Apparently, the old Ben Franklin quote that “nothing is certain but death and taxes” will become applicable in a new way. That’s right folks, governments are beginning to think about taxing virtual assets that people acquire in virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft. I came across this article on cnet.com, which talks about the State of Play/Terra Nova symposium, a yearly conference that is held to discuss the social and economic implications of virtual worlds. According to one of the economist quoted in the article, "given growth rates of 10 to 15 percent a month, the question is when, not if, Congress and IRS start paying attention to these issues." The article goes on to talk about estate taxes, and a report that’s been commissioned for next year by the Joint Economic Committee, which will probably really get the ball rolling on all of this. The article definitely gives the sense that taxing virtual assets is inevitable (I mean, that’s basically the article’s title) and is something we shouldn’t be surprised to see in the future. It’s really interesting to see the wide scope of virtual worlds, how they have economies and other aspects that we typically attribute only to the real world. It will also be interesting to see how institutions in the real world will have to learn to interact will virtual worlds, and how we might reconcile the real and the hyperreal.

On Wednesday we talked about how Manovich sees database and narrative as “natural enemies,” i.e. conflicting ways of making sense of the world. Because of this, he says they’re in constant conflict, and each new medium that emerges privileges either one or the other (novel = narrative; photography = database; film = narrative; digital arts = database). But it seems to me that humans are inclined to look for narratives in every form of media. For instance, even with photography, which Manovich defines as a database art, people strive to construct narratives. We go to museum exhibits of photographic works that are grouped into themes, which strive to tell us a story and give us a coherent idea.

Relating Manovich to social networks part two….
Manovich contends that “all authorship that uses electronic and computer tools is a collaboration between the author and these tools that make possible certain creative operations and certain ways of thinking while discouraging others. Of course humans have designed these tools, so it would be more precise to say that the author who uses electronic/ software tools engages in a dialog with the software designers (see #4).”
I certainly had never thought of collaboration in these terms. I do have to say that to an extent, I agree with this point, especially in social networking collaborations/interactions. This would make sens then with what I discussed previously in part of one relating Manovich to Social Networks. This point of view provides the user with looking at social networks not only as a network created solely on user interactivity. But taking it a step further and considering that by using a site interface, and limiting your identity and thus connections, a person is interacting with the makers of the site. In other words, the designers made the rules/interface + you as user follow them (or not, after all you have a choice to abide or subvert them)= an interaction of people through software (the digital social network.

Manovich discusses how “collaboration over the network to create new media is the most visible example of a more general phenomenon.” He says “new media culture brings with it… new models of authorship which all involve different forms of collaboration.”

With respect to the digital social network, I believe that interactivity as collaboration in this case is indeed an example of how new technologies afford users a new form of authorship that in term results in new forms of interpersonal connections. I believe that in the network, miscommunication is avoided by limiting the identity that the users are able to create online. Networking sites limit the extent and forms of identity by designing their site interface in specific ways. In this way, sites themselves are assured that they will attract users and be able to maintain them by providing a medium “real” enough, yet not TOO real, in which users have some sort of liberty to make certain connections. In this way, the limitation is a factor in the creation of the version of the individual, or identity presented. This ensures that the success (in terms of maximized interactivity, and therefore, connections forged through the network) of the users’ online identity will be maximized. Of course, this “success” will be still be limited in terms of what kind of audience the users are attempting to attract. Nonetheless, as Manovich says, the comprehensions of the narrative, in this case the user, will be improved.

In the Manovich reading, I thought the comment of video/computers as narcissistic to be very interesting.

Now days it seems like everything is made to be personalized in some aspect or another: color, shape, size, sound. We buy ringtones, we get the pink RAZR, we put up picture wallpaper, we get those stupid jinglejangles and skins...and that's just for our cell phones! Computers are almost worse.

Let's take for instance, my computer, a.k.a. POOTER and s.k.a. OKCOMPUTER. The fact that I have such names is the first hint of its narcissistic power; of its ability to reflect an image of me within its content. On my background is a picture of my horse, Frank. Almost everyone has some sort of personalized wallpaper for their computer and almost always it is a picture of themselves. Sometimes it is an image from Digital Blasphemy, which are usually pretty neat. But I digress.

I haven't made it through all of the Lev Manovich reading yet, but some parts of what I've read are pretty exciting (mostly because, I admit, they are relevant to things I'm thinking about for my thesis). I'm really interested in what he's got to say about the narrative v. database argument, and the position new media is in to play on both teams. And the projects he describes on page 226 sound incredible...

Manovich (so far) has described the narrative & database sythesis available to new media developers as also being available to cinema and video games. He may touch on other subjects further on in the article, but I'm guessing because of some of his previous statements that he's planning on leaving literature out for good. I'm not sure, though, I think differently: what about Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities? In fact, I think that text is a great example of a synthesis between narrative and database-- Marco Polo presents descriptions of cities in a loose order to Kublai Kahn, and every 5-15 cities or so the descriptions are interrupted by short conversations between Marco Polo & Kublai Kahn which again relate only loosely & sometimes not at all to the descriptive database of cities. In addition, each city is categorized as cities & memory, cities & signs, cities & desire, thin cities, cities & eyes, etc.