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MDST 3703 F10 Seminar 13
1. Seminar 13
Database as Symbolic Form
Introduction to the Digital Liberal Arts
MDST 3703 / 7703
Fall 2010
2. Business
• Next week is the last studio session
• Find exam will be a take home reflective essay
on your project from the perspective of the
ideas presented in seminar
4. Overview
• Today we explore Lev Manovich’s thesis that
the database is the defining symbolic form of
our time
• We explore the argument itself and the
impact on how we view digital scholarship
• Manovich’s piece is intended as a concluding
framework for this course – a way to integrate
all of the ideas we have discussed so far …
6. A symbolic form is a schema or
cognitive frame that links the
social, psychological, and
technical practices of a culture.
Symbolic forms internalize and
express worldview.
For example, the idea of
perspective in the Renaissance
7. Linear perspective
A mathematical system for creating
the illusion of space and distance
on a flat surface. The system
originated in Florence, Italy in the
early 1400s.
13. What kind of worldview is
expressed by linear perspective?
14. Rational Individualism
Rational
• Use of geometry
• Mathesis regulating
graphesis
Individual
• Paintings are
literally from an
individual’s point of
view
Vitruvian Man, da Vinci, circa 1487
15. Yaxchilan lintel 24
The lintel depicts an actual
blood-letting rite that took
place on 26 October 709.
King Shield Jaguar is shown
holding a torch as Queen Lady
Xoc draws a barbed rope
through her pierced tongue.
The surrounding text locates
the event within the Mayan
calendar system.
16.
17. Muslin painting of Battle of Little Big Horn done by Dakota artist, Kicking Bear, circa 1896.
1026.G.1. From the Irvin S. Cobb Collection (Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Autry
National Center)
http://libraries.theautry.org/2010/05/26/new-book-featuring-autry-center-collections/
20. Semiotics (Structuralism)
• Paradigm and Syntagm
– Paradigm = rules and elements (the Code)
– Syntagm = actual expressions of the code
• For example, Language
– (Deep) Grammar = Paradigm = Rules
– Spoken/written sentences = Syntagm = Results
• All cultural forms are performances of
cultural logic
– Part of the human repertroire
21. Syntagm and Paradigm
PARADIGM SYNTAGM
Rules
Structure
Synchronic
Parallel
Finite
Results
Event
Diachronic
Linear
Infinite
22. Semiotics of Symbolic Forms
SYMBOLIC FORM PARADIGM SYNTAGM WORLDVIEW
Linear Perspective Backgrounded Fixed snapshot of a
single event
Individual
Traditional Narrative Backgrounded Fixed sequence of
many events
Montage Projected onto
syntagm
Collocation of many
events
Social
Database Foregrounded Dynamic,
ephemeral result of
interaction
23. Database as Symbolic Form
Formal characteristics
• The List
• Order does not matter
• All records functionally equal
• Organized by Categories – expressive of a data
model
24. Database as Symbolic Form
Effects
• Exposes the paradigmatic level that is
normally hidden
• Make the syntagmatic level ephemeral, where
normall it is fixed and dominant
32. Narrative
• Narratives oppose database logic
– Order matters
– There is a “sense of an ending”
• The “database” is internal, unexposed
– In the head of the author
• The result of an internal algorithm
– The author’s in the act of writing
33. This conflict exposes the idea of
the algorithm
(The “rationalization effect” again)
36. Algorithm
• Connects narrative to
database, syntagm to
paradigm
– A set of procedures for
working with a set of
data
• Can be interactive …
Syntagm
Paradigm
Algorithm
