Response to the 5 principles of new media

The five principles of new media; numerical representation, modularity, and so on, are a good way to begin understanding the confusing world of digital media. During out last discussion we brought up the fact that digital media is a very difficult thing to define. I have the same response to this reading. New media, like all art, is nearly impossible to define, characterize, and limit. In this response, I’m going to give a brief overview of my opinion and response to the paper and then I’m going to talk about the biggest area where I think the author is a little too limited in her definition of new media.

One of the things I appreciate about this paper is that it breaks new media down to the simplest things. (However, I do feel that this is a limiting view of new media, but there’s more about that down below.) Since new media is such a broad and constantly changing medium it is incredibly difficult to define. By breaking it down to its nuts and bolts we can get a better handle on what this thing called new media is. A point that is brought up over and over again is that it all relates back to a computer. New media is inseparable from programing (although it is not defined by the computer as I will talk about below.) These 5 principles are a good way of dissecting the confusing world of new media. Even though they are “just the starting point” of understanding this medium, it is a good place to begin.

However, that being said, an overarching void in the principles of new media is the limitation to the digital world. It seems the author never saw the world of new media leaving the computer screen and climbing out into space. Many of her statements, such as “all new media objects are composed of digital code, they are essentially numerical representations,” seem a little too exclusive. While I agree that all new media requires programing viewing it only as code is a limited perspective.   While all digital media pieces have an under arching unity in their programming, the interaction and/or sculptural elements are often far more important.

Over and over again the author refers solely to Photoshop or Flash works to demonstrate the definitions of new media. I find this rather odd because we have seen images like these examples for a long time.   A better representation of new media would be some of the brand new technologies and interactive experiences that are currently in galleries and museums. A 2 dimensional image or video is not the best definition of new media. Manovich’s statement “the creative energy of the author goes into the selection and sequencing of elements rather that into original design” is not necessarily true of most new media pieces. Design is a huge part of many new media pieces. It may not be a huge part of a Photoshop assignment, but it sure is if you move the world of new media outside of the computer screen.

All in all, I enjoyed this paper and thought it was a good (although sometimes a little heavy) way of dissecting new media. The 5 principles are simple enough to understand, but complicated and deep enough to (almost) satisfy the broad world of new media.