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Software Takes Command: Extending the Language of New Media
Software has replaced a diverse array of physical, mechanical, and electronic technologies used before 21st century to create, store, distribute and interact with cultural artifacts. It has become our interface to the world, to others, to our memory and our imagination - a universal language through which the world speaks, and a universal engine on which the world runs. What electricity and combustion engine were to the early 20th century, software is to the early 21st century. Offering the the first theoretical and historical account of software for media authoring and its effects on the practice and the very concept of 'media, ' the author of The Language of New Media (2001) develops his own theory for this rapidly-growing, always-changing field. What was the thinking and motivations of people who in the 1960 and 1970s created concepts and practical techniques that underlie contemporary media software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, Final Cut and After Effects? How do their interfaces and tools shape the visual aesthetics of contemporary media and design? What happens to the idea of a 'medium' after previously media-specific tools have been simulated and extended in software? Is it still meaningful to talk about different mediums at all? Lev Manovich answers these questions and supports his theoretical arguments by detailed analysis of key media applications such as Photoshop and After Effects, popular web services such as Google Earth, and the projects in motion graphics, interactive environments, graphic design and architecture. Software Takes Command is a must for all practicing designers and media artists and scholars concerned with contemporary media
370 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 20, 2008
32 people are currently reading
310 people want to read
About the author
Lev Manovich
40 books71 followersLev Manovich is an artist, an author and a theorist of digital culture. He is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Manovich played a key role in creating four new research fields: new media studies (1991-), software studies (2001-), cultural analytics (2007-) and AI aesthetics (2018-). Manovich's current research focuses on generative media, AI culture, digital art, and media theory.
Manovich is the founder and director of the Cultural Analytics Lab (called Software Studies Initiative 2007-2016), which pioneered use of data science and data visualization for the analysis of massive collections of images and video (cultural analytics). The lab was commissioned to create visualizations of cultural datasets for Google, New York Public Library, and New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
He is the author and editor of 15 books including The Language of New Media that has been translated into fourteen languages. Manovich's latest academic book Cultural Analytics was published in 2020 by the MIT Press.
Manovich is the founder and director of the Cultural Analytics Lab (called Software Studies Initiative 2007-2016), which pioneered use of data science and data visualization for the analysis of massive collections of images and video (cultural analytics). The lab was commissioned to create visualizations of cultural datasets for Google, New York Public Library, and New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
He is the author and editor of 15 books including The Language of New Media that has been translated into fourteen languages. Manovich's latest academic book Cultural Analytics was published in 2020 by the MIT Press.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 13, 2018
Un libro que, aunque algo denso al principio, una vez te acostumbras al estilo de Manovich es bastante fácil de seguir.
Sumamente interesante, pasa por explicar tanto la historia del software como la falta de importancia que se le otorga a éste y al conocimiento del mismo. Hace hincapié en lo importante que es establecer estudios del software para poder entender la nueva era digital en que nos encontramos.
Sin embargo, a pesar de su gran labor por documentar, explicar y argumentar tanto la historia de este ámbito, bien peca también de no hacer mención de, por ejemplo, ninguna de las mujeres que tuvieron un gran peso histórico en el desarrollo y evolución de esta tecnología, lo que resulta algo paradójico. Manovich lucha por darle al software su merecido lugar en los estudios e investigaciones, más olvida mencionar a figuras relevantes del campo.
Una lectura a veces pesada, pero que recupera puntos históricos de gran importancia de los cuales no se suele hablar ya que, a pesar de la tremenda importancia del software en nuestro día a día, no se hace hincapié en su estudio o en conocer siquiera a los precursores y precursoras y sus investigaciones.
Sumamente interesante, pasa por explicar tanto la historia del software como la falta de importancia que se le otorga a éste y al conocimiento del mismo. Hace hincapié en lo importante que es establecer estudios del software para poder entender la nueva era digital en que nos encontramos.
Sin embargo, a pesar de su gran labor por documentar, explicar y argumentar tanto la historia de este ámbito, bien peca también de no hacer mención de, por ejemplo, ninguna de las mujeres que tuvieron un gran peso histórico en el desarrollo y evolución de esta tecnología, lo que resulta algo paradójico. Manovich lucha por darle al software su merecido lugar en los estudios e investigaciones, más olvida mencionar a figuras relevantes del campo.
Una lectura a veces pesada, pero que recupera puntos históricos de gran importancia de los cuales no se suele hablar ya que, a pesar de la tremenda importancia del software en nuestro día a día, no se hace hincapié en su estudio o en conocer siquiera a los precursores y precursoras y sus investigaciones.
March 30, 2014
In Software Takes Command, Lev Manovich provides a compelling account of how all forms of cultural media have become produced through software. In so doing, he contends:
‘[s]oftware has become our interface to the world, to others, to our memory and our imagination - a universal language through which the world speaks, and a universal engine on which the world runs’ (p. 2).
Such arguments have been made in the nascent software studies literature for a number of years, with proponents suggesting that given the extent to which software now conditions everyday life it deserves to be examined in its own right as a significant actant and theoretical category (e.g., Fuller 2008, Chun 2011, Kitchin and Dodge 2011). As Manovich puts it in a book proposal co-written with Benjamin Bratton in 2003,
‘[if] we don’t address software itself, we are in danger of always dealing only with its effects rather than the causes: the output that appears on a computer screen rather than the programs and social cultures that produce these outputs’ (p. 9).
As he notes, such studies are concerned with questions such as what is the nature of software?, ‘[w]hat is “media” after software?’ (p.4), ‘what does it mean to live in a “software society”?’ and ‘what does it mean to be part of “software culture”?’ (p. 6). He seeks to answer such questions through an in-depth genealogical study of the ‘softwarization’ of cultural media - art, photos, film, television, music, etc. - that has been occurring since the 1970s, tracing out the simulation and extension of analogue techniques in software such as Photoshop, and the creation of entirely new techniques.
Through a series of theoretically informed and empirically rich chapters, Manovich reflects on how different media became thoroughly infused with software, how it altered different practices, and how to make sense of software’s effects. He persuasively argues that softwarization has led to the formation of a new ‘metamedium’ in which what were previously separate media, and already existing and not-yet-invented media, become fused. This metamedium is composed of a composite of algorithms and data structures, and techniques that are general purpose (such as cut-and-paste) and those that are media-specific which combine to produce various forms of ‘hybridity’ and ‘deep remixability’.
Moreover, ‘[u]nited within the common software environment the languages of cinematography, animation, drawing, computer animation, special effects, graphic design, typography, drawing, and painting, have come to form a new metalanguage’ (p. 268). Further, given the partial and provisional nature of software - always being updated and patched, always processing data - he contends that software produces a world of permanent change and flux. He concludes that ‘[t]urning everything into data, and using algorithms to analyze it changes what it means to know something. It creates new strategies that together make up software epistemology.’ We are only just starting to make sense of such an epistemology.
Given the logic and power of the argument forwarded it is relatively straightforward to begin to translate Manovich’s argument and approach to other domains. Software, after all has gradually been infusing the practices of work, science, home life, communication, consumption, travel, and so on. Indeed, as I read the text I started to sketch out a potential project tracing how maps have become software, producing a genealogy of geospatial media. It will be interesting to see such translations being made and for the theory to be fleshed out as it encounters new scenarios and phenomena.
My view is, however, that such translations need to be broader and more ambitious in their scope. Whilst Manovich is undoubtedly right that software is a key metamedium utilising new metalanguages that are reshaping cultural practices, the analytical framing adopted over-fetishizes code at the expense of its wider assemblage of production and use. This is because his proposed approach is quite narrowly framed. He argues: “To understand media today we need to understand media software - its genealogy (where it comes from), its anatomy (interfaces and operations), and its practical and theoretical effects” (p. 125).
However, we need to be careful not to lose sight of the fact that software is bound up in a whole suite of discursive and material practices and structures (systems of thought, forms of knowledge, finance, political economies, governmentalities and legalities, materialities and infrastructures, practices, organisations and institutions, subjectivities and communities, places, marketplaces. Understanding software then, I would contend, requires placing it within its wider context that shapes how it is conceived, produced, and used in often quite messy, contingent and relational ways.
Manovich rightly contends that software is a new ‘medium in which we can think and imagine differently’ (p. 13), but we should not fall into the trap of over-fetishizing and decontextualizing it; software is enmeshed in complex assemblages that have to be recognized and understood if we are to make full sense of how it makes a difference. Nevertheless, Software Takes Command is a very good starting point for such a journey.
‘[s]oftware has become our interface to the world, to others, to our memory and our imagination - a universal language through which the world speaks, and a universal engine on which the world runs’ (p. 2).
Such arguments have been made in the nascent software studies literature for a number of years, with proponents suggesting that given the extent to which software now conditions everyday life it deserves to be examined in its own right as a significant actant and theoretical category (e.g., Fuller 2008, Chun 2011, Kitchin and Dodge 2011). As Manovich puts it in a book proposal co-written with Benjamin Bratton in 2003,
‘[if] we don’t address software itself, we are in danger of always dealing only with its effects rather than the causes: the output that appears on a computer screen rather than the programs and social cultures that produce these outputs’ (p. 9).
As he notes, such studies are concerned with questions such as what is the nature of software?, ‘[w]hat is “media” after software?’ (p.4), ‘what does it mean to live in a “software society”?’ and ‘what does it mean to be part of “software culture”?’ (p. 6). He seeks to answer such questions through an in-depth genealogical study of the ‘softwarization’ of cultural media - art, photos, film, television, music, etc. - that has been occurring since the 1970s, tracing out the simulation and extension of analogue techniques in software such as Photoshop, and the creation of entirely new techniques.
Through a series of theoretically informed and empirically rich chapters, Manovich reflects on how different media became thoroughly infused with software, how it altered different practices, and how to make sense of software’s effects. He persuasively argues that softwarization has led to the formation of a new ‘metamedium’ in which what were previously separate media, and already existing and not-yet-invented media, become fused. This metamedium is composed of a composite of algorithms and data structures, and techniques that are general purpose (such as cut-and-paste) and those that are media-specific which combine to produce various forms of ‘hybridity’ and ‘deep remixability’.
Moreover, ‘[u]nited within the common software environment the languages of cinematography, animation, drawing, computer animation, special effects, graphic design, typography, drawing, and painting, have come to form a new metalanguage’ (p. 268). Further, given the partial and provisional nature of software - always being updated and patched, always processing data - he contends that software produces a world of permanent change and flux. He concludes that ‘[t]urning everything into data, and using algorithms to analyze it changes what it means to know something. It creates new strategies that together make up software epistemology.’ We are only just starting to make sense of such an epistemology.
Given the logic and power of the argument forwarded it is relatively straightforward to begin to translate Manovich’s argument and approach to other domains. Software, after all has gradually been infusing the practices of work, science, home life, communication, consumption, travel, and so on. Indeed, as I read the text I started to sketch out a potential project tracing how maps have become software, producing a genealogy of geospatial media. It will be interesting to see such translations being made and for the theory to be fleshed out as it encounters new scenarios and phenomena.
My view is, however, that such translations need to be broader and more ambitious in their scope. Whilst Manovich is undoubtedly right that software is a key metamedium utilising new metalanguages that are reshaping cultural practices, the analytical framing adopted over-fetishizes code at the expense of its wider assemblage of production and use. This is because his proposed approach is quite narrowly framed. He argues: “To understand media today we need to understand media software - its genealogy (where it comes from), its anatomy (interfaces and operations), and its practical and theoretical effects” (p. 125).
However, we need to be careful not to lose sight of the fact that software is bound up in a whole suite of discursive and material practices and structures (systems of thought, forms of knowledge, finance, political economies, governmentalities and legalities, materialities and infrastructures, practices, organisations and institutions, subjectivities and communities, places, marketplaces. Understanding software then, I would contend, requires placing it within its wider context that shapes how it is conceived, produced, and used in often quite messy, contingent and relational ways.
Manovich rightly contends that software is a new ‘medium in which we can think and imagine differently’ (p. 13), but we should not fall into the trap of over-fetishizing and decontextualizing it; software is enmeshed in complex assemblages that have to be recognized and understood if we are to make full sense of how it makes a difference. Nevertheless, Software Takes Command is a very good starting point for such a journey.
June 20, 2020
This is a book that had a lot of things going for it in reviews that I had read, and offered some particularly interesting framings of "media" in a digital space as a part of the way in which everything digital was about "software". That said, what this book has convinced me of is that if you ignore other framings of digital history, it is easy claim to be a paradigm. While I think this book has much to offer for digital media theorists, historians, HCI scholars, etc, this is not exactly a book that is going to tell digital native people anything new. In some ways, this book was like listening to someone explain the evolution of gifs without ever having considered early film studies, and audio-visual media without ever having thought about the "talkie" revolution in cinema.
This book was frustrating. I expected a little more theory driven thought than an escapade through redefining media slightly differently in the course of 200+ pages only to be offered an evolutionary metaphor — not even an analogy — of media.
This book is for a very narrow audience, and that audience is historians of media theory in a digital/software era. It is useful because it sets up particular histories to generalize a perception of design that has lead us to social media practices that are "mediated" differently than many people used to think digital spaces would be. It also offers a nice study of how certain designers and companies were highly influential in pushing those designs and their philosophies.
Yet, I see this history as the designers' internalized mythos of speculative design interests more than a system of facts. Manovich glorifies the designer as the anti-hero of what software is, and I find that unappealing and shortsighted. There has to be a better theoretical way of describing what is going on. For now, I will continue to defer to Galloway's Protocol and Laura U. Marks' Touch and Enfoldment and Infinity for a better orientation.
This book was frustrating. I expected a little more theory driven thought than an escapade through redefining media slightly differently in the course of 200+ pages only to be offered an evolutionary metaphor — not even an analogy — of media.
This book is for a very narrow audience, and that audience is historians of media theory in a digital/software era. It is useful because it sets up particular histories to generalize a perception of design that has lead us to social media practices that are "mediated" differently than many people used to think digital spaces would be. It also offers a nice study of how certain designers and companies were highly influential in pushing those designs and their philosophies.
Yet, I see this history as the designers' internalized mythos of speculative design interests more than a system of facts. Manovich glorifies the designer as the anti-hero of what software is, and I find that unappealing and shortsighted. There has to be a better theoretical way of describing what is going on. For now, I will continue to defer to Galloway's Protocol and Laura U. Marks' Touch and Enfoldment and Infinity for a better orientation.
November 26, 2014
"When we use computers to simulate some process in the real world – the behavior of a weather system, the processing of information in the brain, the deformation of a car in a crash – our concern is to correctly model the necessary features of this process or system. We want to be able to test how our model would behave in different conditions with different data, and the last thing we want to do is for computer to introduce some new properties into the model that we ourselves did not specify. In short, when we use computers as a general-purpose medium for simulation, we want this medium to be completely 'transparent.'" (pg. 42).
January 17, 2023
Me ha parecido increíblemente soporífero, denso y difícil de seguir.
July 8, 2021
Digital Transformation Origins - I became aware of the author’s work through Collin Gifford Brooke’s “Lingua Fracta” (i.e. his “Language of New Media” is mentioned) and I looked to see his more recent books. Moreover, I was curious because of the title and sure enough found ties back to Siegfried Gideon’s “Mechanization Takes Command” mentioned a number of times in Marshall McLuhan’s books (such as starting in “The Mechanical Bride” and elsewhere whose influence is acknowledged by Gordon in his “McLuhan: A Guide for the Perplexed”).
Furthermore, just as Gideon’s book was useful to McLuhan in describing the differences brought about by electrification, Manovich’s book is useful in clarifying the move to digitization and the significance of software in the transformation of our world. Moreover, the author documents and explains the historical and definitional aspects in a way that makes this transition more understandable.
After an introduction that summarizes his approach, Manovich progresses through three major parts of the book before providing us with his conclusions (at that time). More specifically, he proceeds through (1) Inventing Media Software, (2) Hybridization and Evolution, and (3) Software in Action. The author discusses the writings of early software pioneers such as Alan Kay, the way all previous media have come together within the personal computer, and finally the manner in which new forms of media are resulting from their combination and new properties.
My favorite parts include those about information visualization and the use of data bases for this purpose as this has been a concern of mine of late. It was insightful to read about the origins and progress in these areas. As I read, I could see the connection with current developments along these lines such as in the emergence and increased use of graph databases (see my review of Robinson and Webber’s “Graph Databases”).
While Manovich includes some illustrations, I was a little disappointed and surprised he did not represent the evolution of software or the relationship of the different types of properties in some charts that software makes relatively easy to devise. For instance, at several sections, he describes a plotting or alludes to the intersection of different media but doesn’t show them (e.g. I think of a Ven diagram in Nicholas Negroponte’s “Being Digital” that could have been included or used to inspire a similar representation).
Even though the extent and reach of digital technology continues to expand (e.g. see my review of Kevin Kelly’s “The Inevitable”), Manovich has given us a well recorded and explained account of its beginnings as ”software takes command.”
Furthermore, just as Gideon’s book was useful to McLuhan in describing the differences brought about by electrification, Manovich’s book is useful in clarifying the move to digitization and the significance of software in the transformation of our world. Moreover, the author documents and explains the historical and definitional aspects in a way that makes this transition more understandable.
After an introduction that summarizes his approach, Manovich progresses through three major parts of the book before providing us with his conclusions (at that time). More specifically, he proceeds through (1) Inventing Media Software, (2) Hybridization and Evolution, and (3) Software in Action. The author discusses the writings of early software pioneers such as Alan Kay, the way all previous media have come together within the personal computer, and finally the manner in which new forms of media are resulting from their combination and new properties.
My favorite parts include those about information visualization and the use of data bases for this purpose as this has been a concern of mine of late. It was insightful to read about the origins and progress in these areas. As I read, I could see the connection with current developments along these lines such as in the emergence and increased use of graph databases (see my review of Robinson and Webber’s “Graph Databases”).
While Manovich includes some illustrations, I was a little disappointed and surprised he did not represent the evolution of software or the relationship of the different types of properties in some charts that software makes relatively easy to devise. For instance, at several sections, he describes a plotting or alludes to the intersection of different media but doesn’t show them (e.g. I think of a Ven diagram in Nicholas Negroponte’s “Being Digital” that could have been included or used to inspire a similar representation).
Even though the extent and reach of digital technology continues to expand (e.g. see my review of Kevin Kelly’s “The Inevitable”), Manovich has given us a well recorded and explained account of its beginnings as ”software takes command.”
September 21, 2021
Muy ilustrativo, una historia intelectual de software de creación cultural que permite conocer en profundidad, aunque de una forma sorprendentemente clara y didáctica, el impacto que dichos software ha tenido en la cultura contemporánea. Muy bueno.
November 12, 2021
I'd never known of the fields of software studies and critical code studies until now. Both of these any many other discoveries scattered throughout this book have been very enjoyable.
February 22, 2025
Le faltan las debidas actualizaciones,
No obstante, como introducción es muy claro y comprensible.
Es un verdadero "manual" de software.
Otro excelente trabajo del sr. Manovich.
No obstante, como introducción es muy claro y comprensible.
Es un verdadero "manual" de software.
Otro excelente trabajo del sr. Manovich.
April 30, 2021
This was a book I had to read for a class so I was already biased unfavorably towards this book. It's been awhile but if I remember correctly the book is mostly snippets of other books and articles and very dryly written. It never had a chance with me.
May 3, 2012
An excellent projection on contemporary digital culture, media remix, and computer history.
October 27, 2023
What I found most interesting or useful about this book was that it provided an novel perspective on the history of computing.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews