What Is New Media?

What is new media? In some ways, the term "new media" is quite enigmatic. The old expression "There is nothing new under the sun" comes to mind. However, this platitude does not ring entirely true. A personal axiom is "There's nothing new under the sun save the shadow it casts over one's moving form." At one time the printing press, the brainchild of Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th Century, was considered a revolutionary new medium. This amazing marvel of engineering utilized movable type elements so diverse and numerous that the type case "is estimated to have contained around 290 separate letter boxes, most of which were required for special characters, ligatures, punctuation marks, etc." (Printing press-Wikipedia, Gutenberg's press Section). By the early 20th Century, new media was characterized first by radio and next by television. These media are now considered relatively old. Now the so-called new media encompasses online resources including social networking venues such as Facebook or MySpace and Twitter, Wikis such as the online internationally user-maintained encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and media-sharing sites such as You Tube, to name but a few. Perhaps in the most basic sense, the term "new media" is best defined in terms of its convergence with the needs addressed by so-called old media. Both old and new media spring from the same basic need—that of providing a conveyance for people's ideas, thoughts and feelings. The new media outlined above converge with the needs addressed by older media such as newspapers, radio and television, giving rise to new forms that differ primarily in their degree of interactivity. Blogs, social networking media and the like provide conveyance of ideas, but also a means of immediate response for those who receive those idas. Older media might well have invited such interactivity, but the means of conveyance for interaction was limited to the means then available, typewriters for letters sent into newspaper editors, for example. Nonetheless, despite the increased pace of interactivity provided by new media, they should not be taken as a replacement for the old, for they were inspired by old media and would not exist without them. One can therefore sum up new media as the convergence of old needs with new means of conveyence, i.e. new forms of technology that act to augment, but not replace existing forms.

Awash in Gouache

Though this posting is not strictly in relation to an assignment for BUS 317 (31.7) New Media & Business, it is concerned with media, in this case, arguably old media, rather than new.

This semester has been one of great challenges accompanied by rewarding gain in skills and insight. As a CUNY Baccalaureate student, I am availed of an almost intimidating breadth of curriculum that spans all of the senior colleges (four year institutions) under the CUNY umbrella. My interdisciplinary major straddles the line between computer science and visual art (with a touch of business thrown in for good measure).

As the vast majority of my experience in the arts are in the performing arts (I have worked  both as actor and musician), I am having to fill in my skills in the arena of visual arts. This semester I am taking a course called ADV 1100 Design & Color with Professor Jenna Spevack at New York City College of Technology. The experience has been both terrifying (owing to my lack of experience) and immeasurably rewarding (I am painting with gouache for the first time in my life). I cannot overstate the challenge of working in the medium of gouache for a person who, prior to this point, had extreme phobia of even drawing using graphite pencils. In fact, it is still my feeling, though less so than before, that I cannot even draw a straight line, let alone any complex abstract forms.

"Aural Landscape"—this abstract free study, based on a spectrogram of my voice saying my informal name, "Bobby," was rendered with Pigma Micron pens.

This course is introductory in nature and certainly does not aim at creating visual artists; rather it aims at introducing basic design concepts and color theory (sophisticated enough for me at my present level of development). Interestingly, given my background in performing arts, I have found that the same creative and expressive urges that find their way into performance have been translated into my propensity to create complex compositions within the context of each required project in the course.

The real point of highlighting my activities in this course is that as I slowly begin to absorb new skills (working with graphic Pigma Micron pens, graphite pencil sketching, and most challengingly, painting with gouache), I begin to see and feel the interconnectedness of these media.

A medium, in the purest (and purist) sense, is a means of conveyence, a venue for expression of ideas, sentiments, philosophies. My ultimate aim is to create well-integrated interactive web sites that are aesthetically pleasing as well as functionally rich.

The parallels and intersections between the more organic forms of media such as the human body in theatre, the vocal cords and/or musical instruments in music, graphite, water color, gouache and acrylic in visual arts, and the more recent counterpart of graphic paint and/or photo software are myriad. They are all media whose aims point to a common arena—that of the realm of human feelings, experience and ideas. In other words, they all aim at clear and expressive communication, and though some may be considered "new media," the new forms that are intrinsically linked to their underlying technologies are no newer in intent than the ancient media of water color and/or gouache.

This semester has opened a whole new world, exposing me to totally new (despite their historical antiquity) means of expression that can only enhance and strengthen not only my efforts in the realm of computer science, i.e., computer programming for the web, but also my lifelong work in the performing arts.

Within the next couple of days, I will be posting my summary definition of new media. I welcome your comments on this posting, as well as any other of my postings up to this point.