TIme Line 1

01.The Garden of Forking Paths,
Jorge Luis Borges, 1941
--Helped develop concept of hypertext
novel (def. Novel can be read in many
different ways)
--greatly influenced the first hypertext
novel Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar,
1963
02.As We May Think,
Vannevar Bush, 1945
--published in Atlantic Monthly, 1945
--Bush main creator behind the US
Military Industrial Complex during
WWII, 1940
--Bush developed first analog computing
projects at MIT
--Bush developed new ideas in
information storage, "MEMEX"
--MEMEX is a mechanized personal library
in the shape of a desk

Borges and the Internet

Although I have read “The Garden of Forking Paths” several times, but I wasn’t sure how it would work as a hypertext fiction. After reading it in this light, I felt that the story worked as an introduction to digital media on two levels. First, the internal story of Ts’ui Pen’s novel, the fictional labyrinth which branches infinitely over time, is a model for the circularity and infinite variety available through computing and the internet. Secondly, the frame story also happens to describe the context of the birth of computing, which Vannevar Bush is writing out of. It describes a situation of World War II intelligence and codes, of increased communication and global contact. It also shows an increasingly complicated world enshrouded in many layers of intellectual ambiguity. All of these themes are the same ones that contributed to the development of the first computers.
In the New York Times article, the author points to several Borges stories as containing prescient metaphors of Internet technologies. But these stories were originally intended as metaphors for ideas much more metaphysical, spiritual, and epistemological. Conversely, its interesting to think of these Internet technologies, like wikipedia or Google, and how they can be theorized as metaphors for these same ideas, as microcosms and models for human existence and thought.

Borges Documentary

Borges has been one of my favorite authors since I was a teenager. In this documentary, I was excited to see how they would adapt some of his more “new media”-y, more theoretical stories to the screen. I was a little disappointed that they stuck to fairly straightforward narratives. I would love to see images of the Library of Babel, for instance. That being said, I was interested to learn more about Borges the man, a subject I had never investigated before. It’s hard to imagine the world view of a man who is capable of coming up with narratives and metaphors that are so all encompassing and microcosmic, so maze-like but so contained. I thought the documentary did a good job of representing his background and influences. I loved seeing what he looked like and hearing him speak about himself. I was also surprised that he was so spiritual, although in retrospective this makes sense, because as disconcerting as they may be, all his stories seem to point to some higher organization and purpose. This insight gave me a new reading of the texts.

Microcosmos DVD

This movie was the perfect example of the synthesis between technology and art. Although to a certain extent this movie was a showcase of the technology, and the images are traditionally scientific in nature, they were presented and choreographed in a way that was aesthetically beautiful, constructed anthropomorphic narrative and evoked emotions. I loved the unexpected visual metaphors and the brilliant colors that were discovered by the microcosmic camera. Who would have guessed the visual similarity between a caterpillar and a Chinese lion? Who knew that a scene of a bee feeding on nectar could be so explicitly pornographic? Even more amazing than the images, which may be familiar to some from other microscopic imagery, were the sounds of the insects, which I would have not even thought of trying to imagine before. The technology seemed especially remarkable after reading Bush’s post WWII hypothesis of what a microcamera might entail, from its use of tiny film, to it’s application in miniaturizing libraries. We realize how many doors digital technology opened that would hardly have been reached from any other route.

The Engine Room

This article demonstrated how the paradigm shift inherent in the internet has been brought into the world of advertising. It reminded me of in the sixties when advertisers began to realize that the new generation didn't want to buy products to fit in but to stand out. Today's generation does not only want to be an individual, they want to interact with the media. It seems that hewlett-packard and MTV were among the first to recognize this. David Roman VP of HP, says: "We don't want it to be advertising, we want it to be real." And in digital media, he found exactly the blurry line needed between fact and fantasy to make this transformation possible.

New Media Reader introduction 2

This essay raised a lot of philosophical questions about what art, and artists are. When the author made statements like the internet is more complex, unpredictable and dynamic than any novel, or hypothesizes about a future when films will be made to tailor to the viewers preference, he ignores the agency of the artist. Although I agree that the lone artist creator may be an ideal of the past, nevertheless I think that an art work is something whose form and content is dictated by who ever created it, in order to convey a certain message or feeling. It is not just a fluid collection of anything and everything. While I also appreciated the insight that new mediums like HCI, finalcut or photoshop will become the lenses through which we view all culture, I was disturbed by his suggestion that the engineers of these technologies are the most famous artists of our times. To use an old media analogy, if you invented a new kind of printing press, you might not necessarily be the person who will use it to make the most beautiful or interesting prints. The skill set needed to develop a technology may not be the same one needed to communicate through it most effectively. But I don't even feel confident making these assertions about new media. They highlight are some of the distinctions that are broken down in Manovich's article, and as we go on, I'm sure these questions about the nature of art and the artist will be brought up again and again.

Time Line 1

01.The Garden of Forking Paths,
Jorge Luis Borges, 1941
--Helped develop concept of hypertext
novel (def. Novel can be read in many
different ways)
--greatly influenced the first hypertext
novel Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar,
1963
02.As We May Think,
Vannevar Bush, 1945
--published in Atlantic Monthly, 1945
--Bush main creator behind the US
Military Industrial Complex during
WWII, 1940
--Bush developed first analog computing
projects at MIT
--Bush developed new ideas in
information storage, "MEMEX"
--MEMEX is a mechanized personal library

in the shape of a desk