The Arguments and Propels for Disciplining New Media - Research Paper Example

Lev Manovich has argued that contemporary digital cinema is marked by 'the return of pre-cinematic moving images techniques' (1998:414). Explore the reasoning of this argument Introduction: In this analysis, we discuss the implications of new digital media and the corresponding changes to communication technology and scientific enterprise and particularly reflected through change within the technical elements of art and photography. The special focus here is cinema and considering Manovich's theory and critiques on the role of digitization as in new media and in changes affected within cinematography, we will examine the claim that contemporary digital cinema has been primarily characterised by a return to the pre cinematic moving images techniques. In this context, the cinematic techniques will be discussed along with the evolved patterns of filmmaking and we will suggest how the process of making cinema relates and coincides with the storage and creation of data using computer programming. Manovich's thesis is highlighted along with other relevant research studies in the field. Manovich's views - Digital Cinema Cinematic critic Lev Manovich has analysed the techniques of digital cinema and has argued that contemporary digital cinema is marked by pre-cinematic movement of image techniques which shows a return to earlier cinematic methods. Contemporary digital cinema seems to be characterised by interactive narrative (Manovich, 1996). Manovich however claims that the digital media helps to present narratives in a new way yet considering the discussion of the central focus of digital media, narratives according to Manovich is far from the essential element of digital storytelling (Manovich, 1996). Digital cinema seems to have redefined the identity of cinema as with digital cinema, simulation of all real events could be done without necessitating real physical space events to occur and be recorded within photographic limitations. Cinema has been seeing what is widely called a digital revolution in which the computer is used more extensively to create fictional forms and moving images in a specialised manner. According to Manovich the essence of cinema is in 'recording and storing visible data in a material form' (Manovich, 1996). Just like a computer, a film camera records cinematic data onto a film and the film projector reads it as the computer is controlled by a program and records input data. To show the essential similarities between the cinematic process and the recording of data in a computer, Manovich has claimed that digital cinema thrives on these similarities as in case of cinematic techniques; distinct mages are recorded in celluloid strips whereas in case of the computer, data is stored electronically in the form of a binary code (Manovich, 2002). A programmed computer however has been processing images and visual data even before it could process numbers. Manovich explained the relationship between a modern digital computer and the modern media to suggest that the synthesis of the two has led to the creation of the digital media. A digital computer is capable of performing calculations on numerical data more efficiently than mechanical equipments used earlier and along with the technological advancement of the computer since Turing machines, the modern media has changes in its technical aspects with regard to storage of images, processing of image sequences, sounds and text editing. The photographic images stored in the film can now be converted to numerical data which is made accessible through the computer. This has led to the rapid and successful creation of the elements of digital media such as graphics, sounds, moving images, shapes, spaces, texts, and computable data (Manovich, 2002). The digital concepts of random access, sampling, database etc are all applicable to the digital media and along with the computer, cinema has aided in manipulation of time and space, ad reduced reality in to a moving image with mechanisation of visual events (Manovich, 2002; Schwartz 2004). Cinema is completely dependent on discrete representation and Manovich discussed the implications of random access, simulation and sampling methods used in computer terminology within the gambit of cinematography (Manovich, 1996).In all his writing, Manovich has tried to focus on an integrated approach to computer graphics programming, digital filmmaking, computer animation and multimedia. In doing so he has placed digital media in the wider context of modern visual culture, arts, films, photography and even computer games. The new digital media has been defined as representing a new cultural form and is dependent on the computer for its presentation and distribution (Schwartz, 2004). Manovich has extensively focused on the distinction and the discontinuities between the older forms of media and the new age of digital media dominated by computers and the web. The 'computerisation of culture' has redefined the older forms of visual representation through photography and cinema and has led to the emergence of new forms of representation as through web designing, multimedia and virtual reality (Manovich, 2002). The effects of computerisation of a entire visual culture could be extracted from Manovich's studies and analysis. The essence of his research seems to be focused on analysing the changes to visual culture and to relate these changes to the parallel digital revolution to show that these two phenomena of the 20th century are more closely related than generally perceived. Manovich's analysis is based on promoting his new philosophy of digital materialism (Manovich, 2002). Instead of speculations on the new media, Manovich builds his theoretical foundations from the basics of media tracing its roots to the present to build the genealogy of cinematic technology (Manovich, 1996). He emphasises largely on visual coding techniques and uses the language of the new media to suggest the conventions used by designers and engineers to organise and structure data. Manovich discusses the principles of new media as associated with numerical presentation, modularity, automation, variability and trans coding. These not only denote technical categories but are new forms of cultural representations of technology. Numerical presentation is seen in the fact that computers manipulate data in the numerical form; modularity suggests that media objects tend to have similar structures; automation refers to high or low level of task performance using computing techniques; and variability and transcoding refer to the different versions of the new media an the fact that it has close similarities to the computer's internal organisation. According to Manovich, along with technical specifications, the digital revolution has brought in considerable changes to the process of film making. Lighting, art direction, and photography are basic parts of film making that has been perfected through the years. And yet behind the stylized cinematic images there seem to be according to Manovich's words, 'the bluntness, the sterility, the banality of early nineteenth century photographs' (Manovich, 1996:194). Cinematic samples seems to have found its base in a methodological and prosaic process and this sterility obtained a fresh perspective with the introduction of digital media which revolutionised the way film and media presented to the wider audience. Manovich claims that 'Cinema is the art of the index; it is an attempt to make art out of a footprint' (Manovich, 1996). Implications and Changes - The Digital Media Pearson (2000) traced the history of cinema since its beginning in 1895 and suggests that the survival and information on films have been hampered as the film history has not been legally protected. Pearson gives a new dimension of film making and film preservation in his analysis by suggesting that the new digital media can help to prevent the loss of treasures as that happened in the last century. We suggest that the role of digital media could be analysed by asserting that digital media not only helps to store information, but by using new techniques of storage and representation digital media can even help recreate lost information. Wyatt (1999) claims that paradigmatic change has been driving the essential aesthetic change in cinema. The introduction of the digital media represents a paradigmatic shift for media representations and cinema as all media has been undergoing tremendous transformations to change not only what is shown and projected on the screen but also the means and techniques of production that forms the background of the visual experiences. The new media brings in the interplay of technology and culture even more closely and the dynamics of this interplay and technical collaboration could well be understood in analysis of the new media and its role in changing cultural representations of society. Along with Manovich's analysis, Marshall McLuhan's Laws of Media provide an effective process to examine media changes affecting culture and vice versa. The shape and transformations of digital cinema is at the centre of analysis although new studies on the changing techniques of cinema may be necessary to give a full picture of the rapid transformations. Yet according to Wyatt, this is just the beginning and the digital revolution is yet to show its power completely to change the face of modern media and cinema. The implications and effects of digitization have however gone far beyond photography and cinema and digital media form part of daily life and communication systems. There has been rapid transformation from print to digital media which has eased scientific communication, mainly due to the growth of the internet. A large amount of information is now easily accessible creating basic changes in libraries, institutions, and the creation, distribution and management of information and knowledge has become a major challenge and concern across all information control systems (Bolter, 1999). Scientific, technological, and medical journals have been among the first publications that were made electronically accessible, and now monographs and all forms of scientific communication and scientific information and publication have also been appearing in digitised form. The same technological advances have also affected photography, films and art as we have discussed in detail thus affecting a global culture with information technology and digital revolution. All components of the scientific enterprise, art, media, communication, personal correspondence and assessment of scientific research seem to be based on rapid changes in information technology presentation and distribution techniques (Davidson, 2005). Rapid and global access to scientific information has been made available and all aspects of scientific enterprise and artistic endeavour including photography and cinema are part of this digital revolution that has affected all aspects of life and society. However there are adverse consequences of this revolution and the easily accessible methods of communication and have highlighted issues threatening intellectual property, commercial publishers, scientific societies, and academic libraries and according to Davidson (2005) the digital revolution can even threaten the very existence of traditional university systems. In fact Sterne (2005) highlights the need to study the effects of digital media in a more scholarly way and urge that digital media studies should be given more importance and a disciplinary status within the educational systems. He asks whether digital media studies is by itself a separate and independent discipline of study and scholars in the field should move it further towards a field of disciplinarity. He cites Foucault and Bourdieu to argue that digital media studies have not yet truly evolved to include serious scholarly discourse and thus disciplinising digital media studies would have to be a strategic move with intellectual costs and possibly only limited benefits. Considering the changes in society, the educational systems, the communication systems and photography, art and films in general, digitization seems to have created a pattern of changes and a whole new paradigm in media studies, theory and practice. The effects are ubiquitous - from the methods of communication as in internet and web to the art of photography and cinema as in visual coding and graphics and programming. In the next section we return to an analysis of Manovich's views on the technological changes that have affected cinema in particular and entire art form in general to show whether the new media has simply grown out of the old techniques or represent a uniquely distinct feature that is beyond comparisons or analogy. The Genealogy of Cinema and the Role of Technology To substantiate whether digital media is characterised by a return to the pre cinematic moving techniques, Manovich traced the roots of film making and opined that cinema has evolved significantly from the earlier techniques of hand drawing, and manual creation of images and manual animation or in one word - movement. It was only by the middle of the 20th century that automated generation of images and their projection as finally combined to give coherent and uniform visual experience. The introduction of cinema brought in changes to the visual experience as before this the art forms of this type were characterised by moving images against a distinct static background and there was very little or no uniformity in the elements of an image presented. Cinema changes this and made the visual experience more integrated and coherent and has also redefined the role of moving images. The Zootrope, the Phonoscope, the Tachyscope, the Kinetoscope were some of the earlier instruments used for this progress and soon cinema became coherent with space and movement features with animation being its central aspect. However since the introduction of digital film making, the reality of the action and the background has somehow blurred as computers can now generate special effects that have no realistic counterparts thus changing the entire logical process of film making. Manovich describes digital film making as a summation of live action material, painting, image processing, compositing, 2-D computer animation and 3-D computer animation. The manual construction of 3D simulations and animation is according to Manovich a representation of the pre-cinematic moving images techniques. He emphatically states that, 'The privileged role played by the manual construction of images in digital cinema is one example of a larger trend: the return of pre-cinematic moving images techniques. Marginalized by the twentieth century institution of live action narrative cinema which relegated them to the realms of animation and special effects, these techniques re-emerge as the foundation of digital filmmaking' (Manovich, 1996:190). Thus pre cinematic moving images technique seems to have returned to modern forms of digital media as special effects, animation and computerised graphics seem to be largely based on these moving images techniques, a practice that was largely considered obsolete in the age of twentieth century real life cinema. Manovich however does not limit himself to comparing animation techniques to pre cinematic trends and adds that 'Hand-painting digitized film frames, made possible by a computer, is probably the most dramatic example of the new status of cinema. No longer strictly locked in the photographic, it opens itself towards the painterly. It is also the most obvious example of the return of cinema to its nineteenth century origins' (Manovich, 1996:192). Conclusion: Considering Manovich's analysis, the reasoning he has given for his claim on the return of moving images techniques seems to be justified for the arguments and propels for disciplinising new media as a subject for academic discourse. Bibliography Bolter, Jay David & Grusin, Richard. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999. Davidson, Lloyd (2005) The End of Print: Digitization and Its Consequence-Revolutionary Changes in Scholarly and Social Communication and in Scientific Research International Journal of Toxicology, Volume 24,Number 1, Number 1/January-February, pp. 25-34(10) Taylor and Francis Ltd Manovich Lev (2002) The Language of New Media (Leonardo Books) The MIT Press; Reprint edition Manovich, Lev (1996) Cinema and Digital Media PERSPECTIVES OF MEDIA ART, JEFFREY SHAW AND HANS PETER SCHWARZ (eds). Cantz Verlag Ostfildern, Germany. Pearson S. (2000) The century of film: bibliographic control and legal deposit of the moving image Aslib Proceedings: new information perspectives, Volume 52,Number 7, July, pp. 247-253(7) Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited Schwartz Charles S. (2004) Understanding Digital Cinema : A Professional Handbook Focal Press Sterne, Jonathan (2005) Digital Media and Disciplinarity The Information Society, Volume 21,Number 4, September-October pp. 249-256(8) Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group Wyatt R.B. (1999) The Emergence of a Digital Cinema Computers and the Humanities, Volume 33,Number 4, December, pp. 365-381(17) Springer Read More