DEFINING MULTIMEDIA (2/4)

Ken Jordan
DEFINING MULTIMEDIA
(2 of 4)

[Note: This is part 2 of a paper-in-progress that grew out of my
collaboration with Randall Packer, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual
Reality (W.W. Norton, 2001, and on ArtMusuem.Net). Part 1 proposed a
definition of digital multimedia based on five core characteristics.
Comments are welcome.]


2. Microscopes and Telescopes

One reason that digital media have resisted definition to date is that they
cannot be adequately described by their materials. Bits of data are elusive
things. Because those bits of data are being recombined in media objects
through an endless variety of devices, using a constantly expanding range of
interfaces, it is a challenge to describe this emerging medium as you would
describe traditional forms, such as theater or music. Theater is something
that happens on a stage in front of an audience. Music is the organized
shaping of sound for esthetic purposes. But new media can come at you
through the Web, CD-ROMs, kiosks, CAVE's or other virtual environments,
among a seemingly endless string of delivery systems. New interfaces are
perpetually in development; many more devices are yet to come.

When we began our project four years ago, Randall Packer and I did not have
the benefit of Lev Manovich's landmark book, The Language of New Media [1].
Lev, grappling with similar questions, chose an instructive though different
route toward an answer. One notable aspect of this new medium is how it can
be accurately described in many ways – like an elephant by a group of blind
men – and that different definitions need not conflict with one another.
(In fact, Lev's definition and ours are likely complementary.) This is a
consequence of the new medium having encompassed within it three distinct
traditions: the technology of wired communications, the legacy of modern
media forms, and the history of automated computational devices. New media
is the grandchild of the telegraph, the photograph, and the Difference
Engine. It is an offspring of unlike disciplines that can sustain within
itself the legacy discourses of its constituent parts. Communications
theory, art theory, computer design, issues of governance and regulation,
telecommunications business practice, media business practice – these are
among the intellectual threads that remain relevant. Which only adds to the
challenge of definition.

Lev's approach is to look past the delivery devices to the medium's
substrata. He focuses on the essential elements that combine to constitute
digital media – the ones and zeros, the bits – and the specific ways that
the programming of these elements leads to new forms of personal expression.
In the chapter of this book titled "What Is New Media?" he proposes five
principles that determine how bits are programmed to become media objects.
First he establishes that new media objects, ultimately, are "numerical
representations." This, he writes, has two consequences: (1) that a "new
media object can be described formally (mathematically);" and (2) that a
"new media object is subject to algorithmic manipulation." He then presents
four methods by which this manipulation takes place: modularity, automation,
variability, and transcoding. These categories capture the range of options
a programmer has while determining how best to arrange and present bits from
a database.

The crucial point for Lev, which he emphasizes with italics, is that "media
becomes programmable." [2] Certainly, there are esthetic and social
consequences to the fact that we can now shape all media, in an endless
variety of formal presentations, from the same fundamental stuff. Ones and
zeros give us the opportunity to recast the same content in a multitude of
skins, each as an unique experience in itself. At the same time, our entire
media record is being digitized, with implications that are only beginning
to be addressed. Programmability introduces a potential for dynamic forms of
expression that were inconceivable before the computer. But what guarantees
that this potential will be tapped?

This is where Lev's approach has its limitations (as does every attempt at
definition, including ours). As technology progresses, and all media forms
get digitized and are indexed as programmable bits in databases – including
text, music, images, video, etc. – the distinction between the dominant
forms of traditional media and the new forms enabled by digital technology
becomes blurry. Simply because data is programmable does not guarantee that
the manner of its presentation will significantly diverge from traditional,
pre-digital media. The computer is increasingly effective at mimicking
familiar forms. The grand possibilities offered by digital media could
conceivably remain latent, never adequately programmed into its popular
implementation.

Already we can see how economic forces generously reward the creation of
software programs that present the most convincing replicas of 20th century
media (effectively maintaining the current business models of the global
media giants), while challenges to the media industry status-quo face hurdle
after hurdle.

When Moby Dick is delivered to your PDA, does that make it a work of new
media? While the delivery system might be of 21st century vintage, the work
itself – the words of Melville – remains stubbornly of the 19th. If it is
relevant that the novel has been saved in digital form at one time or
another during the production and distribution process, then the copy of
Moby Dick now on my bookshelf should also be considered new media, because
the pages of my paperback edition were typeset on a computer. Digital
production has been standard in book publishing for more than a decade. Some
might say that the critical difference is the surface material the words
actually appear on at the end of the production/distribution process; if the
words are printed on paper then it's old media, but if the words appear on a
screen it becomes new media. Today, certainly, the difference between the
two is significant. But what about in twenty years, or sooner, when the
technological challenge of electronic paper has been met, and all texts are
read on digital devices with pages that effectively replicate today's
hardcover book?

Focusing on the programmability of bits does not in itself sufficiently
address the need for a critical framework that distinguishes between digital
facsimiles that mimic the experience of pre-digital media, and emerging
media experiences that are uniquely digital. It is part of the discourse,
but only part. Why does this matter? Because the specific implementation of
digital media is still in play. If the public is satisfied by so-called new
media that does no more than replicate the old, than we will have missed an
extraordinary opportunity to enhance our tools for communication.

Programming is a method for setting rules that enables specific
manipulations of data toward the achievement of a narrowly defined range of
objectives. It is the process of putting a process in place, in order to
encourage information to behave in a particular way. What objectives will
programmers of digital multimedia be permitted to achieve by the corporate
and governmental gatekeepers who will determine the widespread
implementation of new media forms? Which particular manipulations will be
available to the mainstream, and which will be effectively disallowed? It is
too soon to say.

Our attempt at a definition began from the opposite direction than Lev's. We
started by considering the user experience, and identifying the types of
behavior that digital media enable – particularly those that are less
available, or unavailable, in other media forms. We thought less about how
bits are programmed to constitute a computer-based artwork, than about how
the user is engaged by the new media experience. Rather than using a
microscope to dissect the atomic structure of the digital object, we turned
a telescope to the night sky of new media to search for patterns of
activity. With a telescope trained on the historic work of pioneering
engineers and artists, clear patterns do indeed emerge.

[1] Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media [Cambridge: MIT Press; 2001]

[2] ibid, p. 27



————
Ken Jordan
[email protected]
212-741-6173

"Be as if." - Andrew Boyd