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Database as Symbolic Form
Prof. AlvaradoMDST 3703/77032 October 2012
Business
• If you are still having problems with JEdit or Home Directory, please see me
• We will continue with JavaScript and jQuery on Thursday
Review
• Ayers’ experiment is to create an online essay that takes advantage of being digital– Use of hypertext– Direct access to supporting primary and secondary
sources• Does it succeed?– Why or why not?
Missed Opportunities
• Does not resolve the tension between database and narrative– And does not exploit mediating structures – e.g.
the categories• Possible hindrances:– Conservative nature of historians– Hypertext theory tends to conflate the stack of
scholarship
The Stack of Scholarship
ARGUMENTS ESSAYS HYPERTEXT
MAGIC MIDDLE Work,Memory
Programs, Maps, etc.
COLLECTIONS LIBRARIES DATABASES
But how are the conflicting requirements between database and narrative to be mediated?
What is a good example?
Vertov, theorized by Manovich, gives us a starting point
Lev Manovich is professor of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, U.S. and European Graduate School
in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he teaches new media art.A native Russian, Manovich worked in the software
industry before turning to academia.
David Abelevich Kaufman (aka Dziga Vertov) was a Soviet pioneer of documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist.
Let’s begin with structuralism
(related to semiotics and semiology, the study of “signs”)
Structuralism is a theory culture
Culture comprises the products of human labor – intellectual and physical -- as well
as the psychological and social formations that make this labor possible*
*for these, too, are partly created by human labor
The visible products of human culture – works of art, language, institutions, etc. – are the results of hidden structures that generate visible behaviors
The best example of this is language
Our speech – the observable part of language – is governed by grammar, or structure, a hidden set
of codes and rules that exist in the brain and shared by a community
As with language, cultural structures consist of categories whose meanings derive from their position and contrast with other terms
For example, phonemes are joined in sequences to form words or parts of speech
Structures are called paradigmaticSequences are called syntagmatic
Paradigm and Syntagm are like the X and Y axes in a geometry of culture …
Paradigm and syntagm can be used to describe things like food and fashion
Each “system” has a paradigmatic code that is “executed” to generate syntagmatic products
Each day you dress you are executing a code
Probably the most famous structural analysis of fashion
Paradigm / Syntagm
PARADIGM• The level of “structure”• Elements• Spatial• Order does not matter• Meaning determined by
contrasts between elements
SYNTAGM• The level of “events”• Sequences• Temporal• Order matters• Meaning determined by
what could have been said as much as by what has been said
“execution” or “performance”
Structuralism defines a Stack of Culture
EVENT (syntagm)
PERFORMANCE (following rules)
STRUCTRE (paradigm)
Structuralism can be used to describe the media forms studied and created by scholars
Books and paintings, for example, are syntagmatic expressions of cultural paradigms
However, these cultural forms present only syntagm, not paradigm
Paradigm (hidden) syntagm
Yaxchilan lintel 24
The lintel depicts an actual blood-letting rite that took place on 26 October 709.
King Shield Jaguar is shown holding a torch as Queen Lady Xoc draws a barbed rope through her pierced tongue.
The surrounding text locates the event within the Mayan calendar system.
The paradigmatic basis of this art is what cultural archaeologists seek to reconstruct
Digital media are different
Paradigm can be exposed as well
This is a big deal
In other words, when an artist creates a story, painting, or film, the paradigmatic parts – notes, index cards, raw footage --
are usually lost
Thrown away or in the head
But with digital media, this stuff becomes part of the work itself
In a game like Civilization IV, the “Civilopedia” governs play
The “board” is the interface to
the database
In a game like Skyrim, the database underlies all decisions
The game is an interface to the database
Playing the game is interacting with the database
The database is foregrounded and constant, whereas the narrative – the outcome of playing – is variable and ephemeral
This is true of most games – this is how you create something in Minecraft
Manovich’s argument is that with digital media, paradigm is both materialized and foregrounded, and this shapes how we think
One effect is that digital media make narrative problematic
(media determinism again)
Rationalization Effects
• All cultural forms are like interfaces to databases– Where database = paradigm
• How we interact with paradigm is therefore like how computers interact with data – via algorithm– Therefore, behavior is algorithmic
A flowchart expresses a kind of algorithm
The bacon algorithm
Role of algorithm in computers
• Connects narrative to database, syntagm to paradigm– A set of procedures for
working with a set of data
• Can be interactive …
Interface
Database
Algorithm
Data structures and algorithms are the essential topics of computer science
For example, the DOM and JavaScript
An algorithm is a machine for generating narratives
Therefore, the traditional story – telling “the story” – becomes problematic
Narrative
• Narratives oppose database logic– Order matters– There is a “sense of an ending”
• The “database” is internal, unexposed– In the head of the author
• The result of an internal algorithm– The author’s in the act of writing
What do film and Vertov have to do with this?
Vertov – like Bush with microfilm – realized that film can be used to capture the process and sources of its own creation. Because of is plasticity, it can represent paradigm …