For our next class read Part II, Archives from new media, old media (pg. 83-154). After completing the reading, post your questions/ideas regarding this section of the book. Also, recall that the proposal for your final project is due on Tuesday.
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From this weeks reading I found the few pages toward the end of chapter four very intriguing, where Bush is speaking about trying to understand how the human brain deals with memory. I found his analogy of the covered wagon to our current record making methods a little harsh, but comical.
It does seem odd to me at times that we fall short of making the most of computers given their possibilities. I find this most obvious when I am reminded that we have ourselves to use as examples to build them from. I think in trying to solve the problem of storage space and the speed which we can access that space it would be very beneficial to further study the human brain to aid us.
While I haven’t seen any of Godard’s films, and I could only just look up Histoire(s) online, I found the part in Chapter 7 where Dienst looks at the overall idea of an image interesting.
I agree that images “remain,” which Dienst defines as a matter of recording and transmission as well as marking time, but I don’t think images and stories can be separated. I have a problem at the bottom of page 129 where Dienst talks about Walter Benjamin talking about “History breaks down into images, not stories” and the reverse. It’s difficult for me to think without picturing anything, and it’s difficult for me to look at something and not think. Maybe Dienst has a different definition for story—it seems like he’s related the word more to narrative—and I’m probably just over-thinking it.
It’s pretty amazing to me that so much of Vannevar Bush’s article is still so relevant today, particularly his focus on the problem of selection. I learned about how magnetic tape recordings are made, and why we want computer innards to be smaller!
Cornelia Vismann’s article was quite informative, as well, though I wonder if I misread the beginning. On p. 98 she says that “… only harmless data– data that cannot be used against the record keeper him- or herself– will make its way into the files.” This seems at odds with the discussion about the German administration that in 1998 wreaked havoc on government records in an attempt to erase or hide incriminating documents. (What did they do that warranted that kind of action?!)
Richard Dienst’s chapter was, for me, very thought provoking. I think that much of what he says about images can apply to all media, including text. For me, a lot of this has particular relevance to a discussion of the Internet as a whole. His discussion of montage on p. 127 struck me in this way, as it seems to me that links perform this function. On p. 129, he says:
“But alongside that formal and psychological principle is an ethical one: one image is never enough, either to serve as the basis of subjectivity or to hold the place of the other. Images ‘remain’ only as long as they ‘rely upon’ other images, but this reliance is less a matter of lacking of self-sufficiency than of drawing upon the multitude of forces that criss-cross between them.”
I think this is relevant to the way in which the Internet is capable of creating meaning. (Lily, I was bugged by the same passage about story! You expressed it better than I would have.)
I’d highly recommend that if you have not seen a Jean-Luc Godard film, go to NetFlix and rent “Weekend” and “Breathless.” He’s probably one of the more ‘radical’ of the French New Wave film directors. He is known for a lot of political satire and he has a great understanding of film history, montage, existentialism, and Marxism. Think of traditional Hollywood films…Godard would be the exact opposite.
I’ll have to jump on the Dienst bandwagon as this particular article spoke the most to me. And not just because it was Godard heaven. The relation that he makes to images and media, but I’d also have to agree with lo that the separation of images and stories seems, well impossible.
It all comes down to the power of the image. If we take the time to readjust and refocus our attention to on image, or to a moment in time, maybe then we can understand our world so much better. Similar to what jduff had posted, we end up falling short of maxing the potential of a computer. Taking the time to look at a new perspective could yield greater progress.
“We should not take the ‘presence’ or the ‘operation’ of images for granted. Whenever they appear, they deserve to be treated as a strictly circumstantial accomplishment” (pg 128). “[I]t remains our task to look for what might be real, or true, or somehow worth saving about them, as long as they remain to be seen” (pg 132). I think I have a new best friend.
I enjoyed the second essay by Vismann. Its odd because so much of what we accept as truth has to be referenced to a tangible source. This is especially true with history because if bits and pieces are left out then false interpretations of the truth can began to develop. Then again if you have too many sources, how do you determine whats true and whats not? ( This all depends on whether or not the accounts are different) But its just so interesting to me how easy it can be to erase the existence of certain events by getting rid of the files. What would happen if all of the history recorded up to this very point in time were deleted?
To add to Ernst’s ‘The Relation between Print and Multi-Media’, besides the fact that “the book (old media) cannot be (re-) programmed once printed”, I think the interactivity is also limited because unlike multi-media, the interactivity of print is unable to make immediate responses to what is happening and modify the processes. Obviously, on the multi-media level (text, image, sound, as he points out) it is more than just a one way of communication.
This might be in left field, but this kind of made me think of multimedia literacy in school. I know there are many kids out there that spend hours playing computer games in online communities -I think good media operates on many levels and engages many of the senses, making it very powerful and memorable however, I think children should understand that multimedia can, like a written language, enable us to develop concepts and abstractions, comparisons and metaphors, while at the same time engaging our emotions and aesthetic sensibilities. Maybe there should be multimedia taught in the lower school level to enhance learning so they can effectively write/create/express themselves with media, without it just being superficial entertainment that takes time away from ‘real’ learning.
I don’t know, maybe there is one…..just a thought.