the culturally-understood-and-derived text by working with the html and css, a coding system created for computers specifically.

Of all these principles, I think the principle of transcoding is a very influential drive in the computerization of our culture. As soon as you start thinking and using code as part of your natural vocabulary, the other principles start coming even more naturally. And many of our young generations grow up learning computer code because it allows them to manipulate many parts of their environment in a bigger way.