While trying to figure out how to utilize intertextual theories in a way that had relevance in the context of interactive new media, I came across a book by Dr. Lev Manovich. Manovich has an interdisciplinary background integrating technology and the arts.

I was immediately struck by the similarities in our backgrounds. I was born in 1961 and have studied fine arts (music), mathematics and computer science. I have worked with computer media as an artist, composer, designer and programmer, and have taught media art since 1990. It is not surprising that I felt an intimate connection to Manovich's work.

When I started reading The Language of New Media I was delighted and excited. The book had approaches that appealed to my perspectives, and the approaches were based on aspects of the methodologies I had attempted to use. In his book The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich

Manovich’s method is centered around a number of questions that illuminate the important issues. His questions address: the uniqueness of new media, new media’s reliance on old media, conventions and techniques of new media, the effects of computerization, and new aesthetic possibilities.

In my many years working in this area, I have observed that the act of naming is difficult, and never without its pitfalls. When I talk of Puppet Motel, is it interactive multimedia art, new media art, interactive electronic art or a CD-ROM game. Manovich chooses to be very broad calling the object simply, new media.

To define what he means by the term, Manovich begins his exploration by posing the question: “What is new media?” He starts by including popular categories such as “the Internet, Web sites, computer multimedia, computer games, CD-ROMs and DVD, virtual reality” where the computer is used to distribute and exhibit rather than produce. Manovich then decides this definition is too limiting since “there is no reason to privilege the computer as a machine for exhibition and distribution of media over the computer as a tool for media production or as a media storage device”. (Ibid.: 19)

In the end, his justification for the broad definition is the pervasive nature of the computer in human communication. “The computer media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage, and distribution; it also affects all types of media — texts, still images, moving images, sound, and spatial constructions.” (Ibid.: 19) This definition of new media allows Manovich to develop a more general theory of new media. The methodology used here to examine Puppet Motel comes from two parts of Manovich’s work: “Principles of New Media” and “New Media Forms”.

Manovich identifies what he calls the key differences between old and new media. The five principles of new media are not absolute laws, as not every object obeys the principles. They are, however, general tendencies exhibited by new media. These principles are not mutually exclusive as the last three are dependent on the first two.

1. Numerical Representation. New media objects are represented by digital codes. For example, a digital image is a set of numbers representing pixel colour values. As a result of this representation, new media objects are subject to algorithmic manipulation. In Photoshop one can apply a filter to an image. A filter can perform many different manipulations. For example one can blur or sharpen an image. The filters are a specific case of an algorithm.

2. Modularity. “Media elements … are represented as collections of discrete samples … These elements are assembled into larger-scale objects but continue to maintain their separate identities.” The Web is a new media object that contains many web sites. Each web site contains a number of web pages. Each web page contains text, images, sounds, digital video, Javascript code, Flash media, etc. At the atomic level, each image is composed of pixels.

3. Automation. As a result of numerical representation and modular structure, new media objects can be manipulated at a variety of different levels of abstraction. At a relatively low level, Photoshop filters will transform an image so that it appears in a watercolour style or will process the image to emphasize edges. At a higher level, behaviours can be assigned to sets of 3-D objects so that they exhibit the movement of a school of fish.

4. Variability. Since a new media object is represented in a numerical and modular form, it can be manipulated in potentially infinite ways. A new media object is never fixed but can have many variations. Search engines often incorporate banner advertising. The image that appears is often generated based on the most recent search query.

5. Transcoding. Computerization turns media into computer data whose structure follows established conventions. Manovich claims that new media consists of two layers: the cultural layer and the computer layer. A digital music file would have style, genre, orchestration, timbre, and rhythms on the cultural layer. On the computer layer there would exist arrays of numbers representing sound samples. It is the influence of each transcoded layer on the other, that is the most substantial consequence of the process of computerization.

The techniques that we use to model the world, represent objects and actions inside the computer, influence the cultural layer. “…we can say that [the layers] are being composited together. The result of this composite is a new computer culture — a blend of human and computer meanings, of traditional ways in which human culture modeled the world and the computer’s own means of representing it.” (ibid.: 46) This blend, to which Manovich refers, is often a central theme in new media art works.

These five concepts provide a framework to describe, interpret and evaluate Puppet Motel in the general context of the new media object. What is lacking, however, is an approach to a lower-level examination of Puppet Motel. Over time I came to realize that I was interested in the details of the forms and structures used in interactive new media works: specifically, the interactive forms and structures. Questions like: How does the overall navigational structure construct the work? How does that mouse/cursor action tell a story? and What does that mouse/cursor action have in common with others?

In Methodology Number Two, I identified Saussure’s notions of syntagmatic and paradigmatic as a methods for a low-level investigation of a new media work. This final version of the methodology retains syntagmatic and paradigmatic notions while expanding them in new directions with help from Manovich. In his section about forms in new media, Manovich identifies two forms based on traditional methods of organizing both data and human experience: a collection of documents (database) and a navigable space. In his discussion of database and narrative, Manovich observes that in literary and cinematic narratives “the database of choices from which narrative is constructed (the paradigm) is implicit; while the actual narrative (the syntagm) is explicit.” (Manovich 2001: 231) Within new media the implicit/explicit relationship is reversed. Menu-based software makes explicit all choices available to a user through menus. The results of each choice form a linear sequence of screens.

In summary, to examine the structure and workings of Puppet Motel I will use a syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis that turns back on itself. Through this analysis I will describe the interactivity in Puppet Motel. Secondly, I will apply Manovich’s terms, modularity, variability, automation and transcoding to Puppet Motel. I begin by laying out a method of deconstructing Puppet Motel.