The Database as a Cultural Form. The Impact of New Media on Artistic Creations: The Relationship with the Cinema

Dosad je većina razmišljanja o kinematografiji u digitalno doba bilo usmjereno na mogućnosti interaktivnog pripovijedanja s idejom gledatelja koji aktivno sudjeluje u tome. Zato sam se, posebice, bavio istraživanjem pojma estetike baze podataka i time što ona može novoga dati drugim medijima. Danas nove tehnologije stvaraju nove umjetničke proizvode i nove oblike senzibiliteta koje se kod umjetnika pojavljuju i izražavaju kroz produbljivanje mogućnosti novih tehnologija u stvaranju novih značenja i novih načina izražavanja istih, kao i u potrazi za novim “estetsko-antropološkim” ponašanjima kao rezultat uporabe tehnoloških uređaja. Zato je sve više opravdano upitati što ostaje od umjetničkog djela u doba njegove digitalizacije, i što nam danas kazuje pojam ljepote. Pogotovo ako se tu misli na dominantna načela neposrednosti, hiperposredovanja i sanacije prema kojima nove tehnologije renoviraju estetske kategorije starih medija upijajući njihove osnovne značajke. Novina je ovdje svakako interaktivnost, tj. “interaktivna baza podataka”. Svi su filmovi programirani na način da ne postoji samo jedna verzija. Svi elementi, uključujući zaslon, slike i njihovu kombinaciju, glazbu, pripovijedanje i dužinu, podložni su promjenama i to svaki put kada se film puni i gleda ponovno. U tim slučajevima zaslon filmskog platna podliježe teoriji estetike” remixa” i fluidnosti o kojoj će se ovdje govoriti.Up until now, a great amount of thought about the cinema in the digital era has focused on the possibilities of an interactive narration in which the spectator actively participates in the narration. For this reason, I have researched the concept of aesthetics of the database and the novelty it may bring in other media. More and more, advanced technologies generate new artistic products and new forms of sensibility that develop in the artists in different ways: through the exploration of the possibility to create new meanings, and through the research of new “aesthetical-anthropological” behaviours that arise from the use of technological devices. At this point one may wonder about what happened to the art work in the age of its digitalization and about today’s conception of the term “beauty”. These questions arise also from the nowadays dominant principles of immediacy, hypermediation and remediation, according to which new technologies reinvent aesthetic categories from old media by reabsorbing their fundamental aspects. Here the novelty consists of interactivity, that is, the “interactive database”. Movies are now programmed in such a way that there is not a single version of them. All the elements, including the screen, the images and their combinations, the music, the narration and the duration, are subject to change every time the movie is played. It is the database cinema put into practice by its own creator (Manovich) with positive outcomes. In this way, the space on the screen is affected by the principles of aesthetic of remix and fluidity