WEEK 10 READINGS – “Database as Symbolic Form”

Lev Manovich starts by clarifying his use of the word “database.” Computer science uses databases to store and retrieve data, fast. Different types of databases such as hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented, use different models to organize data.

For example, hierarchical databases organize records in a treelike structure. Object-oriented databases store complex data structures, called “object,” into hierarchical classes that may inherit properties from classes higher in the chain.

New media objects don’t necessarily always employ sophisticated database models like the ones above, but from a user’s perspective, most new media present basic databases. Manovich says this is because they appear as a collection of items on which the user can perform various operations: view, navigate, and search. The user experience of such computerized collections is therefore quite distinct from reading a narrative or watching a film or navigating an architectural site.

Manovich uses the example of the CD-ROM to exemplify the dominance of database forms in new media. The identity of a CD-ROM as a storage media means it transforms a cultural form of its own. Multimedia works that have “cultural” content appear particularly to favor the database form. He uses the example of “virtual museums”, CD-ROMs that take the user on a “tour” through a museum collection. In this example, the museum becomes a database of images representing its holdings, which can be accessed in different ways: chronologically, by country, or by artist.

CD-ROMs and other digital storage media like floppy discs and DVDs, proved to be particularly receptive to traditional genres that already had a database like structure such as a photo album.

The Internet however, is where the database really found its groove. A Web page is a sequential list of separate elements: text blocks, images, digital video clips, and links to other pages. It is always possible to add a new element to the list—all you have to do is to open a file and add a new line. As a result, most Web pages are collections of separate elements, such as texts, images, and links to other pages or sites.

The transparent nature of the Web allows pages be edited all the time which means that websites never have to be complete. New links are being added to what is already there as sites grow with time. Users can easily add new elements to the end of a list or insert them anywhere inside.

All this further contributes to the anti-narrative logic of the Web. If new elements are being added over time, the result is a collection, not a story. Indeed, how can one keep a coherent narrative or any other development trajectory through the material if it keeps changing?