The Language of New Media [Paperback]

A stimulating, eclectic accountof new media that finds its origins in old media, particularly the cinema.

In this book Lev Manovich offers the first systematic and rigorous theory of new media. He places new media within the histories of visual and media cultures of the last few centuries. He discusses new media's reliance on conventions of old media, such as the rectangular frame and mobile camera, and shows how new media works create the illusion of reality, address the viewer, and represent space. He also analyzes categories and forms unique to new media, such as interface and database.

Manovich uses concepts from film theory, art history, literary theory, and computer science and also develops new theoretical constructs, such as cultural interface, spatial montage, and cinegratography. The theory and history of cinema play a particularly important role in the book. Among other topics, Manovich discusses parallels between the histories of cinema and of new media, digital cinema, screen and montage in cinema and in new media, and historical ties between avant-garde film and new media.

The Language of New Media, Manovich surpasses previous prophets of the new media by uncovering the way that what is new is often rooted in a transformation and rediscovery of the slumbering utopian energies of the past. Manovich not only describes the recent history of new media, but its foundations, and its intellectual and aesthetic debts to such aspects of media history as russian constructivism and early cinema. Striking while the media is still hot, Manovich sees creative possibilites and transformation, yet never falls into the trap of thinking new media have no history or have single-handedly created a new world. His vision is unique, risky, and compelling.

This is simply the best book that I have read on the aesthetics of new media. Other authors have often lc^