Post on 05-Dec-2014
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Seminar 13 Database as Symbolic Form
Introduction to the Digital Liberal ArtsMDST 3703 / 7703
Fall 2010
Business
• Next week is the last studio session• Find exam will be a take home reflective essay
on your project from the perspective of the ideas presented in seminar
Review
• ManyEyes – use Gmail address …
Overview
• Today we explore Lev Manovich’s thesis that the database is the defining symbolic form of our time
• We explore the argument itself and the impact on how we view digital scholarship
• Manovich’s piece is intended as a concluding framework for this course – a way to integrate all of the ideas we have discussed so far …
What is a symbolic form?
A symbolic form is a schema or cognitive frame that links the social, psychological, and technical practices of a culture.
Symbolic forms internalize and express worldview.
For example, the idea of perspective in the
Renaissance
Linear perspectiveA mathematical system for creating the illusion of space and distance on a flat surface. The system originated in Florence, Italy in the early 1400s.
http://www.ski.org/CWTyler_lab/CWTyler/Art%20Investigations/PerspectiveRules/Image2.gif
Flagellation, Piero della Francesca, c. 1448-49
axionometric view
reconstructed plan and elevation
Demonstration of internal light source in Flagellation by Piero della Francesca
What kind of worldview is expressed by linear perspective?
Rational Individualism
Rational• Use of geometry• Mathesis regulating
graphesisIndividual• Paintings are
literally from an individual’s point of view
Vitruvian Man, da Vinci, circa 1487
Yaxchilan lintel 24
The lintel depicts an actual blood-letting rite that took place on 26 October 709.
King Shield Jaguar is shown holding a torch as Queen Lady Xoc draws a barbed rope through her pierced tongue.
The surrounding text locates the event within the Mayan calendar system.
Muslin painting of Battle of Little Big Horn done by Dakota artist, Kicking Bear, circa 1896. 1026.G.1. From the Irvin S. Cobb Collection (Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Autry National Center)
http://libraries.theautry.org/2010/05/26/new-book-featuring-autry-center-collections/
Montage
Using the surface to express larger contexts
Guernica, again …
So, how can a database be a symbolic form?
Semiotics (Structuralism)
• Paradigm and Syntagm– Paradigm = rules and elements (the Code)– Syntagm = actual expressions of the code
• For example, Language– (Deep) Grammar = Paradigm = Rules– Spoken/written sentences = Syntagm = Results
• All cultural forms are performances of cultural logic– Part of the human repertroire
Syntagm and Paradigm
PARADIGM SYNTAGMRules
StructureSynchronic
ParallelFinite
ResultsEvent
DiachronicLinearInfinite
Semiotics of Symbolic FormsSYMBOLIC FORM PARADIGM SYNTAGM WORLDVIEW
Linear Perspective Backgrounded Fixed snapshot of a single event
Individual
Traditional Narrative Backgrounded Fixed sequence of many events
Montage Projected onto syntagm
Collocation of many events
Social
Database Foregrounded Dynamic, ephemeral result of interaction
Database as Symbolic Form
Formal characteristics• The List• Order does not matter• All records functionally equal• Organized by Categories – expressive of a data
model
Database as Symbolic Form
Effects• Exposes the paradigmatic level that is
normally hidden• Make the syntagmatic level ephemeral, where
normall it is fixed and dominant
?
?
?paradigm syntagm
Civilization IV
The “Civilopedia” governs play
The “board” is the interface to the
database
Would Dante today spend his time creating a database of Classic Greece, Rome, and Christendom?
Tragedy and Comedy are different modes of narrative
resolution
Narrative
• Narratives oppose database logic– Order matters– There is a “sense of an ending”
• The “database” is internal, unexposed– In the head of the author
• The result of an internal algorithm– The author’s in the act of writing
This conflict exposes the idea of the algorithm
(The “rationalization effect” again)
A flowchart expresses a kind of algorithm
Algorithm
• Connects narrative to database, syntagm to paradigm– A set of procedures for
working with a set of data
• Can be interactive …
Syntagm
Paradigm
Algorithm
Whither Scholarship?
Synthesis
Sources
Scholarship
“creating a work in new media digital scholarship can be understood as the construction of an interface to a database”
WordPress
• Where is the syntagmatic level?• Where is the paradigmatic level?• Does the interface afford scholarly
interaction?