Science vs. Art. Artist vs. Audience. Author vs. Subject. Form vs. Content.
Hierarchy vs. Democracy.
Even the most cursory attempt at putting a box around “new media” immediately plunges the conversation into some of the most enduring discourses of art theory and social organization. Long-standing binaries vibrate against each other and start to unravel. However, the difficulty with the term “new media” goes beyond the inadequacies of existing taxonomies. It has less to do with what you make, and more with how you think.
For me, new media is a question of ideology.
Coming from a background of cinema studies, the auteur is paramount. Hitchcock, Scorsese, Herzog. Of course filmmaking is most often a collaborative process, the product of a large series of concessions and compromises between individuals, resources and the circumstances in which the two meet, but the desire to see a film as the result of a single visionary, the cinematic “genius,” remains strong.
The reasons for this hero-worship are complex and multifaceted (film financiers/studios and theorists/historians both have a stake), but it permits the filmmaking discipline to fit nicely into enduring conceptions of the individual artist that complement ideas of competition and capitalism so integral to the organization of Western society.
With new media, the artistic means of production have exploded, and the existing hierarchal structures imposed by the necessity of technical training and expensive equipment are being dramatically undermined. Of course, this is not to say these don’t have their place in a new media environment, and even access to a working power outlet and an internet connection can be an insurmountable obstacle.
But new media is intriguing for how it whispers “counter-culture.” Moving from a competitive hierarchy to collaborative democracy is a truly profound shift that will require a rethinking of what all those terms above mean. It’s more than working together or giving up control to process.
It’s seeing the social world and the individual within it differently. It’s taking the leap of faith that one paradigm can be left for another. And this is at once terrifying and liberating. But not to fear, the realist in me knows that new media will end up in a middle ground, where we can have our geniuses and eat them too.
Lovely entry.
A curious mind, regardless of its position, will find an answer….
Well put, your line of questioning is a good start!
did I tell you this was a very powerful post? Your grasp of the issues is quite clear and your questioning very appropriate.
Thank you for your encouragement Alex. This post represents some of my very preliminary reflections on the class discussion we had during the first week. I was curious about why New Media represented such a challenging intellectual break, and I felt like there must be more going on than simply a change of tools, methods or modes of distribution.
Having reached the end of the term, I feel like looking at the ideological foundations driving New Media was a fruitful way to approach such a diverse subject. Changing your tools is a technical challenge. Changing your mind is a personal challenge. And this kind of profound personal change is what good New Media production asks of us.
We must not only to begin to create differently, but we must also begin to think differently.
Your on point, sometimes it even screams “counter culture!”