What is a database?

As Elliot defined in this afternoon’s symposium it’s an “organised collection of information”. So technically an encyclopaedia is a database however usually when we do think of a database we think online or in some relation to technology. Even as Adrian mentioned our blogs are databases.

The topic of narrative come back again in this reading. Manovich’s viewpoint is that a database is a list not a story. They are in opposition.

–> Side Note: Is it us that wants to make everything a story? Our own ability to fill the gaps? Do we just feel the need to understand, to make meaning out of everything and the story is just the vehicle we use? <–

Lists and databases don’t have a cause and effect logic to them they are non-sequential.

What is more surprising is why the other end of the spectrum— narratives—still exists in new media.

This line stuck with me because just because it is on the other end of the spectrum doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t exist. However, do narratives even belong in new media? (which he argues are all underpinned by databases) Are we just trying to push a square peg into a circle? If we stop forcing the old form to fit we can see what else there might be.

Manovich, Lev. “Database as Symbolic Form”. Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow. Vesna, Victoria, ed. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print. 39-60.