Introduction
New media has arguably many definitions and applications, but one aspect cannot be denied: new media lies at the heart of technological progress. New media is a progression and adaptation of avant-garde style thinking and techniques that were originally groundbreaking in 1910s-1920s visual arts, design, and film[1]. Artists and designers of this period created entirely new sets of media languages that preceded the computer communication styles that are highly relevant to media today.
New Media Throughout the Century
Artists and innovators of the 1920s were concerned with filtering reality in new ways to viewers and representing as much information as possible[2]. New media of the 1920s consisted of innovative techniques in filmmaking, photography, and printing technologies[3]. The 1920s was the last part of the decade during which new techniques were being constantly originated and developed. Beyond this decade, existing techniques were simply further developed, intensified, or mixed[4]. These techniques became the foreground of later practices of manipulation of pre-existing media and software-based cultural production[5]. Thus the 1920s are considered to be the most innovative decade of the twentieth century in terms of actual media production.
As the thought of the 1920s reappeared in the 1990s, the word new took on an entirely different context; new was now associated with the word media. This new media came to reference not only cultural forms that necessitated digital distribution (i.e., CD-ROMs, Web sites, computer games)[6], but a media revolution in the then-technologically developing landscape. The “new media avant-garde is about new ways of accessing and manipulating information” through the techniques of hypermedia, search engines, databases, image processing, and visualization[7]. Rather than being concerned with representing the world in new and different ways to a set of viewers, the new media of today addresses the access and use of previously existing accumulated media.
How Avant-garde Became Contemporary Computer Technology
Filmmaking and Photography
The computer, as opposed to the wave of innovation that characterized the 1920s, has acted not as a catalyst for the invention of new forms of media, but rather as a strengthening of existing technologies.[8] A direct example of this is the adaptation of the photomontage or collage style of photography that emerged during the 1920s into the “cut and paste” technology[9] that is considered basic in our technologically adapted time. Avant-garde strategies that characterized the new media of then has directly influenced the construction and development of the new media of now.
A number of other avant-garde techniques have been transformed into conventions of modern HCI, and now function as strategies of computer-based labor.[10] The strategies that developed in the 1920s to awaken audiences’ minds and open them up to the possibility of interaction with film[11] are reflected in the adaptation of Lissitzky’s use of moveable frames. Lissitzky’s technique has manifested itself in the form of multiple, overlapping windows, pull-down menus, and HTML tables[12], within which users can interact with the near-endless amount of information available to them simultaneously. To users today, this aspect of HCI is assumed, but the avant-garde thinking of the 1920s set this foundation for users as a technique for digital data management and manipulation.
Typography and Printing Technologies
The 1920s revolution in typography and printing technologies revealed a hierarchy of type sizes, a simplicity of geometric elements that simultaneously placate the user’s eyes while maintaining his attention and guiding him throughout the page, and the benefits of black versus white in terms of aesthetics.[13] These elements of design have transcended both time and media into the design of Windows 2000 and MAC OS systems today embody Tschichold’s statement that “the essence of the new typography is clarity.”[14] This is represented by the modern presence of dark type on a neutral face, clean geometric window frames, and the notable hierarchy of pull-down menus,[15] elements of design that we encounter and experience each time we use a computer.
Conclusion
The 1920s avant-garde notions of innovation in the communication landscape became materialized in the form of the computer[16] during the end of the twentieth century. What were considered to be radical aesthetic notions at the start of the twentieth century evolved to become standard computer technology at the century’s close. The “old media avant-garde”[17] of the 1920s, as exhibited through visual arts, design, and film, have manifested in not only the layout and design of present-day new media, but also in the daily practices of human-computer interaction. The technological communication techniques that we employ today represent a new stage of the avant-garde.
[1] Manovich, Lev. 2002. What is New Media?: Eight Propositions. In “New Media from Borges to HTML,” commissioned for The New Media Reader., eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, The MIT Press: 1-15.
[2] Manovich, What is New Media?, 12.
[3] Manovich, Lev. 2003. Avant-garde as Software. Artnotes: Journal on Art, Science and Technology. https://www.uoc.edu/artnodes.espai/eng/art/manovich1002/manovich1002.pdf.
[4] Manovich, Avant-garde as Software, 2.
[5] Manovich, What is New Media?, 12.
[6] Manovich, Avant-garde as Software, 1.
[7] Manovich, What is New Media?, 13.
[8] Manovich, What is New Media?, 12.
[9] Manovich, Avant-garde as Software, 3.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Manovich, What is New Media?, 12.
[12] Manovich, Avant-garde as Software, 4.
[13] Manovich, Avant-garde as Software, 5.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Manovich, Avant-garde as Software, 6.
[16] Manovich, Avant-garde as Software, 3.
[17] Manovich, What is New Media?, 13.
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