data

I whole heartedly agree with Robin as well as N. katherine Hayles on the idea that Narrative and Database are natural symbians: they both need each other; database needs narrative to make its results readable and narrative needs database to "test its insights". In Dr. Hayles' lecture she rethinks Lev Manovich's idea that database and narrative are natural enemies by finding an alternative view to the relationship between the two. Manovich has a limited view on what narrative is, describing it as found in only formal art, like in movies and literature, but according to Hayles, he fails to recognize that narrative figures are found in almost every type of "communication and congregation" humans participate in. Manovich's view on the database is also skewed, he goes from referring to database in the technical sense of a storage and retrieval device to making database and data one in the same. Hayles contrasts this idea with the concept of possibility space, since the idea of the database is limited and "represents only a small slice of actual and potential data".  read more »