The Digital Time Warp by Tegan Bristow

Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by admin in Avusa Media News

There is a general tendency in digital media to underestimate the short term and overestimate the long term. The predictions of ten years ago have been far exceeded.

Back in 2006, the now under-used Director was around and pivotal, Flash was still cool and Lev Manovich wrote an essay titled “Import/Export” about the modularity in media creation and its ability to stitch together separate elements to form a single design or film. More significantly Manovich speaks of how software allows these elements to be reused across media platforms: print, web and television. This may seem absurdly obvious, but there is a trend here that has a much broader presence.

A simple fun yet fundamental example of a recent appropriation of this theory of modulation is seen in the observance of pure code. Code is and always has been modularised. We’ve all heard of object-orientated programming right? MTV Brazil’s 2009 ID (http://www.vimeo.com/3431228) made with Processing (www.processing.org) is a perfect example of this manifesting in broadcast media. In short, a single particle system code structure has been reused with different elements (3-D, sound, colour) to create a beautiful and yet familiar effect through out. This is significant because code, the material of all media, is being addressed as a medium; the beginning of what I term the use of “code as medium”. No painter paints without a thorough understanding of pigments and no sculptor sculpts without a keen sense of the line in the marble.

MTV Brasil ID 2009 from Dimitre on Vimeo.

I would like to take this theory on another metaphorical leap…. this time into communication technologies and focus attention to the stitching together of what would seem to be diverse communication platforms. We may think that twitter, radio, blogs and music are completely different things the reality is that they are all digitised and all use the same cables and airwaves.

Another evaluation of the code as medium is the 5fm website (http://www.5fm.co.za). Praekelt Consulting have developed a seamless and user-centric website that integrates digital radio, broadcast radio, music and blogging into a single platform. It has gone beyond the attempt at UG content and has allowed the potential seamlessness of digital media to give their users/listeners a content rich, customisable experience of music, events and DJ celebrities.

Some Geek Terminology

Code refers to the typed program instructions that programmers write. The written code is interpreted into a language that a system can read and execute. It is the basic building block of computer programs of whatever nature.

Flash is a programming technique (animation technique) that enables movies and animation to move seamlessly across a Web browser.

Object-orientated programming (OOP) refers to a type of programming that combines data structures with functions to create reusable objects e.g. a graphics programme is an example where you can draw a circle, rectangles or triangle. Applying that action to each will result in different actions. If you do a 3-D action, it would result in a sphere, box and a pyramid respectively. The most popular object-oriented programming languages are Java and C++. Simply, what OOP does is allow programmers to “copy” certain inherent functions of an object without re-programming from start.

Modular Programming is a type of programming of software that breaks down the design of a program into individual components (modules) that can be programmed and tested independently. As you can imagine, it is key to effective development and maintenance of large programs and projects. Think about how the Gautrain project – each piece of a “bridge “is built separately and then assembled to form a whole.

Read more about the author: Tegan Bristow