New Media

The first section of the readings this week focuses on the history of New Media. It also talks about post modernism and modernism. I found it interesting that the author believes that in order to focus on New Media we must look at history. The reason they focus on history is because some of the media is a continuation of old traditions. I guess with all art it is important to know where it comes from to understand and appreciate it.  An example of this is looking back at anatomy sketches from Da Vinci. The anatomy sketches are fantastic in their own right but one would appreciate them more knowing that at the time he was sketching anatomy it was thought of as taboo to study a dead body. Because he was famous he was given permission to dissect in order to draw the muscle, tendons, and bones of cadavers. In this way I feel history is very important to the present art movements.

Interesting to me was the argument about whether technology changes humans.  In anthropology class we discuss this issue referring not to art but to human adaptability. It has been shown that humans known as digital natives (born with a computer in the house) have different brain waves than the digital immigrants (not born and raised on the computer).  This says that technology in some ways has changed the wiring of the human brain.

Question: If new media is a direct culmination of historical processes then is each country have its own unique version of new media?

CITATION:
Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2008. Print.