We are moving away from networks to think about technical, aesthetic, computational sorts of things. About making content using computers that is computer specific (as opposed to using computers to do what we’ve always done). This week, two readings from the one anthology. This anthology is edited by Victoria Vesna, a media artist who is very interested in databases. The readings are from Lev Manovich, one of the most influential writers and makers in this area (he has recently been instrumental in establishing the new field of ‘software studies’), and Bill Seaman, an artist and theoretician interested in cognition, computing, and creative practice.

Essential

Manovich, Lev. “Database as Symbolic Form”. Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow. Vesna, Victoria, ed. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print. 39-60. (PDF)

This is what became a chapter in his seminal The Language of New Media and is about the relationship of narrative to database. The work is more refined later, but it being a bit less refined here is useful to see the ideas a bit rougher.

Extra (but very very useful in relation to the Manovich)

Seaman, Bill. “Recombinant Poetics and Related Database Aesthetics”. Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow. Vesna, Victoria, ed. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print. 121-140. (PDF)

A different take than what Manovich takes but the idea of a recombinatory practice is one of the foundations of networked experience and making. Nothing is fixed done in place or sequence in networked practice, and so it is always about recombinations of….