The Major Catalysts in the Formation of the Internet and Digital World :: Internet Digital Essays

The Major Catalysts in the Formation of the Internet and Digital World Introduction There exisits two schools of thought concerning which components have been the major catalysts in the forming of the internet and digital world as we know it today. Both entertain stimulating and valid arguments. Manovich stipulates that the visual format of the internet is purely based on the visual reasoning that erupted out of the late nineteenth century as a result of constructivist principles and the tremendous introduction of the cinema, while Cook provides a good argument that although the assertions made by Manovich are true, Manovich overlooks an important component to the aesthetics and organization of the digital internet. Cook describes the importance of late Victorian logic in the form of diagrammatical information put forth by visual reasoning and mathematical pioneers such as Venn, Marshall, and Carroll. It is my opinion that a combination of certain elements of both Manovich's and Cook's arguments creates a visual reasoning amalgam of why the internet looks like it does today. Each school of thought represents a portion of what we see when we click on the little blue link called "e" and escape into a world of dazzling, creative expressions of information and interpretation. I believe that the methods of Victorian logic are the vehicles in which information is organized and made easily accessible to the interactive users; while Victorian logic has adapted into the utilitarian aspect of the internet, the principles of constructivism which had originally sprung out of the art historical movement called soviet constructivism (early twentieth century) have formed the aesthetic and more directly interactive part of the internet. Manovich's Argument "The techniques developed by the artistic avant-garde of the 1920's became embedded in the commands and interface metaphors of computer software. In short, the avant-garde vision became materialized in a computer."(1) Manovich declares that there are three main developmental stages in the historical context of visual reasoning; I believe Cook's description of these three stages is very clear and succinct, and generally gives overall essence of Manovich's basis for his argument: "First of all he outlines an early period between 1870 and the 1920's, during which there occurred 'a profound change in the cultural attitude toward vision.' This initial cultural shift paved the way for a second stage in the modern history of vision, a stage which arrived around or soon after the Second World