Manovich Ill.

Every time I see the word illusions I think of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when Harding, pissed in group therapy, says “No…Allusions, not illusions.” Of course Manovich in this chapter alluded to plenty of things, from Zeuxis to Mimesis to Brecht to T2 to Lucas and Spielberg. But most of the chapter dealt with the differing analysis of Bazin, Comolli, and Bordwell & Staiger (attorneys at law). Of the three, I felt a kinship with Comolli because of my strong Postman persuasion that “technology giveth and taketh away.” All four contributors to the “problem” (I thought by which Manovich meant rather “topic” or “issue” as I couldn’t find any problem inherent in attempts at art to portray life, whatever the motivation) seemed to have sound launch pads to send out their simulated planes. For me they all flew and paradoxically didn’t fly. For me I cannot grasp how either cinema or new media could aim or hit the mark of realism convincingly when both are illusionary arts and simulations of reality. When I think of cinema and new media, I don’t see full-fledged attempts to carry this trick in regards to anything other than visual representation. Plots, dialogues, settings, and characters are exaggerated and more absurd than real in my estimation. It seems to me to be a hunt for the fountain of youth. Who cares whether the fight between Ewoks and Cyborgs seems real when we know it isn’t. Both medias, old and new, seem to prosper and communicate more successfully by their ability to not be hogtied to ideological realism. Indeed, the exaggerated total effect of both medias is the draw. The realism is accomplished by writing I would argue, not the picture.

Manovich argues that “the reality effect in many areas of new media only partially depends on an image’s appearance.” I agree that the total effect of the experience of interacting with new media indeed is multistory regarding the elements that perform effects. I don’t think that “joysticks with force feedback” are more successful illusions, but rather increased stimuli and interesting features of experience, one that is in no means feigning realism. When I play Grand Theft Auto (and the joystick vibrates as my car, that can navigate busy streets at top speeds playing radio while I fire an Uzi out the window and talk on the cell phone suddenly wrecks, with breaking glass and smoke, and I get out and kill ten gangsters), recognition of the realism of “vibration” on screen and in my hand, never comes to mind. The plot is not realistic and is much a part of being the messenger of media as is the style of the screen and what occurs on it. However, I think Manovich is correct when he asserts, “new media change our concept of what an image is-because they turn a viewer into an active user.”  Like other users, we are in the realm of an alternate reality, one that is real only in our desires to indulge in it (be it Second Life, Sims, or other games). I somehow doubt that World of Warcraft users are more interested in the “reality effect of the image,” than with the escape from reality. The suspension of belief is not something producers of new media need to go to great lengths to achieve. But perhaps that they have already achieved this reality is what makes for the consumption of such media. For me, the interesting venue where we have choices seems more tantamount than the special rendering of special effects. Manovich argues this later in the chapter on Page 209, “the user invests in the illusion precisely because he is given control over it.” Is Manovich inferring that we are being given something that we think we can control which is really controlling us? The self-deprecation aspect of this new “auto-critique, scandal, and revelation” modern ideology seems like a powerful rhetorical tool, as self-deprecation has long been effective and delightful. Certainly Manovich alludes to the power of Reality TV with his discussion of “someone who knows very well that she is being fooled, and generously lets herself be fooled” (209).

On page 203, Manovich analyzes how social realism differs from science fiction, which, he asserts, ”does not have to carry any feature of today’s reality into the future.” I’m skeptical here. I can’t think of much science fiction work that doesn’t rely on some semblance of reality “familiar to the viewers.” Voice inflections of the robots in Wall-e, not to mention human characters, accomplish seem to me to be of this vein. I always thought that the bread and butter of Sci-Fi was its connection to situations, likely moral, that viewers can empathize with...ones that seem real enough albeit futuristic. Certainly the Utopain propaganda of Socialist Russia is part and parcel. But, Manovich writes on page 203 that Socialist works from the early 1930’s until Stalin's death didn’t depict the future, but rather enabled viewers to see signs of the future in the reality around them. I think that Dystopian works such as 1984, The Giver, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 were successful at accomplishing this same feat. Bradbury’s work is a satire of McCarthyism of his present, set in a future that had much in common with the present.

Ultimately, the chapter focuses on the need to multitask within the realm of new media, a dual between “concentration and detachment.” This “perception in the state of distraction” is to blame for this poorly written post.  So the rest of it will become even more/less cohesive.

On 209 Manovich asks whether Brecht and Hollywood can be married? I think so. I think Fall Out 3 is a fine a marriage, as will be Fall Out New Vegas…which comes out today! 

Does anyone think that Tom Robbin’s Still Life with Woodpecker is a fine example of “new matarealism,” both ahead of its time and a hell of a book?

On 195 Manovich mentions “virtual worlds designed to run on typical computers without specialized graphic accelerators….” It made me recall when I had to upgrade my computer to play the game Morrowind, because my old model couldn’t handle it. The illusions available via software are powerful motivators, real or not.

On 197 Manovich predicts Xtranormal. Thanks to Josh for sharing that program. My students now use it and love it.

I thought Manovich’s cautionary remark on page 198 was sound. He discusses the creation of a “perpetual lag between our experience of their effects and our understanding of this experience.” I thought that this would be a find logline for his book.

I have a hipstamatic app on my Iphone, which allows me to take pictures in stylized, throwback sepia, and through other aged lenses. I assume this is new media mimicking photography. The reason I have the app is to avoid the realism in photographs today, which I find debilitating via their accuracy and kind of boring. It seems that new media also allows us to enjoy old media like never before, even if it “too real” in its resurrection. 

Page 210, Manovich addressed the cognitive activity required by new media today. The book “Everything that is Bad for you is Good for You” seems to rationalize or justify this argument. Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Brain Candy” is a fine summary of its argument.

Finally. On 211, Manovich discusses how the dark theater of cinema is now just a screen on a screen. True, but new media is also keeping old media alive like never before by making it more accessible. Will people lose the ability to sustain a full film experience, especially those not reared with such an experience? Not sure. I think Josh mentioned an article about how the average time spent watching Youtube videos is one minute and then they move on. Wow. But I know Hollywood is more worried about it than I am.