Tagged: knowledge

MANOVICH-ING

Lev Manovich’s words on the Database As Symbolic Form.

This is quite a fascinating subject, I really haven’t come across this idea before. Manovich begins with the proposition that after the novel, cinema privileged narrative as the key form of cultural expression (of the modern age). Today, a ‘computer age’ introduces the database; new media objects that do not tell stories nor contain beginnings or ends but exist as collections of individual items. Database as form. He asks:

What is the relationship between database and another form that has traditionally dominated human culture – narrative?

Manovich is talking about new media’s affordances which appear as computerised collections of items on which users can view, navigate and search; popular multimedia encyclopedias, CD-ROMS as storage devices that have become cultural products and DVDs. The term database, originating out of the computer sciences, is dryly defined as a structured collection of data… Data is stored for fast search and retrieval by a computer, so a database ultimately becomes far more complex than a simple collection of items. Different of types databases (hierarchical, object-oriented etc.) use different models to oirganise data.

Anyways, the important point is that users of new media experience database-like engagement at a basic level. I’m thinking about how I love my Mac’s nifty top-right magnifying glass that so easily let’s me search my entire computer for random files: using only the keyword ‘McLuhan’ I can find in seconds an essay I wrote five years ago on Marshall McLuhan that doesn’t even mention the word in the title of the document. Also, that document is buried so far down in the deep depths of my unorganised Documents folder, there’s no way I’m finding that baby going the long way.

Other than my actual computer, Manovich focuses on newer media. CD-ROMS (digital storage media) – still kinda computery. Wikipedia (popular multimedia encyclopaedias) – also kinda computery. A non-computer-but-new-media example of database he mentions is the DVD. Maybe because they contain menus with subtitle / commentary options? Chapter selection? Well yeah, it is pretty freaking basic, and the only difference is that it can be read on a special computer called a DVD player.

I don’t get what’s special about databses if they are still requiring the use of computer. Doesn’t that mean databases are the same ole’ computer science gadget as always? Maybe they’re being made more broadly engage-able and less IT Guy In The Basement through the employment by new media, like the Museum Tour CD-ROM Manovich goes on about.

Where does narrative come into all of this? Yep, I’l keep reading.

The Atlantic is a wicked resource that I like very much. While snooping, I came across a highly relevant article on the digital reference book, particularly the definitive history of surfing titled The Encyclopaedia of Surfing by Matt Warshaw (2003).

“The difference between the book and the website is sort of like when Dorothy first gets to Oz,” Warshaw explained to me with obvious glee. “Her black and white world is all of the sudden in bright technicolor.”

The article’s author, Mark Lukach describes the practical extinction of ye ole paper encyclopedia:

Reference books, if not fully extinct, are certainly on their last, choked gasps of breath. After a 244 year run, Encyclopedia Britannica stopped printing in 2010, and now focuses solely on its digital encyclopedia, in an effort to compete with Wikipedia.

CHRIS ARGYRIS DOUBLE LOOP WHA???

Week 1’s reading was a tome that outlined the research of Chris Argyris into theories of action, double-loop learning and organisational learning.

It was somewhat dense and essentially, applied psychology to a business/organisation context. Keeping in mind direction from the Networked Media blog to find my own ‘take way idea‘, I did.

I identified with Argyris’ Model I association of behavior – at its most basic, a primal mode of survival:

The primary action strategy looks to unilateral control of the environment and task plus the unilateral protection of self and others. As such Model I leads to often deeply entrenched defensive routines.

Here I made a link to the psychology and craft of acting as espoused (there’s that word) by guru and coach to the stars, Ivana Chubbuck. Her method is absolutely grounded in the human condition’s will to win – apparently she’s done some empirical research (a la Chris Argyris). Perhaps more explicitly, and this sounds like something straight out of an acting class:

Acting defensively can be viewed as moving away from something, usually some truth about ourselves.

Some of my favourite performances from cinema find their climax when a character is forced to come to terms with that which they have denied or defended for an entire film. Dustin Hoffman embodies this idea as Michael Dorsey in Tootsie (1982), who denies his true identity when he, a struggling actor, ‘makes it’ by performing under a guise as Dorothy Michaels. As such, this modus operandi is said to hold us back from potential for growth and learning is impaired.

Double-loop learning, the kind that occurs when one interrogates the very value system from which they approach problems from, can only occur in Model II behaviour. This is where Networked Media operates, particularly with blogs.

Blogs allow for reflection because of their nifty Archiving properties and date/time stamps. The way we are encouraged to use these bloggy spaces in Networked is to ‘weave’ information between it and other social media spaces. In doing so, we can challenge/upset/question old media and learning practices, by defining/creating/evolving new ones, and gain a greater understanding through that. Double-loop / Model II learning will:

Encourage open communications, and…publicly test assumptions and beliefs.

In slapping regular posts up to these blogs, it is hoped that we can draw inferences between all of our subjects, further enriching other studies too.