They Are Not Artists

In New Media from Borges to HTML, Lev Manovich maintains that due to the innovations of people like Ted Nelson and Douglas Englebart, they should be hailed as artists. Manovich comes to this conclusion by initially exclaiming that because technology actualizes the ideas behind projects by artists, the technology becomes art in and of itself. He continues to say that the web is art, that Final Cut Pro and Aftereffects is art, and finally, those who invented these technologies are consequently artists.


I beg to differ. These men, who I consider to be extremely relevant, intelligent and etc., are not artists. They are inventors, and they are visionaries. Are the minds behind such things as a chair, a screwdriver, the printing press, the car- are they artists? Certainly not. An artist is someone who practices a creative art. An inventor is someone who creates a process or device. The key point here being that we should not misconstrue Caravaggio with Ted Nelson.

Caravaggio, Artist

Ted Nelson, Inventor

The idea that we can not define what New Media is was also troubling to me. If we can't define what it is, (basically a lack of objectivity) then how can we even identify what New Media is when we see it, or explain it? What is the point of having a textbook? It's like taking a really bad philosophy class and getting graded (objectively I might add) and then at the end of the term, say that because we can't define it we can't know anything?

Furthermore, if we are to associate rhizomes with the idea of New Media, then perhaps we can build a definition of New Media from the foundation of what a rhizome is. In A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, a rhizome is comprised of 6 principles:

• 1 and 2: Principles of connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be
• 3. Principle of multiplicity: only when the multiple is effectively treated as a substantive, "multiplicity" that it ceases to have any relation to the One
• 4. Principle of asignifying rupture: a rhizome may be broken, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines
• 5 and 6: Principle of cartography and decalcomania: a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model; it is a "map and not a tracing"

More simply put, Deleuze once said that a rhizome can be thought of as "an image of thought". 

If we were to take this definition, then is the internet and new media the result or "image" of collective thoughts? 


Considering the idea of a rhizome and interconnectivity, when combined with technology, I thought of the novella written by Ayn Rand entitled Anthem. This story is set in the future, with a society that is so collectivized that the word "I" has vanished from the language.  In the story, technological advancements are planned, if they're allowed at all. 


I feel as though the idea of rhizomes and technology are very relevant to the world that Rand created in her story. One of the main points she makes is the idea of vanishing individualism, and how it wreaks havoc among civilization. Does technology, by creating global integration, contribute to decreasing individualism?


Here's an excerpt from Anthem.