Principles of New Media

Other clever guys on New Media..

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:17:04 +0000

Jon Ippolito
Variability as a basic condition of new media
An artist can vary his artwork in every sense, even its content
The data itself converts into property: the projects made by e.g. an artist will then be linked with her name (e-g- Madonna)
Source of data – derived data from the prototype e.g Star Wars as a base project the original trilogy – derived data commercials, plastic figures in happy meal menus, video games blogs, forums about it etc. it can work the other way around the film ‘Doom’s “base” object being the video game.

Marcos Novak (new media theorist an architect)
Variability appeared with the computers’ more and more representation of data
New media tries to substitute each constant with a variable
Provide more choices for the users e.g. profile of a game character, changing the development of a plot

Grahame Winebren
Interactive media – choices as moral responsibilities

Principle of variability

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:10:52 +0000

a technical change that results in a historical, social change as well
Old media – industrial mass society, values like conformity
New media – post industrial society, vales like individuality
Industrial: everyone had to consume the same goods, several identical copies of things
Postindustrial: ppl can customize their lives, they have number of choices – same with websites – customized websites in the sense of advertisements

Hype!

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:02:43 +0000

Definition of Halasz and Schwarz for hypermedia systems
users are free to create, rearrange, manipulate network of information via relational links. E.g. hyperlinking individual elements (photos, texts) and creating a network of connections from them. This linking of info can be compared to the network of computers, which in a bigger sense created the Internet.

Chomsky’s early linguistic theory
o Structure of hyperlinks: the structure itself can be created, independently from the content
o Hypermedia structure – connection between structure of sentences
o Hypermedia text – a particular sentence from a natural language
oProgramming example:
- A program consisting sequences of steps
- And hypermedia arranges the connection between the steps

Cases for variability principle

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:57:35 +0000

o databases – Manovich will later discuss this, different ways how the user organizes the data
o different interaces can be created from the same data (one design, another)

o costumizing according to your hardware (what os you use, what browser, whether you download a site via mobile phone or a pc)
o branching-type activity – you have several choices provided by a webpage’s menu, and by choosing you sort of generate the content e.g webpages with sitemaps, etr. Dif parts like branches of a tree
o hypermedia – when parts of a website is just hyperlinked, not connected physically. E.g you implement a youtube video into your blog post hypertext: same char features, but only text based content
o updatability – software that automatically download the latest content of a website rss feeds. Web sites
o scalability – dif versions of a media hi-resolution, low resolution – e.g. you watch a trailer of a film and you can choose the quality that fits to your connection speed the best. Quicktime – automatically selects the best

example: fitting image scalability example
- scalability of films – from the whole film till each shot, you can choose how deep you want to look into the film’s structure example: Hitchcock’s Birds

Variability (intro)

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:46:37 +0000

A new media object: Not fixed, Infinite number of different versions

Old media: Made manually, copies could be made, but all identical to fit the industrial society

New media

In part automatically made by computer

Templates can be made, and end-users can fill it with info

e.g. blog engines: design, rss, comment system is created, the user just has to type the post in

the structure is created, end even its elements can be modified to some extent

“production on demand” “just in time delivery” – you make a webpage the computer generates e.g. the webpage, result is right in front of you

e.g when you load a website you already download a customized version of the site (language, time, etc.)

Searching

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:43:32 +0000

Several way of searching:
- Filtering: according to the user’s criteria
- Using the expertise of other users
- Other filters trying to find out the possible interest o the user
- Footprints: relying on other ppl’s help to find what you’re looking for

Problem: how to find an object that already existed swhere
That’s why photo archieves, film libraries, audio archieves emerged
Hungarian: NAVA nemzeti audio-vizuális archivum

Google maps: spotting neighborhoods according to how many robberies, murderers were committed in that area.

- Organizing media material
Hierarchical file system
Meta-data base. You have the file system, create tags, virtual folders.
Concept is: you don’t have to know the exact place of the object,
For this you need a more advanced search engine.

Storing and accessing media data

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:38:19 +0000

Another area of media use: Computers as storing and accessing media data
- Database of stock agencies (see pic)
- If it is stored another problem occurred like how to classify, search and browse them
- In text files it has long been solved how to search them
- Later it was also possible to search image files according to their similrities
- Now its also possible to search video files and index them
- Indexing: google had this idea that users were asked whenever they have free time they
- Can index pictures like the see one picture and just quickly type in the first word that comes to their mind.

Artifial Intelligences

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:19:51 +0000

Most ppl first met AIs in computer games
o Those ai-s have well defined tasks, but these tasks are quite limited.
o There are several rules according to which they function, but this is also true for the user himself
o They’re able to attack and to some extant respond.
o Due to these limited circumstances whether you play against humans or ai-s it makes no difference (not counting conversation) cause both of their actions are rule-based
o Second Life and the problem with it. Too fast commercialized, no rules for it, child porn..

High-level automation

principlesofnewmedia — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:53:03 +0000

- Artificial Intelligence projects: are about programs recognizing meaning.
o So long there has been limited success in this area
o Still research needed in this field, like better understanding of semantics.
o Bots in chat rooms
- Keep the rules of channels
- Provided with some basic knowledge of a natural language
here you can chat with a nice one

o Virtual theatre: virtual actors respond to user’s actions
o Smart camera: that follows the motion and frames the shot
o ALIVE: a virtual environment, users can interact with animated characters

Automation..

principlesofnewmedia — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:09:22 +0000

meaning that human activity being removed from the creation

Depending on to what extent a process is automatized

Two types:

Low-level automation of media creation

- The user takes part in the process in a way that he uses templates and algorithms. (see the illustration drawn by algorithms)

- Photoshop provides loads of options for modifying an image
Improving contrast, 3d objects, landscapes

- the easiest: whenever you create a word document or a ppt presentation you choose from list of objects what to use and with the help of object you create something.
- whenever you browse through a webpage and you choose certain menu points, the content is automatically generated with the help of scripts and templates

- Artificial life software
o Flock of birds, crowds of colonies
o Generate literary texts

Example: there are also possibilities for you to write automatically generated blog posts