The final paper is similar in structure to the midterm. You are asked to write two short

essays approximately 1000 words each in length.

Essay 1.

The opening to chapter "Operations" states: "Regardless of whether a new media designer is working with quantitative data, text, images, video, 3D space or their combinations, she employs the same techniques: copy, cut, paste, search, composite, transform, filter." The chapter analyses two examples of such techniques (or "operations"): selection and compositing. The purpose of this analysis is to show how software influences the design process in new media: "Software programs enable new media designers and artists to create new media objects — and at the same time they act as yet another filter which shapes their imagination of what is possible to do with a computer."

For your essay: write an analysis of the commands and interface of one of the popular software programs, such as Word, Photoshop, Director, Premiere, Front Page, etc. If you agree with my statement that software "shapes their [designers] imagination of what is possible to do with a computer," support it by discussing some concrete examples. If you disagree with this statement, then similarly try to prove your point by discussing concrete examples of how the structure of new media objects created by this software is not determined by its interface. Of course you can also provide arguments both for and against this statement. You don’t have to analyze every command or interface feature – it is enough to focus on just a few examples.

Examples:

How does Macromedia Director influences (or not) multimedia titles?

How does Photoshop influences (or not) the look of photo-based images?

Essay 2.

The chapter "What is Cinema?" discusses how various artistic techniques of the past acquire new relevance in new media. For instance, loop common to nineteenth century pre-cinematic devices re-emerges in digital cinema and computer games; similarly, the tradition of spatial narrative becomes relevant once again given multiple windows of modern GUI.

For your essay: develop an analysis of how some artistic technique of the past has a particular relevance to new media. The technique can come from the history of visual art, architecture, music, dance, theater, cinema, television or any other art or media. Explain why this techniques offers a new direction for new media aesthetics.

NOTE: this passage from the chapter may provide some ideas or where to look for relevant techniques:

In order to develop new aesthetics of new media we should pay as much attention to the cultural history as to computer’s new unique possibilities to generate, organize, manipulate and distribute data.

As we scan through cultural history (which includes the history of new media up until the time of research), three kinds of situations will be particularly relevant for us:

• when an earlier interesting strategy or technique was abandoned or forced into "underground" without fully developing its potential;
• when an earlier strategy can be understood as a response to the technological constrains (I am using this more technical term on purpose instead of more ideologically loaded "limitations") similar to the constrains of new media;
• when an earlier strategy was used in a situation similar to a particular situation faced by new media designers. For instance, montage was a strategy to deal with modularity of a film (how do you join separate shots?) as well as with a problem of coordinating different media types such as images and sound. Both of these situations are being faced once again today by new media designers.