The talk of collections of things in the Manovich reading reminded me a bit of the concepts of mosaic that i have been pondering as it is one of my niki topics. The idea of a collection of many things building one big thing, like a mosaic or a database was familiar. The reading touches on the experience of video games and how they work using algorithms and create their own logic, I have already talked much about video games before, but it was interesting to have the idea of “What is a Video Game?” revisited in this reading.

The reading then goes on to discuss how new media is redefining basically everything, or at least, forcing us to use word out of context. From creativity to the definition of narrative, apparently we are using the word narrative more loosely, which i can recognise. I found this idea particularly interesting though, that perhaps new media is advancing so quickly that we are struggling to define it or figure it out even as we are creating it. Not to mention the idea that it is so foreign to us we are desperately attempting to classify it using words such as ‘interactive narrative’ inappropriately, just because we need to make sense of what has taken over the world and media these days.

This relates to an idea touched on in the opening of the Seaman reading, that, like databases, humans wish to define, categorise, contextualise, etc. I think these ideas link very nicely.