Page 82 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

82‘The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.’ 1 William GibsonThis is the opening line of Neuromancer,the novel that marked the o cial start ofthe Cyberpunk moment (30 years ago). I am beginning with this quote because I believe that it illustrates the fear of technological evolution characteristic of a strand of dystopic thought that is still prevalent in the Spanish audiovisual industry even today.I hope that this contribution, albeit partial,is extensive and varied enough to dissuade readers from believing that crises are negative by de nition. Granted, digitisation of the audiovisual is marking the end of an age, but also the start of another that is richer and more complex. Welcome to the binary ecosystem!1. Introduction: digital transformationIn 2001 Lev Manovich published a book that would become an essential work: The Language of New Media.2 Fifteen years on there is still talk of ‘new media’, so presumably for many people this label means that other media are ‘old’; what is more, there is no expiry date for novelty.Manovich’s book (for those who haven’t read it yet) proposes re ecting in depth on the changes entailed by the digitisation of the media. And one of the points it clearly stresses is that it is the media themselves that have changed, so that ‘old versus new’ is neither a useful nor a signi cant distinction.It continues to be read even today and is still fully relevant, owing largely to the focus the author decided to give to the subject: he avoided a chronological approach (which, incidentally, would have heightened a sense of linearity that we should start saying goodbye to) and adopted a functional point of view that was more in keeping with the issue at hand and also muchmore fruitful. As I have said, Manovich’s book hasn’t lost any of its freshness and remains a good introduction to what we most ambiguously term digital transformation.The main idea the book explores is that digitisation of the media involves reducing a whole ecosystem to the following statement: ‘Everything is data’. Everything is data.Manovich, tremendously consistent with this thinking and the conclusions reached, brought out a second book in 2013. Its title? Software Takes Command.3But this author not only deals with theory. Readers can nd an online summary of his works,4 which are evidently the result of implementing and putting into practice the ideas explored in his books.I am quoting Manovich because I believe that he for one understood what was brewing (because it’s now happened!) and shared it with us all for those who wished to get the message. This point can be illustrated with a simple photograph:DATA, INTERFACES & STORYTELLING: AUDIOVISUAL IN THE DIGITAL AGE · MONTECARLOPhotograph of a slide shown by Sandy Carter, Social Business Evangelist, at an IBM for Entrepreneurs event. Taken from John Kennedy’s blog.5Smart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation