The Language of New Media (Leonardo Book Series) [Hardcover]

On the media of today he notes: "One general effect of the digital revolution is that the avant-garde aesthetic strategies came to be embedded in the command and interface metaphors of the computer software. The contemporary computer media are actually the past avant-garde materialized!"

As is perhaps clear from the book's title, "The Language of New Media" is primarily about the communication 'languages' that the various media make available through their existence. A language, in the sense that Mr. Manovich uses the term, is a collection of methods[in a media-tool/medium context] and their effect on that which may be communicated by a particular work. A wide range of examples, from published or exhibited creations, are cited to help describe the fruits of using a particular method/context that he details.

The strongest recurring theme in the book is how it deals with the history of cinematic language. Cinema is the media which brings under it's umbrella the greatest range of production methodology, so comes the closest to tying the whole text together into a coherent narrative. Otherwise, the book would tend to be more a kind of dictionary of available media methodologies/effects/attributes, each with their own implication towards constructing a sensual or conceptual experience.

Marshall Mcluhan's point, that "The medium is the message", may well serve as the best description of the contents of this book. For those seeking an analysis on the "meaning of the messages", that the media artists convey, it is probably best to seek additional books as a supplement to this one.

New media links content and interface, providing an unlimited number of ways of accessing a work. This is the norm of the digital age. Manovich argues "modern media is the new battlefield for the competition between database and narrative." (p. 234) But new media does not begin with the Web. In fact, there's no better place to begin than with the 1929 avant garde film classic, Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera," which serves as a guide in an innovative prologue.

Later Manovich sums up the achievement of this classic film: "Vertov is able to achieve something that new media designers still have to learn -- how to merge database and narrative into a new form (p. 243).

The Language of New Media offers a rigorous theory of new media. The author discusses new media's reliance on traditions, such as the use of the rectangular frame. He also demonstrates how concepts from film theory and art history play a vital role in understanding where we stand today. This book is highly recommended.