New Media Reader Introduction and From Borges to HTML

Borges and Bush: Two paths of thought that converged to create new technological view of the world fueled by endless possibilities.

more organic perspective vs. engineer perspective

Birth of a completely new medium as opposed to improving on an old one: "The 'augmented institution" as he saw it would not change into a 'bigger and faster snail' but would become a new species, like a cat, with new sensory abilities and entirely new powers."

1980s: Apple computers open up creative doors with more accessible GUI and creatively minded paint software.

1990s: internet opens up more doors for

New media can bridge the gap between human experience and digital data i.e. interfaces that allow human to control computer via visual, or other means, such as GUI.

Progression of computer capabilities mirrors other technologies. Transition from still image to film parallels the same developments that occurred in these mediums in digital form.

Personal computers have taken over many functions that previously took place in the analog domain, such as animation, sound and music editing, visual arts and synthesis. While the computer aids the user in these functions and makes many tasks more efficient, in most of these functions the computer does not react.

"The early Web (i.e. before it came to be dominated by big commercial portals towards the end of the 1990s) also practically implemented a radically horizontal, non-hierarchical model of human existence in which no idea, no ideology, and no value system can dominate the rest--thus providing a perfect metaphor for a new post-Cold War sensibility"

The digital realm allows many new functions that were not possible before the availability of computers but at the same time seems to most commonly replicate functions that take place in the real world. New media seems to be the study of this concept with the goal of progressing the lineage of technology into new realms that are only possible via technological advances, but also simply new methods of interpreting technology.