Dear Manovich,< whisper> adieu < /whisper>

The book is the wrong medium for this book.

I will do my best to keep from seeming like I’m eulogizing.

The Language of New Media’s time came before it was ready, or rather, The Language of New Media ended about 12 years too soon. If it were alive today it would see the folly (few and in part) of its ways and be amazed by unforeseeable paths the future has taken. In this, the final chapter of “The Manovich,” as she was so angrily and respectfully called (‘she’ for the book, ‘he’ for the guy), we witness the passing of a friend—a comrade, if you will—and tormentor. Perhaps I have Stockholm Syndrome, but I really like Manovich.

Next, I complain.

A summary chapter of this book that wasn’t about half the length of the book could only fall short; and though Manovich didn’t repeat himself hoarse (the book is under 350 pages) this last chapter seems like a round up of his research and not his book. There may be more names and titles mentioned in the last 45 pages than in the other chapters combined. Many of these were to illustrate points and fell flat even with (dead) URLs.

Next, I don’t complain.

I’m going to skip through the chapter to highlight what I thought was interesting and ask questions of what I would like to discuss in class.

Aside from including more and more explicit footnotes in this chapter, Manovich does two more curious things: he clearly defines and summarizes key points, and he admittedly embarks on futuristic speculation. The most significant summation and definition is on pages 289-290 in which he recaps his summary from the Introduction (?). I think I understand what he means this time, and clearly (because number always help).

I found “Cinema, and the Art of the Index” to be particular interesting because of the use of the term “indexical” which he employs to the end of the chapter:

“indexical identity” (of cinema) (295)

“Indexical media” (cinema vs. painting) (295)

“indexical relationship” (digitized footage to “prefilmic reality” [this a wonderful and muddy phrase which we call “real life”] (300)

“indexical identity” (again) of cinema (306)

When I post links relating to our readings, it seems they become more relevant the following week, and I think Manovich gives an even better description of the (foreseen) technology of video manipulation (my previous video of person-in-video augmentation) as the kino-brush by stating “The mutability of digital data impairs the value of cinema recordings as documents of reality” (307). We can no longer believe what we see in simple, unfantastic video.

Manovich spends too much space on the CD-ROM games segment as a segue into video looping as a throw-back/resurgence to pre-cinematic technology, because CD-ROM-based games are another bypassed future of Manovich’s 1999 world. This is, along with the immersive VR, is another example of extrapolating future technologies based on extant technology and misapplying the means; like cars + jets = jetcar commuting to work, instead of work + technology = telecommuting to work.

The loop seems like an important metaphor that Manovich is tossing in at the end, but closer inspection reveals a useless shallowness: it makes a neat cultural metaphor, but it isn’t a significant cultural meme anymore (it died when Warhol was shot in 1968) and music has employed the loop since its rhythmic inception.

Page 324 offers what parts of the book insinuate: a prediction: “I believe that the next generation of cinema—broadband cinema, or macrocinema—will add multiple windows to its language.” So bold. So beautiful. This seems like Manovich has piled many of his chips into a pile and placed them on “jetpack”: a technology that is real and emerging, logical, desirable, yet wholly impractical. This seems like an extension of the 1980s businessman that watched the markets on 10 televisions simultaneously to keep up on “everything at once” (the “allatonceness”); yet this, too, is a bypassed future.

“Cinema as a Code” was a wonderfully promising heading that I hoped (especially after the mention of “cultural forms” (330)) would include the new productions of culture and semiotic codes, but I was metaphorically RickRolled into a section about passé ASCII video production.

As I lay this book to rest, I find myself hoping in an afterlife: a spacial montage that comprises me and The Language of New Media 2.0 in a place called “the not too distant future.”