Languages

You are here

Beyond Visual: toward the Criticism of Output-Oriented Approaches in New Media Research

Научные исследования: 
Выпуски: 

For citation: Sharopova N.R. (2017) Po tu storonu vizual'nogo: k kritike orientirovannykh na vyvod podkhodov v issledovaniyakh novykh media [Beyond Visual: toward the Criticism of Output-Oriented Approaches in New Media Research]. Mediaskop 4. (in Russian). Available at: http://www.mediascope.ru/2390

 

© Nigina R. Sharopova

Junior Researcher at the Sector of Aesthetics of the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Junior Researcher at the Faculty of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University, PhD Student at the School of Philosophy, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia), naighy92@gmail.com

 

Abstract

This paper considers the widespread tendency to focus on visual aspects in most writing on digital media. This sort of visual bias is based on the paradigm to examine the new media in terms of output. The author criticizes this tendency and claims that digital media has nothing to do with visuality itself. She supports this assumption by analyzing three elements, on which the mentioned paradigm is usually based. The first one is the screen. The screen plays an important role in the user's visual experience. However, the author shows that the screen was not initially the main tool for the output, other kinds of output tools were used for a long time (like paper-based ones). The second one is GUI. This type of interface has become widespread only when the computer was commodified. Before that, the command line interface used to be most widespread. The third part reviews the visual content itself, with the computer graphics examples (the hidden surface problem) and the computer vision. All listed above constructs the user's experience in the digital media, but from the user's perspective, rather than the computer's one. Output-focused approaches analyze cultural or market tasks rather than the structure of digital media itself.

Keywords: digital media, media studies, visual culture, visual studies, screen, GUI.

 

References

Grau O. (2013) Emotsii i immersiya: klyuchevye elementy vizual'nykh issledovaniy [Emotions and Immersion: Key Elements of Visual Research]. St.Peterburg: Eydos Publ.

Huhtamo E. (2014) Arkheologiya media. Osobyy vzglyad [Media Archaeology. Special View]. In: Sosna N., Fedorova K. (eds.) Media: mezhdu magiey i tekhnologiey [Media. Between Magic and Technology]. Moscow; Ekaterinburg: Kabinetnyy uchenyy Publ., pp. 162−176.

Huhtamo E. (2012 b) Elementy ekranologii: k probleme arkheologii media [Elements of Screenology: Toward an Archaeology of the Screen]. In: Razlogov K.E. (ed.) Экранная культура. Теоретические проблемы [Screen Culture. Theoretical Problems]. St.Peterburg: «Dmitriy Bulanin» Publ., pp. 116−176.

Huhtamo E. (2012 a) Zametki po povodu arkheologii media [Notes about Media Archaeology]. In: Razlogov K.E. (ed.) Ekrannaya kul'tura. Teoreticheskie problem [Screen Culture. Theoretical Problems]. St.Peterburg: «Dmitriy Bulanin» Publ., pp. 95−107.

Friedberg A. (2006) The virtual window: from Alberti to Microsoft. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Gaboury J. (2015) Hidden Surface Problems: On the Digital Image as Material Object. Journal of Visual Culture 14(1): 40−60.

Goldberg A., Kay A. (1977) Personal Dynamic Media. IEEE Computer 10(3): 31−41.

Kirschenbaum M. (2008) Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Manovich L. (2013) Software takes command : extending the language of new media. New York; London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Manovich L. (2001) The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Montfort N. (2004) Continuous paper: Print interfaces and early computer writing, 20 August. Available at: http://nickm.com/writing/essays/continuous_paper_isea.html (aссessed: 06.09.2017).

Norman D. (1990) Why Interfaces Don't Work. In: Laurel B. (ed.) The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley, pp. 209−219.

Parikka J. (2012) What is media archaeology? Cambridge: Polity.

Stephenson N.(1999) In the Beginning Was the Command Line. New York: Avon.

Steyerl H.(2014) Proxy Politics: Signal and Noise. Journal #60 December. Available at: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/60/61045/proxy-politics-signal-and-noise/ (aссessed: 06.09.2017).

Thibodeau K. (2002) Overview of Technological Approaches to Digital Preservation and Challenges in Coming Years. In: The State of Digital Preservation: An International Perspective. Сonference proceedings, July, pp. 4−31. Available at: https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub107/thibodeau.html (aссessed: 06.09.2017).

Turkle S. (1995) Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Wardrip-Fruin N. (2009) Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Wittgenstein L. (1994) Filosofskie issledovaniya [Philosophical Studies]. In: Wittgenstein L.

Filosofskie raboty. Ch. 1; per. s nem. [Philosophical Works. Part 1; transl. from German]. Moscow: «Gnozis» Publ., pp. 75−320.

Zielinski S. (2006) Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.