RE: [-empyre-] ~~NMR

[noah wardrip-fruin <noah@queeg.com>]

Sorry I've been absent so long. We had quite a scare, but our most 
recent talks with doctors have been much more positive.

At 1:12 AM -0800 14/1/04, Jim Andrews wrote:
> Should I expect to see in the history books that 'x did a very nice Flash
> piece'? Or 'y did a very nice hypertext.' Or 'z did a very nice Shockwave
> piece.' Or 'q wrote some very nice email poems.' Or 't did a very nice
> installation.'
>
> Or does it mean something else to be deeply innovative in new media? This is
> the sort of fussy question I am trying to get at.

I think a short answer to your initial question would be "yes." For 
example, Patchwork Girl is usually considered part of hypertext art's 
history - not because of technical novelty (Michael Joyce or Deena 
Larsen probably lays claim to the "first x", where x == something 
technical, that so much peppers new media history) but rather because 
of the possibilities it demonstrated for the form.

But if I understand your question correctly, I also think you have a 
good point. Most new media that will make the history books will 
probably innovate at the level of the system - not simply employ a 
system already widely-used by artists in the way it is normally used. 
This is both because innovating at both levels (or, really, erasing 
the distinction between the levels) makes more possible and because 
of our sometimes-unfortunate tendency to focus on "firsts" when we 
write history.

> Somewhere on your NMR web site I read that the texts and CD in the NMR
> express ideas that came into the public sphere with the World Wide Web.
>
> If the NMR is a kind of history of the digital paradigms of communication up
> to the WWW, then will the history of the WWW as we currently know it be
> phrased in terms of a similar emphasis on innovation in the forms or
> paradigms of communication, as opposed to basically expressions of content
> within pre-defined forms?
>
> I am asking, not pronouncing.

I think Nick and I were gesturing at something a bit less ambitious 
there. What I understood us to mean (Nick, please feel free to jump 
in with your own interpretation) is that the Web's explosive 
popularity brought to the wider public the combination of the digital 
computer, networking, "hypermedia," and other elements of new media 
(as we define it) that had begun developing around WWII. Not that the 
Web is some end point of evolution, but rather that it went further 
than the home computer era or early video game consoles in bringing 
new media into our everyday lives.

> This is the sort of question I was trying to phrase in asking 'How do you
> conceive of the role of technological innovation in
> computing-based new media?'

Definitely a question worth pursuing, from many disciplinary 
perspectives. I wonder if anyone else on the list wants to weigh in 
with last minute thoughts?

Noah