The Language of New Media
and Interactivity Met with Cinema
"The movie, by sheer speeding up the mechanical, carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure. The message of the movie medium is that of transition from linear connections to configurations." (McLuhan, 1994, p.12)
On August 19, 1839, Louis Daguerre, who was already known for his diorama, introduced the new process of "daguerreotype". With this process, some lucky amateurs, for the first time became able to shoot their roof-top silhouettes against the sky. And that is how the media frenzy had begun according to Lev Manovich. Around the same time, in 1833, Charles Babbage began designing a device called "the Analytical Engine." This device is contained most of the key features to the modern digital computer. A processing unit performed operations on some data and the final results were printed out onto a paper. And this can be considered as the first machine to make analytical calculations, in modern words, the first computer. Although these two events continued their development in parallel, for a long time they did not cross into each others paths. Jumping in the history to the 20th century, in 1936, Konrad Zuse, who is a German engineer, began building a computer which was considered to be the first working digital computer. Zuse 's innovation was using punched tape to control computer programs, which was actually discarded 35mm movie film. So the year 1936 became the year that the cinema and the computer development crossed into each others path. As the iconic code of the cinema is discarded in the favor of more efficient binary one, this is also how the cinema became a slave to the computer. (Manovich, 2001, p.21-25)
Through the history of the cinema, the directors have searched for better reflection of realism and way of immersing the viewer into the streaming images. Introduction of the perspective, reproduction of photographic images, streaming pictures
"The movie, by sheer speeding up the mechanical, carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure. The message of the movie medium is that of transition from linear connections to configurations." (McLuhan, 1994, p.12)
On August 19, 1839, Louis Daguerre, who was already known for his diorama, introduced the new process of "daguerreotype". With this process, some lucky amateurs, for the first time became able to shoot their roof-top silhouettes against the sky. And that is how the media frenzy had begun according to Lev Manovich. Around the same time, in 1833, Charles Babbage began designing a device called "the Analytical Engine." This device is contained most of the key features to the modern digital computer. A processing unit performed operations on some data and the final results were printed out onto a paper. And this can be considered as the first machine to make analytical calculations, in modern words, the first computer. Although these two events continued their development in parallel, for a long time they did not cross into each others paths. Jumping in the history to the 20th century, in 1936, Konrad Zuse, who is a German engineer, began building a computer which was considered to be the first working digital computer. Zuse 's innovation was using punched tape to control computer programs, which was actually discarded 35mm movie film. So the year 1936 became the year that the cinema and the computer development crossed into each others path. As the iconic code of the cinema is discarded in the favor of more efficient binary one, this is also how the cinema became a slave to the computer. (Manovich, 2001, p.21-25)
Through the history of the cinema, the directors have searched for better reflection of realism and way of immersing the viewer into the streaming images. Introduction of the perspective, reproduction of photographic images, streaming pictures
Cited: • McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media. The Extensions of Man, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994 • Manovich, Lev, The Language of New Media, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001 • Hales, Chris, New Paradigms New Movies. Interactive Film and New Narrative Interfaces in New Screen Media. Cinema/Art/Narrative, BFI Publishing, London, 2002 • Juul, Jesper, A Clash between Game and Narrative, April 2001, < http://www.jesperjuul.dk/thesis/> • Weiberg, Birk, Beyond Interactive Cinema, August 2002, • 2000, • D-Dag, 2000, • Silverman Jason, Digital Cinema Plays with Form, 2000,