Databases and narratives

In the Manovich reading, the discussion on the proliferation of databases on the Internet reminded me of Facebook and the recipe/cooking blogs I frequent. On Facebook, we can catalog photos, our statuses, the pages we like, etc., which is so very useful. Blogs, as well, are able to keep an archive of their past entries. Cooking blogs in particular are able to index their recipes for easy referencing. Databases, essentially.

Further into the reading, Manovich speaks of the relationship between cinema and his theories on databases and narratives. Cinema is said to be a “linear pursuit” where one story is told chronologically at any given point in time. However, in actuality, it exists in the intersection between database and narrative.

I’m doing Broadcast Media this semester as well and have had to work on TV and radio productions. For the TV production especially, we had to film the various scenes separately, in a non-chronological order. But of course, the fine cut would have to be edited such that it is, in fact, chronological. In other words, we had first to compile a database – a collection of individual items – before structuring a narrative. It’s a very tricky matter and by no means easy.

Manovich also references Dziga Vertov’s film, Man with a Movie Camera, which you can find here:

In a way, Vertov has structured his film both as a database and a narrative – a skill Manovich thinks new media designers should master. Manovich states that in Vertov’s film, the new techniques used to obtain images and manipulate them can be used to “decode the world”. This database is accompanied with a narrative – which refers to the process of discovering these new techniques. In doing so, he made the traditionally “boring” database into a database-narrative hybrid that is more engaging.

It’s a bit to take in and I remain slightly confused, but I somewhat understand what Manovich is getting at. I just needed to rephrase and contextualize what he wrote, so it’s easier to digest. I’ll probably be clearer about that once I watch the movie in its entirety. Hope you enjoy it!

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