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Lev
Manovich's "The Language of New Media" (see
review
by Idensen) is a very well written book (which can
also be used as a database) which guides the reader
through its rich contents by always providing short
summaries of the chapter s/he just read or s/he is
about to read. The author illustrates his arguments
very well by always giving a broad range of
examples from his own practical working with these
new media technologies. However, one can experience
new media without ever being so massively
confronted with visuals or cinematic code as
Manovich suggests writing: "the visual culture of a
computer age is cinematographic in its appearance".
If you talk about computer games, or about VR
discourses developed over the last ten to twenty
years, yes, it is cinematographic plus some other
elements. Hollywood's and Silicon Valley's language
of new media is indeed massively cinematographic.
But, for example, if you talk about net culture,
media art, or practices like chatting or SMS
culture, then you just cannot claim that we have to
deal with a visual culture which is predominantly
cinematographic.
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