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Analog v. Digital

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3 views12 pages

Analog v. Digital

Uploaded by

bababooiebrr
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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FORMALISM 2:

WHAT IS THE SHAPE


OF DIGITAL
OBJECTS?
◦Jonelle Vera Irving
◦Ms. Annette Von Brandis
◦Visual Culture
◦09/18/2023
What is Digital
Media?
◦ Digital media, often synonymous with new media,
is best described by Lev Manovich as the
translation of all existing media into numerical
representations that we presently access using
computers and similar devices. We are constantly
in touch with Digital Media in our modern society,
be it in images, videos, memes, movies, streaming,
and more.
◦ As such, Digital media is an enormous, highly-
modular umbrella from which we acquire,
manipulate, store and distribute texts of all kinds.
With the increasing rate of computerization in our
highly-digitized world, we are now beginning to
see the limitless possibilities of new media and
their rapidly-expanding uses.
◦ In short, Digital, or New Media, is a non-tangible,
programmable text that is stored and processed as
code, then translated through several forms to
appear as images for us, the viewers of the text.

Fig. 1- n/a, Adrian. Draw with Code, CodeGuppy, March 7th, 2020, lin
What is Analog
Media?
◦ Analog Media, often mischaracterized as ‘Traditional Media’,
refers to texts that are stored without being translated into
code, thus leaving them ‘tangible’ and therein free from the
digitization process.
◦ Unlike New Media, Analog Media abstains from the modular,
fractal structure that pervades digital work in favor of a fixed,
physical nature.
◦ In visual media this is best characterized as texts created using
physical mediums, whose quality depends on said mediums and
the artist’s intent to make a whole, non-modular piece of work.
There is no way to transcode or process Analog media, since it
is not programmable by any means unless it is translated into
New Media by way of scanning, photography, etc.
◦ There are a myriad of ways to delve into analog media, and
each one is more intricate than the last.

Fig. 2- SCMP, Hong Kong. Career Path for Fine Arts Students. SCMP.com,
Analog Media Digital Media
Stored ‘Physically’ or ‘As is’. Stored as code; Intangible.
Always requires direct human intent. Can be automated without a human touch.
(Consider that a canvas cannot paint (Consider A.I Visual media or functions in
itself.) drawing programs.)
Non-Variable (There is only one way to Variable (Able to exist with multiple
access the visual text.) pathways that lead to other content.)
Utilizes and depends on real-world Depends on mathematical processes and
materials and their quality to make art. code to make art.
Non-Modular (Every part of an Analog Modular (Hosts an independent, subdivided
piece is part of the whole.) series of parts that form a whole.)
Not Transcodable. (Analog work exists as Able to be Transcoded (New Media can be
itself.) turned into a number of new formats and
files.)

What makes these


mediums different?
Difference 1:
Tangibility
◦ As the name implies, tangibility
refers to the material nature of a
text.
◦ Analog Visual media is tangible,
since it is palpable and visual without
the need of a computer to display it.
Consider how Analog visual texts are
presented in museums, for example.
◦ New Visual media is intangible and
immaterial, existing as digitized
numerical representations and
mathematical formulas that are only
translated to the images we know
them as. Consider the images stored
in your phone.

Fig. 3- Abby Schukei, Digital vs. Traditional Art: is one better than the other? .
Fig. 4- Mark Thomas, This is how I see myself. Theguardian.com,
28/05/2021, link, 19/09/2023

Difference 2:
Human Touch
◦ While Analog work depends on direct
human intent to form the texts we know
and love, New Media can be automated
and simplify some or all of the process.
◦ Analog media depends on the artist and
their vision towards the work, with
every action placed upon their medium
of choice requiring their touch to form a
piece of their liking.
◦ Consider how digital art programs
function using shortcuts and tools to
help the artist create works in a way not
found in Analog work. A more extreme
example can be found in A.I, which is
now sampling works from artists all
over the
Fig.world to create
5- Sova, Woman ‘art’.
Painter Sculpting containing hand, hands, and pottery. CreativeMarket
Difference 3:
Variability
◦ Considered one of Manovich’s five
principles of New Media, Variability
refers to the ability to exist in different
versions without being fixed to one state
or form.
◦ While the concept is rather abstract in
theory, in practice it becomes far easier
to conceptualize. Consider web rings or
multi-choice websites, even games that
utilize random-generation.
◦ It is incredibly rare, if not impossible to
encounter this in Analog media due to its
fixed nature. However, this isn’t to say
that Analog media is confined to only one
format.

Fig. 6- n/a, Random number generator improved. Bbc.com,


Difference 4:
Modularity.
◦ Where Analog Media is typically
considered to be made of a number of
parts, they aren’t necessarily considered to
be ‘modular’, since they all comprise the
‘whole’ of the piece.
◦ Contrary to Analog works, Digital Media
has the capacity to be fully modular,
hosting independent, subdivided parts that
form the whole of the text.
◦ Consider how photoshop layers are divided
sections of a whole painting and can stand
alone or even be separated from the work,
whereas Analog paintings cannot separate
their underpainting from their topmost
layers.

Fig. 7- n/a, Modular Management: Key to success.


Difference 5:
Transcodability.
◦ Manovich considers Transcoding to be
his broadest principle, seeing how it
speaks on the blend between ‘computer
and culture’, and the transformation
media and cultural information
undergoes through a virtual filter.
◦ Transcodability can be best described as
the ability to view a text in another
format. Transcoding visual texts like
video, for example, would mean
everything from changing the file format
(i.e .MOV to .MP4) to lowering or raising
the resolution type for a purpose that
suits your mean.

Fig. 9- n/a, Top of online file converters. GeniusU.com, n/


◦ Placing everything into consideration, both Analog
and New media have a specific range of uses that
lie exclusive to their nature.
◦ We wouldn’t expect to send a portrait on canvas
via. Email, just as we wouldn’t give an onsite
museum collector a hyperlink to display in their
works.
◦ These two mediums are greatly different, but we
must never consider one to be ‘obsolete’ or
‘superior’ to the other simply because of the way
Conclusion:
they are practiced.
◦ With the rise of New Media growing ever higher, it
is important that we recognize the place each form
of media has in our lives, and the ways they are
delivered to us.
◦ We tend to forget that the virtual world is an
elaborate labyrinth of code, and we also fail to
consider the long-standing importance of analog
media and texts that surround us today.
If every file, image, and digital work is made of code
and numerical values, is it what it appears to be, or is
it simply ‘ones and zeroes?’
How much human involvement is required for a piece
to truly be art? One hundred percent? Zero?

What makes visual media art? Is it still considered a


work of art if it is automated? Questio
Will Analog work be considered obsolete as the rise
of New Media progresses? ns:
Should there be any limit to our strides towards
automation in something as delicate as art?

Did Manovich predict the rise of A.I art?


◦ Manovich, Lev. The language of new media. MIT
press, 2002. Works Cited

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