Summary:
Manovich argues that narrative and database are cultural forms of expression. Since the world appears to us as an endless, unstructured form of data, it makes sense that we organize the data into culturall constructed frameworks. Manovich tells us that the internet has anti narrative logic associated with it as new elements are being added.
Response:
Manovich tells us that the internet has anti narrative logic associated with it as new elements are being added. Databasing is the process of associating. It is not connected to memory and asyncronic (experience is trained by location in time). However, the data itself does change with time because the data is in constant flux. Narating makes meaning through antecedent precedent (cause and effect). It is connected to memory and is syncronic. Language has epistemic power to create and communicate language. If database also can make meaning are they forms of language? Do we culturally value knowledge that comes from a database (dataset) as more persuasive than narrative? My husband and I sometimes watch the ABC show features business execs who choose to sponsor companies based on the persuasive presentations of aspiring entrepenuers. They always want the numbers - we're in a culture where we want to look at knowledge objectively instead of thinking about knowledge as subjective and intuitive. Datasets provide shared experience in a way that narrative cannot. The dataset asks the viewer to create the meaning through his/her navigation of the "facts." Thus, database is a convenient way to consolidate power - "we had the machine and the machine just magically tells us the 'truth'" This way of thinking ignores the creation of the algorithm.
Connections/Questions:
How much agency do we have when navigating a database verses navigating a narrative? We can choose the experience that we wish to have in a database more so than in a narrative. In a narrative, the narrator tells us how to navigate the information, but a database constructs the relationship you perceive of the information in relationship to other information; it doesn't tell you how to navigate the information. Yet in choosing a databse or a narrative, we've already chosen to contrain ourselves to the chosen medium and organizational structure. On the other hand, the database can be even more constrained than the narrative because in search for the text we act as asking a question and given agency to the answer.
Connections/Questions:
How much agency do we have when navigating a database verses navigating a narrative? We can choose the experience that we wish to have in a database more so than in a narrative. In a narrative, the narrator tells us how to navigate the information, but a database constructs the relationship you perceive of the information in relationship to other information; it doesn't tell you how to navigate the information. Yet in choosing a databse or a narrative, we've already chosen to contrain ourselves to the chosen medium and organizational structure. On the other hand, the database can be even more constrained than the narrative because in search for the text we act as asking a question and given agency to the answer.
