Lev Manovich's Language of New Media

In Sharon's Context & Review class, Mhairi and I read some material about Lev Manovich, a professor of Visual Art. Here is something about his concept of new media.

For the definition of new media,  Professor Manovich think that the common idea that 'the use of a computer for distribution and exhibition rather than production' is to limiting.  He argues that the computer media revolution affects all stages of communication and all types of media, which is full of possibility and  allow us to do media, such as texts, images and sound in a completely different way.

To further his theory, he states the five principles of new media---numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding. I'm deeply impressed by the words of automation and variability.  Nowadays, computer technique  allow us to find out the preference of our audiences,  analysis them and show the difference works they really want. As for my project, which aims at visualizing the data of personal interest, I could create a profile for the user and find out their needs automatically, thus provide them variety of visualisation.

As for practice, Pro. Manovich created some great project for cinematograph, which means 'writing movement'. You can visit his works though images and video.

ImagePlot by Lev Manovich

Reference:
Lev Manovich. (2001) The Language of New Media, London, The MIT Press Cambridge