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The concept of new media has thus emerged and entails an amalgamation of two distinct historical paths: computing and media technology (Manovich p.1).
These two phenomena have contributed to the emergence of contemporary media technologies that facilitate the storage of sounds, images, image series and text utilizing diverse materials- film stocks, photographic plates, and gramophone documents.
Consequently, the conversion of whole still pictures into motion images using computer graphics has been realized (Manovich p.2).
The identity of media has transformed significantly over years. The whole new media objects, whether generated from scratch on computers or transformed from analogue media fonts, comprises of digital code. This fact has two vital outcomes: one, new media items can be illustrated mathematically.
For example, an image can illustrated through a mathematical function; two, new media images can be manipulated using algorithms. For example, by using suitable algorithms, sound can be automatically eliminated from a photo, locate the outlines of the shapes, enhance its contrast, or alter its size.
In nutshell, media arts have become programmable. Modularity, also known as fractal structure of new media, is a novel technology used in media arts. Media elements, such as sound, are depicted as sets of discreet sample (Manovich p.2).
These elements-sounds, shapes, images or behaviours- are amassed into large scale objects although they preserve their distinct identities. The modular make-up of a media object and the numerical coding of media art enable the computerization of various operations engrossed in media creation, manoeuvring and access.
Therefore, human characteristics can be alienated from the creative process to some degree. For instance, Photoshop converts pictures into Van Gogh’s.
Currently, media experts are developing what is known as ‘high level’ automation of media design, which will enable a computer to recognize, to a certain level, the language entrenched in the objects being created (Manovich p.2).
As the 20th century came to a conclusion, majority of online users were familiar with software that produced human conversation. Researchers at New York University were able to develop practical plays that featured inherent actors.
These actors would modify their acts in real-time when a player altered his deeds. The MIT Media Lab designed several diverse projects dedicated to high level computerization of media design and use: a smart camera that, when given a screenplay, mechanically follows the action and structures the shots; ALIVE, a practical environment where the user interrelates with animated actors; and a new type of human behaviour.
The character, produced by a computer instantaneously, converse with the user via a natural language; it also attempts to deduce the user’s emotional status and to alter the mode of communication appropriately (Manovich p.2).
The historical perspective of media art and computer graphics
The history of media art is place in a course of the pedigree of the media technology as opposed to art history. For example, in The Automation of Sight: From Photography to Computer Vision, Manovich discusses the innovation of perspective to computer made images. He also consigns this path within a history of automation.
The architect of the algorithm which makes perspective reproduction on computer a reality had a noble objective than merely generating a tool for art. The computer should thus be able to render and understand 3-D images via a blueprint of recognition.
Therefore, the project of 3-D computer created images was a component of the project of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the framework of Cold War (Medosch p.27). The field of AI emerged in 1980 via unified practical and theoretical efforts in cybernetics, computer science and biology re-defined as life science.
The cybernetic sphere had facilitated the parallelisation of organic and non-organic systems as open and variable processes. Both organic and nonorganic processes can be conceptualized as comprising of changeable components whose features can be devised with respect to communication and theoretical models.
This enables life to be integrated with technology (Medosch p.21). Lev Manovich argues that the artistic principles employed in new media art were invented by German and Russian film makers in 1920. For example, the film ‘The Man with a Movie Camera, can be used as a blueprint to understand the language of new media art (Medosch p.28).
According to Manovich, computers are interactive by their design and he argues further that all forms of media art are interactive in principle.
His thesis essentially dismisses interactivity as a field synonymous with media art. By ignoring interactivity and establishing the screen as the key feature of new media art, Manovich posit that Russian avant-garde movies established the groundwork for media art.
He seems to propose that artistic innovation stopped over 70 years ago. The innovative strategies in the 1920s of zooms, pans, montage, and of the unshackled and accelerated kino-eye have turned out to be the list of options in Photoshop.
The U.S. software designers are merely offering the public with watered-down menu access to the artistic innovation of the early 1920s (Medosch p.29).
Batchen Geoffrey censures Manovich for using cinema as the main conceptual lens via which the language of new media is addressed, overlooking the historical development of telegraphy and photography.
The exploit of 35mm rejected motion picture by Zuse, the German architect of the computer, is sufficient proof for Manovich to accept the fact that the entire present media transformed into numerical data available for the computer (Medosch p.29).
Batchen states that “the plausibility of this particular historical metaphor depends on two particular claims: 1, that computing and photo-media have no interaction until the 1930s and 2, that cinema is the key to any understanding of the forms and development of new media” (Medosch p.29).
Batchen’s account demonstrates the close relationship of the histories of telegraphy, photography and computer. According to Medosch, four interconnected technologies and their conceptual tools-mechanical weaving, photography, photo-mechanical printing and computing-were initially envisaged in the 19th century and thus must be comprehended with respect to modernity, which implies industrialism, patriarchy and colonialism (p.29).
Medosch claim that Cubist, Futurist, Cub futurist, Dadaist and supremacist were the theoretical forerunners of media art. The new media art form that emerged after World War II- Fluxus, Pop Art, action painting, performances and actions- were employed as media platforms to set the centre stage for the liberated digital image (p.30).
However, Christine Paul contradicts this assertion by alleging that the concept of interactivity and virtuality in media art were discovered by artists such as Marcel Duchamp with respect to objects and their optical effects.
Paul posits that the contribution of Duchamp was highly influential within the sphere of digital art due to a transformation from object to concept. She devises a lineage of digital art that differs from Manovich’s by laying emphasis on the effect of Duchamp through an OULIPO, French writers to conceptual art.
The conceptual connection here is that OULIPO writers, Duchamp and Fluxus artists habitually generated art works that were grounded on the implementation of a set of rules, which are comparable to computer algorithm.
This observation is augmented by Peter Suchin who asserted that the nature of art in1960, amassed under the shared heading of Conceptual art is a vital determinant of the contemporary new media art practises.
Other conceptual connections between art activities in the past and the current media art centred on the exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity, at the ICA, London in 1968.
On the contrary, there is no connection between the emergence of cybernetic art in 1960 and its resurfacing in980. Moreover, there is minimal connection Burnham’s Software Art show and the software art in 2005 (Medosch p.30).
Distinctive features of new media art: The principle of variability
One distinctive feature of new media art is that it can be expressed in diverse unlimited versions due to the effects of modular structure of the object and numerical coding of media. Previous cinema involved computer experts who manually assembled optical, documentary and audio features into a logical sequence.
New media art, in contrast has an element of changeability that enable media objects to generate several versions. Instead of being generated entirely by humans, these versions are usually amassed in part by a computer. Therefore, the principle of changeability is highly related to automation.
Variability would also not be feasible in the absence of modularity. Media elements preserve their distinct features and can be amassed in to several series under program control. Moreover, since the elements are split into concrete samples- for example, an image is displayed as an assortment of pixels), they can be generated and modified on the fly (Manovich p.3).
Thus, the principle of variability is vital in that it allows the combination of numerous critical features of new media that may appear unconnected at first sight. Specifically, popular new media compositions such as interactivity, branching and hypermedia can be viewed as examples of the principle of variability.
For instance, during branching interactivity, the user ascertains the sequence in which elements are accessed. This is the easiest type of interactivity. The complex types are also likely where the structure and elements of the object are altered or produced on the fly in reaction to the user’s interface with a program (Manovich p.4).
The selection of ready-made elements to form part of the content of a new media object is merely one facet of the ‘logic of selection’. As the designer develops the object, he also naturally selects and uses a number of filters and ‘effects’.
All these filters, whether altering image facade, generating a conversion between moving images, or using a filter to a piece of music, entail algorithmic alteration of the present media object or its components (Manovich p.7).
The technological shift from a material object to a signal achieved by electronic technologies signalled a fundamental conceptual move towards computer media.
The phrase ‘digital compositing’-commonly used in the area of new media- is defined as the process of merging a series of moving images and possibly still pictures, into a solo series with the aid of special compositing software for example Cineon (Kodak), Adobe (After Effects) and Wave front (Compositor).
Digital compositing signifies a common operation of computer culture- amassing several elements to generate a distinct seamless object. Thus, it is feasible to discriminate compositing in the general sense from compositing in limited way by accumulating motion pictures to produce moving images (Manovich p.8).
The link between the artistic of postmodernism and the operation of selection is related to compositing. These two processes concurrently facilitate the current practise of quotation and pastiche. One function is used to choose styles and elements from the database of culture while the other is used to amass them into new objects.
The basis of the postmodern artistic in 1980s and the rationale of the computer based compositing in 1990s are dissimilar. For example, in 1980s, the past references and media quotes were preserved as separate elements and boundaries between elements were defined aptly.
This aesthetic matched the early digital and electronic tools of the era, for example, DVE, keyers, video switchers and computer graphics cards with a restricted colour resolution. These tools allowed hard-edge copy and paste operations but not silky, multilayer composites (Manovich p.8).
The use of computer graphics to generate special effects
The contemporary proliferation of special effects in Hollywood film industry has brought about the age of digital revolution. Digital technology has been praised as a revolutionary phenomenon in the history of media arts.
A cursory analysis of media technology shows that substantial research is devoted the social, economic and political effects of the virtual reality, internet, and other types of new media. For example, the use of computer graphics in Avatar has taken cinema industry to new heights of technological innovations, especially in the IMAX 3D.
Cameron, the director of Avatar, employed game-changing special effects. For instance, in The Abyss, the producers developed whole digital 3-dimensional effects in the movie.
In Judgement Day, the producer created digital characters with human traits that had practical movement while in Titanic; unique effects were generated using modern computer technologies to create an impression of a large mass of water (Eisenberg p.2).
In the same manner we cannot indulge in a discussion about suspense without referring to Hitchcock, we cannot discuss the evolution of computer graphics without talking about Tron Legacy.
While Hitchcock pioneered the use of animated 3D CGI, Tron Legacy used new technology comprehensively, including more than 10 minutes of totally computer generated images. In the Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982), the movie director was able to create black holes using green lines and arcs.
Next, the computers were able to replicate millions of year’s value of planetary evolution in a short span of time. This special effect was developed by Lucas Film’s Computer Graphic department and involved the use of microscope to create minute features of the movie, especially with regard to the placing of stars as observed from the camera’s viewpoint, light-years away.
The landscape is also the first time in cinema industry where a fractal generated scene was employed to simulate practical landscape (Eisenberg p.4).
In the movie The Matrix (1999), the producers were able to use numerous cameras placed on an arc around the scene (also called green screen).
The cameras were synchronized to generate the appearance of slow motion. Although this effect was employed previously in Blade, it was the application of interpolation software that enabled the Wachskis to slot in CGI outlines that made the motion extremely fluid.
In the movie Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001), the producers employed A.I. to create digitalized movie characters. One of the special effect was the movie’s colossal orc army. It is obvious that the producers could not have employed over 99,000 extras required to bulk up the army’s ranks; instead, they created digital orcs with brains.
By employing a computer software known as MASSIVE (Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment), the producer was able to generate thousands of orcs at no cost (Eisenberg p.6).
In ‘The Legible City’ by Shaw Jeffery, the user takes a ride on a domestic trainer bicycle and goes through a 3-D city of words and sentences displayed before him. The structural design is based on real cityscapes in which the shape and size of letters matches with those of buildings.
In the Manhattan edition (1989) the manuscript tell over seven different narratives, from ex- mayor Koch to Donald Trump to a cab driver.
The piece is said to ascertain an express relation between real and abstract city whereby the textual element of the city virtually deciphers the features of hypertext and hypermedia into structural design where readers create their own story by selecting paths via the non hierarchical text warren.
The art work thus shows post modern theories about textuality and offers user a first hand of cyberspace. In the ‘The Legible City’, the planet is viewed as text, a proposition that has been propagated by post modern philosophers (Medosch p.36).
Machinima movies-the creation of animated movies in real time via the use of computer game technology-have altered game play via performance, subversion, spectatorship, and modification.
The manner in which previous machinima projects described the unification of animation; filmmaking and game development has been enlightening. They definitely educate us something concerning the impact of advancement in game technology and computer graphics (Lowood p.1).
The phrase ‘machinima’ was taken from ‘machine cinema’. It thus implies the creation of animated movies in real-time by using a special software to design and play computer games. The game creators’ uses software called game engines to control complex real-time graphics, camera views, lighting and other facets of their game.
Games are interactive; pre-rendered computer graphics has narrow use in software that must instantly respond and reshape the screen in response to player action (Silva p.3). Games such as first person shooters increase the stakes of this technological challenge.
In order to plunge the player in the swift action of the game, the virtual environment must be rendered in 3-D format from the user’s viewpoint, constantly, doing so at high frame-rates as the user moves through that space. Ever since 1990s, specific software and hardware solutions have been used to create these views on the fly (real-time).
Machinima creators have discovered ways to re-deploy this intricate software for producing movies, relying on their knowledge of the games and game software.
Starting as players, they discovered that they could convert themselves into directors, actors and even cameras to generate these animated movies cheaply on a personal computers employed to frag friends and monsters in Quake or Doom.
Of late, as machinima develop artistically and technically, the inventors are now focussing on how to use the technology efficiently to generate animated films that compete with digital frame-based methods (Silva p.3).
Throughout the 20th century, the conceptualization of 19th century insinuation of what would emerge later as computing machinery was basically not documented. Other than electronic arts and IT disciplines, there was obviously little interest with regards to the development of computer based art.
However, the interface between computing and arts began to emerge, from the period John Whitney used analogue computer to create animation in 1958 to Edward Zajac’s computer made movie five years later. The combination of media art and computer graphics was more prominent in the 1990s.
However, its significant progress was evident as a result of a richer and extensive durability of technology and media art.
The concept of amalgamating electro-mechanical processes with fine and applied arts and architecture liberated the theory of an idiosyncratic contemporary and homogenous tradition based on the complex relationship between human and machine, science and art (popper p.11).
Complementing its substantial retrospective, Phantasmagoria included latest work by new media artists Toshio Iwai and Agnes Hegedus and places their contribution within the spectacle and magic of Melies pioneering films.
As a matter of fact, Callas and Watson noted that the creative contributions of these new media artists revitalize admiration and delight experienced by the initial movie audience in Melies ‘magic movie’.
If early movie was a historical perspective in which it was appropriate to situate these modern artists operating with interactive media, it was also manifest to both Watson and Callas that if Melies was alive today, he would not fail to adopt the digital pleasure offered by computer graphics and virtual reality (Hughes p.6).
The convergence of media arts and computer technology has played a significant role in the advancement of film industry, especially with respect to motion pictures.
The ability to use computer graphics to generate special effects as seen in movies such as Avatar, Troy and Lords of the Rings have taken the cinema industry to unprecedented level.
The game creators’ have used special software called game engines to control complex real-time graphics, camera views, lighting and other facets of their game.
So as we sit back to enjoy watching animated characters in a movie, we should remember that the major achievements seen in the media arts industry is due to computerisation of the processes involved in creating moving image.
Works Cited
Eisenberg, Eric. How Avatar Happened: Light cycles and Giant Lizards on the path to Innovation. Dec 15 2009. Web.
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change. London: BBC Publishing, 1993. Print
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. New York: The MIT Press, 2001. Print
Medosch, Armin. Technological Determinism in Media Art. Sussex: Sussex University, 2005. Print
Lowood, Henry. “High-Performance Play.” The Making of Machinima. Stanford: Stanford University.
Popper, Francis. Art of the Electronic Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993.
Silva, Michelle. Digital Alchemy; Matter and Metarphosis in Contemporary Digital Animation and Interface Design. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2005.
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