questions for the man....ovich

For the time being, I will write out the questions I had for one Lev Manovich in response to “The Forms”

On page 215, Manovich writes that within computer culture “the user navigates through a virtual space both to work and play, whether analyzing scientific data or killing enemies in Quake”. While I can understand the main point behind this, my first reaction was – that doesn’t exactly add up. In games, there is a created “world” and sphere that is virtual and navigable – with databases and scientific information, I get the vibe that there is not so much of a difference between the virtual experience and the real experience of looking at pure information. I’d think the graphs tables and such would be just on a screen as opposed to within a book – and while that is indeed different in many wanys, it didn’t seem so comparable to computer game worlds, personally.

Could someone explain to me the boiled-down theories of Nietzche, Lyotard, Berners-Lee that Manovich blithely references on 219, and what they have to do with how we structure a database to reflect our understanding of ourselves? I can’t follow the argument there, how a database is a metaphor of sorts – and whatever Manovich means by developing “a poetics, aesthetics, and ethics of this database.” I have this notion that a database is just a whole bunch of information that one can search through, like my papa’s database of family tree info or of all his pirated VHS titles…

What’s a terabyte? (224)

Is that claim about porno sites using the same images really true? (225) If so, that seems really sad to me…

On the bottom of 231, Manovich explains how when all of a user’s options are present, the complete paradigm is visibly present to a user, neatly arranged. “This is another example of how new media make explicit the psychological processes involved in cultural communication.” Say what?

233 – I can’t fully comprehend this database complex chapter, and I definitely don’t get the Metz reference… Is the argument kinda along the lines that because cinema isn’t portable/organizable like photos, it is not an ideal media for storage purposes?

237 – “we want new media narratives, and we want these narratives to be different from the narratives we have seen or read before.” …. We do? Who’s we? And in terms of cinematic narrative, television narratives, books, what? I can think of some examples, but I am not so well versed in new media narratives (besides what we studied in MS 149, and I felt those went over my head for the most part).

I love Peter Greenaway and believe that Manovich did him NO justice whatsoever in the dropping of The Draughtsman’s Contract. I dunno if this is just me taking it personally, but he left many things unsaid about this film, and about “cinema within cinema” and how the mentioned drawings in the film affect the narrative…. What gives? I couldn’t see the tie in with his brief discussion of the film, and it could’ve been because I am familiar with it (and really like it), or it could’ve been because he was vague as fuck.

Okay, Manovich. On 243, you lost me when you jumped to your conclusion that Vertov’s effects acquire meaning? Even though you explain it thereafter, I saw Man with a movie Camera, and I didn’t get the same feeling as you, and would appreciate you explaining it a bit more. A true orgy of cinematography, the database as dynamic and subjective?

Ooh, and for once, I think I have a basic answer to a question Manovich poses on 252 – “Why does computer culture spatialize all representations and experiences?” Doesn’t it HAVE to, because computers function as a primarily visual format? Or am I just simplifying this to the extreme?

273 – correlating the flaneur of Baudelaire to Netscape and the frontier-y explorer of American authors to Internet explorers? Come on. What’s THAT about?

And just some food for thought on things mentioned on 280 – about architects accepting how users modify their designs to suit personal needs. That just got me thinking about on-campus architecture and how it’s changed by students – especially the Smith Campus Center, personally.