Walter J Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word
(London: Methuen, 1982). p.179.
Do networked computers constitute a new language dynamic?
If so, how are they influencing the evolution of consciousness?
Ong (p.130-2) lists the following as the effects of print:
1. removed rhetoric from center of academy
2. encouraged quantification of knowledge
3. eventually discouraged iconographic knowledge representations
4. produced exhaustive dictionaries and culture supportive of definitions
5. reinforced language as textual
6. major factor in development of notion of 'personal privacy'
7. created a new sense of private ownership
8. encouraged self-reflexive thought, awareness of thoughts as impersonal things
9. encouraged sense of finished text (final draft, completed work, no marginalia, no erasures)
10. text as subject of literary criticism,
11. text as derived from lived experience (as opposed to borrowed from ancient works in oral tradition)
12 gave rise to romantic notions of originality and creativity
13. birth of textbook which proceeds from definition to definition
14. birth of fixed point of view and fixed tone (McLuhan,1962)
If digital media is accepted as being a dynamic shift in language use comparable to the transition from orality to print, then similar substantiative changes will occur in the evolution of consciousness as the mass of humanity adopts networked digital communication. Ong referred to TV and radio as 'secondary orality'. On that basis, the internet may be 'tertiary orality', but the term may not be apt. Networked computational communication superimposes and potentializes aspects of both orality and print/literacy cultures. Yet it also does more. As an emerging discipline with indeterminant conventions (margins? buttons? motion? links?), it is exhibiting experimental fluctuations. Online interface design is evolving, integrating off-line innovations and introducing new sets of possibilities that are outside the boundaries of oral or print cultures. Networked multimedia introduces unprecedented simultaneous and instantaneous vectors of communication which are altering our collective relations to knowledge: blog comments, social networks, discussion blogs, forums, helplines, chats, mmporg, second life, augmented reality, haptics, biometrics, brain machine interfaces, bots...
What changes will/are occurring?
What are the effects of the internet on conscious perceptions?
1. defocalizing primacy on written word: shift to multimedia
2. visualization of quantified knowledge and eventually emergence of tactile data will re-privilege qualitative and aesthetic aspects of knowledge research
3. rebirth of iconographic representations
4. birth of self-correcting, de-institutionalized, open-source knowledge repositories (wikipedia)
5. language as multi-modal (video,audio,text,interface)
6. major factor in resurgence of public space: social networks, shared bookmarks, shared citations, peer-to-peer networks
7. major factor in resurgence of public ownership : creative commons and open source
8. awareness of thoughts as shared, simultaneous abstract, lifeforms
9. encouraged sense of UNfinished text (blogs, incomplete posts, comments, correctable uploads, redesigns)
10. text as subject of communal criticism / praise : thumbs up or down inside stumbleupon networks
11. text borrowed and woven from other sources online
12 mashups on romantic notions of originality and creativity
13. birth of educational-sites which proceed from link to link
14. birth of networked point of view and rebirth of turbulent collaged tone
Multimedia version to follow.
Labels: dynamic, evolution, literary, orality, printing
[+/-] Digital Incunabula "Incunabula" ...first printed books ... meaning literally "in the cradle" or "in swaddling clothes".
We are just emerging from another incunabula now: a digital incunabula. The digital technology of writing, of collecting and distributing the commodity known as language, these are in their infancy now: web 2.0 is a toddler, it's left the cradle.
It is also said: "The art of printing is virtually unique in the human experience in that it emerged fully formed. The works of the pioneering master printers are absolutely breathtaking in their technical and artistic perfection. They set standards for excellence that remained unrivaled until the rise of the modern "art" printing house a century ago"
Is this also true for digital work? The late 20th century saw a great proliferation of digital 'incunabula': websites, interactive exhibits, VR environments. The birth of digital technology created a wave of extraordinary creativity.
Similar to printing, the basic structure of digital interactivity was born relatively quickly; many of the basic structural innovations of the interface were established in Sutherland and Engelbart's work in the 1960s. The GUI was born basically fully equipped. 'Sketchpad' was a drawing app; the mouse, text editors, associative linking, markup languages were all demoed very early in computer history.
Engelbart's 1968 demo introduces a dizzying array of features: the mouse, annotated text, graphics, multi-key shortcuts (macros), joint usage of a shared document, formatting, live audio-video feeds, line drawing, keyword searching, meta-languages.... These features are with us still.
The major transition that has occurred is a substantial increase in the bandwidth of the net, which has opened up the possibility of networked multimedia. However, the principles and formal structures of interface design have not been radically revolutinized since their inception. Digital printing technology was born fully formed.
Prints 'incunabula' period lasted for 45 yrs. So applied to digital history and using Engelbart's 1968 demo as watershed, 2013 is when digital incunabula leaves the cradle; but since time has recently exhibited a tendency to accelerate, lets foreshorten: digital incunabula is over. Digital toddler technology has begun.
Labels: incunabula, printing, writing
