The title is an egyptian Idiom (fel haraka baraka) which means there's is blessing in movement and by blessing it means bounty and benefits. which I thought would be really fitting of this reading http://www.critical-art.net/books/ted/ted2.pdf about nomadic power.
what the writers talk about here is how being a nomad and having no dependence on roots in one place or another can give you huge cultural power. and even though that is true it is not the only way to do it, but I agree that having nomadic properties would defintely give you a huge advantage in whatever you want to do. but the writers only focus on one aspect of nomads and kind of miss the big picture of the true power of nomads.
first I'll start with what they were trying to say, from their point of view the power of the nomad lies within their belonging to the road and nothing else, having no stable roots or location to belong to so that way no one can put them on the defensive, no one can attack them where they sleep or where their kids lie because it is everywhere. that is true a huge amount of nomadic power lies within their ability to up and leave whenever they wish to wherever they wish. where they stop they lay to rest. the writers mentioned the scythians which brought to my mind two other nomadic peoples that met their demise when they gave up their manuverability, the huns of mongolia once they setteled and strechted their empire too far for them to handle without settling down caused them to be kicked back to mongolia from the arab lands, also the hyksos which invaded northern ancient egypt (lower egypt) they were nomadic sheperds, viscous in combat and very fast riders, once they setteled in and started building palaces, ahmose (then pharoh of southern Egypt (upper egypt) ) after discovering the war chariot launched an attack that sent them going back from whence they came, so truly nomads gain their power from being mobile. and that can be turned into modern day society by using the technique of "keeping them guessing" basically being nomadic nowadays is simply being unpredictable enough so that your rivals won't see you coming as well as have the manuverability to be everywhere and anywhere at the same time (like Mcdonald's, I would have said starbucks but that isonly valid within the US starbucks just opened in Egypt last year whereas McDonald's can be found on Every street corner anywhere in the world, Although the taste differs from place to place, for instance in egypt and holland Mcdonald's actually has a taste, in New york city it is acceptable to eat anywhere else in the US it tastes pretty much like Cardboard paper and not actual meat, and I've actually tasted it in these places and I can verify my words).
This is the obvious facet of nomadic power one that non nomads see and think they can make out how to reach success through that nomadic power without even knowing the principles of nomadic life. I can't say I myself fully grasp it but while I was doing a documentary about the sights in the southern sinai desert (like mount sinai where moses got the ten commandments or the different canyons and oases) we spent our nights with nomads all the time, because the only good places to bunk in the desert would be with the nomads (known as the bedouins) those are your stereotypical run of the mill traditional dressing, camel riding, sheep and goat herding arabs, they live in the desert, and rule by the rule of the desert nomads in every aspect of their life even if they have a home base they go to (what the writers called the bunker). I'll stray off for a second to explain the bunker concept, the bunker is like a homebase or an HQ where you can hide and regrop as well as rethink strategy for corporations this would be where the CEO lies, for nomadic tirbes, this is their base camp where the tribal leader lies as well as the women and children. but staying these five nights with the bedouin people got me to know the other facets of their power that lie deep within their society that we are missing in ours.
Being tribal people the tribe lies first before everything (beleive it or not even the government they don't give a rat's behind about anything but their own tribe) the leader's word is the law, and it is always justice that prevails. Culture and tradition are highly respeced and NEVER minsiculed or ignored, they are always proud of their culture enforcing it and always maintaining their traditions (and I'm not talking about having cranberry sauce with turkey at thanksgiving I'm talking deeprooted traditions more than hundreds of years old, like weddings that last for weeks with certain rituals inbetween, or rules for vendettas between tribes) it is this unity and respect for culture that grants them the ultimate power. so really to reach ultimate nomadic power I would highly advise one to seek within himself/herself or within their organization find the cultures and traditions that created that organization (or themselves) and also find the unity within that organization that along with keeping people guessing aka being extremely flexible and mobile as well as everywhere and anywhere grants complete nomadic power.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Fembot alchemy
As much as I like sci-fi and fantasy, reading the words cyborg or chimera in this article had a completely different meaning. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html harway's cyborg manifesto.
Now I claim to be a feminist myself, due to the way my life was growing up my major influences were mostly female, raised solely by my mom who was raised by hers, the closest parents I have till now remain to be my mom and grandmother (to whom I wish refer to by her nickname Zizi only and never as grandma or any of its synonyms). that lack of a male influence (other than my own) provided the balance within me to respect the finer sex (as we call it back home). but then again I do not completely agree with haraway's Ideas even though within her own culture and society her ideas might be the best approach possible.
Haraway talks about the cyborg, a unity of man and machine, sometimes of animal and machine or even all three together, like the chimera's produced by alchemy, the elements have been deeply infused that you can't recognize when does the human start and the machine begins or the other way round but they are simply on unit, one piece the ultimate singularity. she says the bature of the cyborg is that it refuses to see the differences within it (it's parts if you will) but only sees itself as a whole, and no one can blame it because if it did see it's parts does parts will conflict and fight each other forcing it to disentegrate, so unless unity is achieved NOTHING is achieved. Logical right, well that's the cyborg's luck that it runs on digital logic while humans run on the logic of chaos (and refuse to follow it even).
she says that when a person aspires to be a feminist they are faced by the problems of not using the sum of their parts to strengthen their position but conflict themselves by pitting their parts against each other. her main example was the when one says "woman" to try and fight for women rights, they mostly mean white adult females, so when someone says "black women" they just excluded all blacks by saying woman, and excluded everyone but blacks by saying black (I am using this just as an example and not to practice racisim for those of you who enjoy the backwater political correctness), a vague example that she gives but what she is trying to say is that in the modern american society one person is divided into so many parts of race gender and class etc... that they fail to unify and fight for their rights. so she is trying to say that the best approach for that is to reach cyborgism and become one whole without botering with the petty differences. it's like when people got mad at oprah for supporting barack obama because their both black but not hilary clinton while they are both females, IT IS THAT CONFLICT that makes everything within this society so godamn difficult, what is really the difference between black, white , yellow, brown, red or terrorist (since that last one is now the common refrence for the arab race), male or female, essentially there isn't any difference if we break it down to biology or physiology (except for the fact that men and women have different genetellia). exactly the same no difference what so ever, at least not enough to case such huge controversy between those properties of humans (race gender class... etc).
but no, humans can't leave it simple, they have to overcomplicate and then try to simplify, men have to be from mars and women have to be from venus, what about black men then ? jupiter since most of them are well built? what about native americans ? pluto since it no longer is a planet? why do they have to complicatre things so much for it to be unbearable to live among fellow human beings.
It is quite simple actually, when americans wanted to write in zero G NASA developed a very expensive pen in which the ink flows out regardless of gravity, russians just used a pencil. it is what I call the Old world VS the New world syndrome, The old world wise and aged have taken control of the surrounding environment (as well as surrounding peoples) and reached a point were no conflicts exist (mostly I mean darfur, palestine, pakistan and india, and others are just what we call a hurricane in a cup) through culture and tradition. whereas, the new world, just like the youth, is hotheaded, stubborn and quick to react at times, as well as abusing it's power, whenever possible. they started very early on, since the renegade oldworlders escaping the traditions and cultures that they felt opressing them went out to their promised land and started their own traditions and cultures, traditions of oppression starting with the red indians, to black slaves and so on and so forth but also culture of liberation, and freedom, which are essentially magnificent but still can be used for not really good terms ( the route to hell is lined with good intentions right). so with those overcomplicated conflicts of oppression and freedom over the mere 200 years of evolution of the new world, old grudges of the past haven't dissipated yet, from both sides. those bottled up feelings inside tend to now come up and divide the whole that makes a human. Newwolrdlers that escaped the old world claim it for themselves and reject their past, while newworlders that where brought by force or made there (latinos) still respect their original heritage, that's why you have african american and mexican american and asian american but never german american, irish american, english american or even french american.
The whites have reahed their unity but tend to forget that non-white folk are similarly humans and should be at the same unity, sure they do now (most of them) but it is kind of a little late so it will need sometime for te grudges to dissipate (or maybe not grudges between arabs and israillies within the general masses are still alive, but in most cases they do dissipate) so to that extent I agree that the only quick formula to reach this unity is to go for Haraway's cyborgism as it is effective.
another example of how these differences have been overlooked in the old world, haraway mention's a french theorist that says feminism appeared after world war II, while women cojoined men hand in hand in 1919 in egypt against the british oppresison and went down in the streets to protest the british invasion and the exile of Saad Zaghloul they also overlooked their relegious differences in that same riot/protest and the slogan of that protest was long live the crescent with the cross (recognizing the two major relegions in egypt which are christianity and islam). so it's not that hard to overlook the differences in the face of oppression, and since feminism appeared to give women their rights, this means their rights are being oppressed this means that they should cyborgify and forget their differences for the greater good of aquiring their rights.
what I don't like about Haraway's article though is that she wants to abolish the goddess status of women, and make them ONLY cyborgs, to which I disagree due to the fact that this status in my opinion is simply placing women on a high pedestal of respect, women are the givers of life and raisers of generations, that status shouldn't be slashed for the sake of their rights but merely used as a reinforcement, to provide levereage for the women rather than looked at as a weakness.
so really haraway's point about the cyborg is really valid although I really don't think the goddess status should be forgotten...
Now I claim to be a feminist myself, due to the way my life was growing up my major influences were mostly female, raised solely by my mom who was raised by hers, the closest parents I have till now remain to be my mom and grandmother (to whom I wish refer to by her nickname Zizi only and never as grandma or any of its synonyms). that lack of a male influence (other than my own) provided the balance within me to respect the finer sex (as we call it back home). but then again I do not completely agree with haraway's Ideas even though within her own culture and society her ideas might be the best approach possible.
Haraway talks about the cyborg, a unity of man and machine, sometimes of animal and machine or even all three together, like the chimera's produced by alchemy, the elements have been deeply infused that you can't recognize when does the human start and the machine begins or the other way round but they are simply on unit, one piece the ultimate singularity. she says the bature of the cyborg is that it refuses to see the differences within it (it's parts if you will) but only sees itself as a whole, and no one can blame it because if it did see it's parts does parts will conflict and fight each other forcing it to disentegrate, so unless unity is achieved NOTHING is achieved. Logical right, well that's the cyborg's luck that it runs on digital logic while humans run on the logic of chaos (and refuse to follow it even).
she says that when a person aspires to be a feminist they are faced by the problems of not using the sum of their parts to strengthen their position but conflict themselves by pitting their parts against each other. her main example was the when one says "woman" to try and fight for women rights, they mostly mean white adult females, so when someone says "black women" they just excluded all blacks by saying woman, and excluded everyone but blacks by saying black (I am using this just as an example and not to practice racisim for those of you who enjoy the backwater political correctness), a vague example that she gives but what she is trying to say is that in the modern american society one person is divided into so many parts of race gender and class etc... that they fail to unify and fight for their rights. so she is trying to say that the best approach for that is to reach cyborgism and become one whole without botering with the petty differences. it's like when people got mad at oprah for supporting barack obama because their both black but not hilary clinton while they are both females, IT IS THAT CONFLICT that makes everything within this society so godamn difficult, what is really the difference between black, white , yellow, brown, red or terrorist (since that last one is now the common refrence for the arab race), male or female, essentially there isn't any difference if we break it down to biology or physiology (except for the fact that men and women have different genetellia). exactly the same no difference what so ever, at least not enough to case such huge controversy between those properties of humans (race gender class... etc).
but no, humans can't leave it simple, they have to overcomplicate and then try to simplify, men have to be from mars and women have to be from venus, what about black men then ? jupiter since most of them are well built? what about native americans ? pluto since it no longer is a planet? why do they have to complicatre things so much for it to be unbearable to live among fellow human beings.
It is quite simple actually, when americans wanted to write in zero G NASA developed a very expensive pen in which the ink flows out regardless of gravity, russians just used a pencil. it is what I call the Old world VS the New world syndrome, The old world wise and aged have taken control of the surrounding environment (as well as surrounding peoples) and reached a point were no conflicts exist (mostly I mean darfur, palestine, pakistan and india, and others are just what we call a hurricane in a cup) through culture and tradition. whereas, the new world, just like the youth, is hotheaded, stubborn and quick to react at times, as well as abusing it's power, whenever possible. they started very early on, since the renegade oldworlders escaping the traditions and cultures that they felt opressing them went out to their promised land and started their own traditions and cultures, traditions of oppression starting with the red indians, to black slaves and so on and so forth but also culture of liberation, and freedom, which are essentially magnificent but still can be used for not really good terms ( the route to hell is lined with good intentions right). so with those overcomplicated conflicts of oppression and freedom over the mere 200 years of evolution of the new world, old grudges of the past haven't dissipated yet, from both sides. those bottled up feelings inside tend to now come up and divide the whole that makes a human. Newwolrdlers that escaped the old world claim it for themselves and reject their past, while newworlders that where brought by force or made there (latinos) still respect their original heritage, that's why you have african american and mexican american and asian american but never german american, irish american, english american or even french american.
The whites have reahed their unity but tend to forget that non-white folk are similarly humans and should be at the same unity, sure they do now (most of them) but it is kind of a little late so it will need sometime for te grudges to dissipate (or maybe not grudges between arabs and israillies within the general masses are still alive, but in most cases they do dissipate) so to that extent I agree that the only quick formula to reach this unity is to go for Haraway's cyborgism as it is effective.
another example of how these differences have been overlooked in the old world, haraway mention's a french theorist that says feminism appeared after world war II, while women cojoined men hand in hand in 1919 in egypt against the british oppresison and went down in the streets to protest the british invasion and the exile of Saad Zaghloul they also overlooked their relegious differences in that same riot/protest and the slogan of that protest was long live the crescent with the cross (recognizing the two major relegions in egypt which are christianity and islam). so it's not that hard to overlook the differences in the face of oppression, and since feminism appeared to give women their rights, this means their rights are being oppressed this means that they should cyborgify and forget their differences for the greater good of aquiring their rights.
what I don't like about Haraway's article though is that she wants to abolish the goddess status of women, and make them ONLY cyborgs, to which I disagree due to the fact that this status in my opinion is simply placing women on a high pedestal of respect, women are the givers of life and raisers of generations, that status shouldn't be slashed for the sake of their rights but merely used as a reinforcement, to provide levereage for the women rather than looked at as a weakness.
so really haraway's point about the cyborg is really valid although I really don't think the goddess status should be forgotten...
Monday, February 11, 2008
Tubers and Collossus
Yea the title is a hidden pun clever init.
So the third reading (to which this blog entry is LATE I hope i don't do that again), is about rhizomes interesting huh. well guess what that was probably the most messed up piece of litrature I've ever read in my short 20 going on 21 year life, written 7 years before I was even born two french philosophers/psychologists decided to go crazy on paper, it was in the 80s so i doubt they were high on acid, but the were french maybe that was the reason.
Anyhoo what I got out of that piece of litrature was that nature works like roots (not the tv show) while books (I'm assuming an analogy to human knowledge) work in a structured rigid way. And with books supposedly mirrors to nature, they're not doing a great job of that then. it's really simple when you dumb it down but how can you be a philosophiser if you don't use big words and sound holier-than-thou or rather smarter-than-thou because from what I understood they don't believe in holy (or ultima for that matter {inside joke don't dwadle on it you won't get it}). They start by explaining that nature and so does human knowledge are like trees and roots that spread out and expand to further and further reaches of capacities (hah big words, I am such a hypocryt). And go on explaining the importance of mulitplicity (not tha micheal keaton movie although that was awesome) in knowledge and that without multiplicity knowledge wouldn't be that much knowledgefiable (if I can use that as a word). and they explain that roots are a good example of multiplicity while a better example of that would be rhizomes (aka vegetables that grow out of their roots like tubers (a fancy word for potatoes) and carrots). how they went on and explained that was pretty interesting.
They used MATH, and me being and engineer by day artist by night (when I'm not out watching movies or playing video games) I told myself hey those are number you must understand this theory or else you'll be a failure and lo and behold I actually did (at least I think I did because no one refuted my explanation yet). you see the problem with multiplicity is that you can't have 1 so all multiples are (n-1) meaning that the only way for something to be a multiple is that for it to be greater than one (and they call that the only way to include one in multiplicity) and that's how it is for roots, you can never have a single root, you have to have a lot that branch out and spread for the tree to thrive. but with tubers the tree itself is a root so to speak, so no matter how many roots that tree has there will always be 1 hence it's (n+1) that one is the tuber itself hence multiplicity is more accessible when your core itself is part of it (at least that's what I got out of it), which is a really cool analogy of human thought.
now your defintely wondering how that fits into digital art well simple look again at my cleverly crafted title, we covered the tubers right what's with the collossus (well it kinda sounds like tubercolosis right ? well it's not just that). The collossus is our good 'ol interweb, or as people call it "that thing Al Gore invented", but really that many sided, many faced, many legged, well... many everything collossus that resides in each and everyone of us' homes is the perfect example of a blue ribbon quality tuber, it's roots spread further than fern gully and it's core massiveness can make all the developing countries developed (if it was a real potato) it spreads out to the corners of the earth (hah good luck finding that corner internet) and makes the world the small village we live in now. with the viral properties and things linking up to each other no wonder one gets youtube ADD, or The dreaded Facebookery. it is just a massive tuber with roots that are even more massive and branched, so really even though those two french dudes Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (also refrenced as D&G and yet not related to fashion although french and have the right letter combination). writing a philosophy piece analyzing human thought, infact analyzed the beast that runs our modern 21st century lives (don't believe me try cutting off the internet from a whole country for a couple of days see what happens, no ATMs no Airports, no Anything, and that actually happened last wednsday in egypt check that shit out I'm not kidding) and their analysis was right on the metaphorical money.
so really even though it was a messed up read with an introduction talking about "anal sunlight" it really opens your mind to the potato possibilities of our brain (And I don't feel like making a Mr.potatohead joke). so there that's the word on this piece.
http://www.manovich.net/vis242_winter_2006/New%20Media%20Reader%20all/27-deleuze-03.pdf
So the third reading (to which this blog entry is LATE I hope i don't do that again), is about rhizomes interesting huh. well guess what that was probably the most messed up piece of litrature I've ever read in my short 20 going on 21 year life, written 7 years before I was even born two french philosophers/psychologists decided to go crazy on paper, it was in the 80s so i doubt they were high on acid, but the were french maybe that was the reason.
Anyhoo what I got out of that piece of litrature was that nature works like roots (not the tv show) while books (I'm assuming an analogy to human knowledge) work in a structured rigid way. And with books supposedly mirrors to nature, they're not doing a great job of that then. it's really simple when you dumb it down but how can you be a philosophiser if you don't use big words and sound holier-than-thou or rather smarter-than-thou because from what I understood they don't believe in holy (or ultima for that matter {inside joke don't dwadle on it you won't get it}). They start by explaining that nature and so does human knowledge are like trees and roots that spread out and expand to further and further reaches of capacities (hah big words, I am such a hypocryt). And go on explaining the importance of mulitplicity (not tha micheal keaton movie although that was awesome) in knowledge and that without multiplicity knowledge wouldn't be that much knowledgefiable (if I can use that as a word). and they explain that roots are a good example of multiplicity while a better example of that would be rhizomes (aka vegetables that grow out of their roots like tubers (a fancy word for potatoes) and carrots). how they went on and explained that was pretty interesting.
They used MATH, and me being and engineer by day artist by night (when I'm not out watching movies or playing video games) I told myself hey those are number you must understand this theory or else you'll be a failure and lo and behold I actually did (at least I think I did because no one refuted my explanation yet). you see the problem with multiplicity is that you can't have 1 so all multiples are (n-1) meaning that the only way for something to be a multiple is that for it to be greater than one (and they call that the only way to include one in multiplicity) and that's how it is for roots, you can never have a single root, you have to have a lot that branch out and spread for the tree to thrive. but with tubers the tree itself is a root so to speak, so no matter how many roots that tree has there will always be 1 hence it's (n+1) that one is the tuber itself hence multiplicity is more accessible when your core itself is part of it (at least that's what I got out of it), which is a really cool analogy of human thought.
now your defintely wondering how that fits into digital art well simple look again at my cleverly crafted title, we covered the tubers right what's with the collossus (well it kinda sounds like tubercolosis right ? well it's not just that). The collossus is our good 'ol interweb, or as people call it "that thing Al Gore invented", but really that many sided, many faced, many legged, well... many everything collossus that resides in each and everyone of us' homes is the perfect example of a blue ribbon quality tuber, it's roots spread further than fern gully and it's core massiveness can make all the developing countries developed (if it was a real potato) it spreads out to the corners of the earth (hah good luck finding that corner internet) and makes the world the small village we live in now. with the viral properties and things linking up to each other no wonder one gets youtube ADD, or The dreaded Facebookery. it is just a massive tuber with roots that are even more massive and branched, so really even though those two french dudes Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (also refrenced as D&G and yet not related to fashion although french and have the right letter combination). writing a philosophy piece analyzing human thought, infact analyzed the beast that runs our modern 21st century lives (don't believe me try cutting off the internet from a whole country for a couple of days see what happens, no ATMs no Airports, no Anything, and that actually happened last wednsday in egypt check that shit out I'm not kidding) and their analysis was right on the metaphorical money.
so really even though it was a messed up read with an introduction talking about "anal sunlight" it really opens your mind to the potato possibilities of our brain (And I don't feel like making a Mr.potatohead joke). so there that's the word on this piece.
http://www.manovich.net/vis242_winter_2006/New%20Media%20Reader%20all/27-deleuze-03.pdf
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Video games with narrative
video games with narrative have been evolving imensly along with the evolution of the consoles themselves, it all started with the simple mario narrative of save the princess and evolved into the modern day complex fantasy scifi drama such as final fantasy, kingdom hearts, action movie style espionage plots like splinter cell and metal gear solid, demon and mythology games like devil may cry and god of war to modern day gangsters like the world famous grand theft auto. all these games while they provide immense and intese gameplay that is alone enough, provide the player with an intense story (narrative) the drags him into it that he even reacts to the happenings of the story, I remeber nearly crying when one of the main characters was killed off in final fantasy 7, and kept yelling at the TV "NO THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING", such intense emotional interaction can only be provided with a strong visual and audible narrative, because you can't just cry for a block in tetris.
for more information about the games mentioned wikipedia does a kick-behind job of explaining them and even providing a synopsis of their plots and twists if you don't mind spoilers.
also castlevania had a great narrative, and if we mention narrative we can't forget the comedic lucas arts games of the ninties spearheaded by monkey island and maniac mansion
for more information about the games mentioned wikipedia does a kick-behind job of explaining them and even providing a synopsis of their plots and twists if you don't mind spoilers.
also castlevania had a great narrative, and if we mention narrative we can't forget the comedic lucas arts games of the ninties spearheaded by monkey island and maniac mansion
Friday, February 1, 2008
Databasic instinct
Our third reading http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/AI_Society/manovich.html by lev manovic discusses an aspect of computer programming that I would've never thought it could be used as art; The Database.
In my pre highschool days i thought it would be cool to take a visual basic course, programming came easy to me and it wasn't really that much of a problem but then the course swerved into teaching SQL server and Database, the teacher wasn't that good and I ended up hating anything mildly mentioning the word Database (partially because I couldn't even grasp its complete meaning) so to me databases are simply programming "drawers" (if you will) where one stores and organizes chunks of data.
Now as an artist (or trying to be one) I just discovered how "inside the box" my thinking is and how small that metaphorical "box" is in my case. apparently my view of art is still the traditional way of drawing painitng and even digitally i make regular movies and shorts, and try to push my way through animation. I'm pretty openminded concerning new artforms, I myself consider comics and videogames to be arts themselves. but never would i have made the connection that the Database could be used for art and it was staring me in the face all that time.
Lev thinks databases are important as a form of new media because it opens new doors and possibilities into creating artwork, because similar to narrative and cinematic movies the database provides a person with a chunk of data that they recieve the only difference is that the database doesn't have to follow a narrative making it even more versatile as a form of new media.
To Lev really the only problem with narrative is that it had to be structured in a certain way and follow a certain direction (like begininning middle and end with a climax and a plot twist if it was really intersting) now that doesn't mean that the database isn't structured it's whole logic is built on being structured, but the way it's structure differs from person to person and from purpose to purpose because one can shape the database to fit their needs making versatile enough to be its own form of art and a narrative at some times even.
Lev moves on into how video games use databases to create artforms (which is the video game itself), you see a video game has a database of the several objects within it be it a story based VG (like final fantasy and god of war) or just your average solve the puzzle (like the legendary tetris or the ever growing bejeweled) this database is governed by "computer law", or as everyone else calls it an Algorithm. Now the word algorithm doesn't mean actions and saying made by Al Gore (like how he invented the internet, or how using hybrid cars will make the polar bears happy), it really means a code by which a certain computer program has to follow, it is as I mentioned before "computer law". everything in life is goverened by a hypothetical metaphorical algorithmand as one progresses through life one unravels to the code to proceed to the next level. Speaking of level video games are exactly the same, the only way to get through a level in a video game, or get the next high score, or beat the next boss, or save the next bunny is by simply trying to figure out how the game works, how the algorithm functions to proceed onto the following part that way the algorithm works, the mind creates a mental mirror algorithm to work out the compuer algorithm and surpass it.
now the difference between an algorithm and a narrative, is that all narratives have an algorithm within them that they follow to reach their end whereas the algorithm itself doesn't have to be a narrative like in tetris for example; those blocks aren't trying to save the princess, or struggle through life to be the ultimate pastery chef/ninja cat person, or even save the world from an incredibly evil and sadistic yet extremely gay and flambouyant looking supervillan with mother issues. they are simply random block that are rearranged to form a line to disapear, a simple algorithm with a simple goal that you follow without a narrative needed, hence all narrative can be algorithms but not all algorithms can be narratives.
this brings us to the next point, video games use algorithms to control their databases to create a narrative, meaning that a narrative is basically a method of arranging a database to follow through with a story. simply let's look at the arrangment of the novel, the novels database contains the characters, the locations, the events, and the plot twists such organization allows the author to swiftly go through from begining to end without getting lost or confused with his ideas, now the author arranges the relations between the objects in his/her database creating a novel that makes credible sense and follows a logical narrative in that way can a database can be a narrative, narratvie can't be databases because they always move forward, yet narratives can have databases (and more often then not they do) to maintian record of all the elements within the narrative.
Most hardcore gamers consider Video games as a narrative, and no one can blame them all the high selling videogames in the previous and current generation had strong storylines and plot twists, reaching the point of videogames becoming interactive books because they take a long time to complete and they require input from the audience (so they're more than just a movie or a book they're both combined with interactive responses) but with other companies reinventing the wheel and creating devices like the wee and the DS (i'm looking at you nintendo) more and more games started have no narrative again (reminding us of the puzzle games with computer bleeps of old) just maintinaning the concept of fun without haveing to have a narrative. so really video games can be a narrative but that is only one way to go with them.
Now this is easy to explain in digital terms because they actually use the computer database, but making the analogy to real life isn't that obvious to everyone, traditional painting and drawing for example uses databases and interfaces just like the digital world, it is simply called something else, your database is your ideas and your tools, while your interface is the canvas or paper, and the brush, pencil, pen, marker or even matchstick anything that you use to create an artpiece is your interface, it is basically anything you use to interact with your piece to create it.
so in conclusion Lev has opened my eyes onto a new medium that was absically being used all that time without being noticed, but now can be physically used by itself to create art a variable medium that changes as much as we change if not more and can be shaped according to our everywhim, making it the ultimate route to the future (to sound as cliche as possible), and providing us artists with new mediums to work with, because now i began to notice that once regular people (scientists engineers etc aka non-art folk) create something to work with, we artists have to take it rip it apart put it upside down and rewrite it's functions and call it art, creative? yes, beautiful? it takes time but everyone gets there. so really innovating with seemingly boring programming principles (like databases) can really lead is to newer fresher mediums, because art is about life so like life it should be ever changing and doesn't die at a certain form or another. and as long as people live there will be always people that think outside the box and put an upside down urinal in an art gallery and call it a founntain.
In my pre highschool days i thought it would be cool to take a visual basic course, programming came easy to me and it wasn't really that much of a problem but then the course swerved into teaching SQL server and Database, the teacher wasn't that good and I ended up hating anything mildly mentioning the word Database (partially because I couldn't even grasp its complete meaning) so to me databases are simply programming "drawers" (if you will) where one stores and organizes chunks of data.
Now as an artist (or trying to be one) I just discovered how "inside the box" my thinking is and how small that metaphorical "box" is in my case. apparently my view of art is still the traditional way of drawing painitng and even digitally i make regular movies and shorts, and try to push my way through animation. I'm pretty openminded concerning new artforms, I myself consider comics and videogames to be arts themselves. but never would i have made the connection that the Database could be used for art and it was staring me in the face all that time.
Lev thinks databases are important as a form of new media because it opens new doors and possibilities into creating artwork, because similar to narrative and cinematic movies the database provides a person with a chunk of data that they recieve the only difference is that the database doesn't have to follow a narrative making it even more versatile as a form of new media.
To Lev really the only problem with narrative is that it had to be structured in a certain way and follow a certain direction (like begininning middle and end with a climax and a plot twist if it was really intersting) now that doesn't mean that the database isn't structured it's whole logic is built on being structured, but the way it's structure differs from person to person and from purpose to purpose because one can shape the database to fit their needs making versatile enough to be its own form of art and a narrative at some times even.
Lev moves on into how video games use databases to create artforms (which is the video game itself), you see a video game has a database of the several objects within it be it a story based VG (like final fantasy and god of war) or just your average solve the puzzle (like the legendary tetris or the ever growing bejeweled) this database is governed by "computer law", or as everyone else calls it an Algorithm. Now the word algorithm doesn't mean actions and saying made by Al Gore (like how he invented the internet, or how using hybrid cars will make the polar bears happy), it really means a code by which a certain computer program has to follow, it is as I mentioned before "computer law". everything in life is goverened by a hypothetical metaphorical algorithmand as one progresses through life one unravels to the code to proceed to the next level. Speaking of level video games are exactly the same, the only way to get through a level in a video game, or get the next high score, or beat the next boss, or save the next bunny is by simply trying to figure out how the game works, how the algorithm functions to proceed onto the following part that way the algorithm works, the mind creates a mental mirror algorithm to work out the compuer algorithm and surpass it.
now the difference between an algorithm and a narrative, is that all narratives have an algorithm within them that they follow to reach their end whereas the algorithm itself doesn't have to be a narrative like in tetris for example; those blocks aren't trying to save the princess, or struggle through life to be the ultimate pastery chef/ninja cat person, or even save the world from an incredibly evil and sadistic yet extremely gay and flambouyant looking supervillan with mother issues. they are simply random block that are rearranged to form a line to disapear, a simple algorithm with a simple goal that you follow without a narrative needed, hence all narrative can be algorithms but not all algorithms can be narratives.
this brings us to the next point, video games use algorithms to control their databases to create a narrative, meaning that a narrative is basically a method of arranging a database to follow through with a story. simply let's look at the arrangment of the novel, the novels database contains the characters, the locations, the events, and the plot twists such organization allows the author to swiftly go through from begining to end without getting lost or confused with his ideas, now the author arranges the relations between the objects in his/her database creating a novel that makes credible sense and follows a logical narrative in that way can a database can be a narrative, narratvie can't be databases because they always move forward, yet narratives can have databases (and more often then not they do) to maintian record of all the elements within the narrative.
Most hardcore gamers consider Video games as a narrative, and no one can blame them all the high selling videogames in the previous and current generation had strong storylines and plot twists, reaching the point of videogames becoming interactive books because they take a long time to complete and they require input from the audience (so they're more than just a movie or a book they're both combined with interactive responses) but with other companies reinventing the wheel and creating devices like the wee and the DS (i'm looking at you nintendo) more and more games started have no narrative again (reminding us of the puzzle games with computer bleeps of old) just maintinaning the concept of fun without haveing to have a narrative. so really video games can be a narrative but that is only one way to go with them.
Now this is easy to explain in digital terms because they actually use the computer database, but making the analogy to real life isn't that obvious to everyone, traditional painting and drawing for example uses databases and interfaces just like the digital world, it is simply called something else, your database is your ideas and your tools, while your interface is the canvas or paper, and the brush, pencil, pen, marker or even matchstick anything that you use to create an artpiece is your interface, it is basically anything you use to interact with your piece to create it.
so in conclusion Lev has opened my eyes onto a new medium that was absically being used all that time without being noticed, but now can be physically used by itself to create art a variable medium that changes as much as we change if not more and can be shaped according to our everywhim, making it the ultimate route to the future (to sound as cliche as possible), and providing us artists with new mediums to work with, because now i began to notice that once regular people (scientists engineers etc aka non-art folk) create something to work with, we artists have to take it rip it apart put it upside down and rewrite it's functions and call it art, creative? yes, beautiful? it takes time but everyone gets there. so really innovating with seemingly boring programming principles (like databases) can really lead is to newer fresher mediums, because art is about life so like life it should be ever changing and doesn't die at a certain form or another. and as long as people live there will be always people that think outside the box and put an upside down urinal in an art gallery and call it a founntain.
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