Reading Response #2

1. By “the medium is the message,” Marshall McLuhan means that new technology molds how and how much human interaction takes place. He defines “medium” as any technology as well as “any extension of ourselves” and “message” as the effects that any medium has on human affairs (McLuhan 1).  As a result, the “medium” becomes a transmitter of a “message” only when it in some way, shape or form impacts the way the humans using it live their lives, or as he puts it, “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action” (2).

2. Jason Rohrer’s “Passage” embodies all of Lev Manovich’s principles of new media in some way. It embodies the principle of “Numerical Representation,” or that “an image or shape can be described using a mathematical function” in that the game itself was undoubtedly created from digital code, as is the case with all new media (Manovich 49). It embodies the principle of “Modularity” in that the game’s media elements, largely shapes and sounds, are “collections of discreet samples (pixels, polygons, voxels, characters, scripts)” (51). It embodies the principle of “Automation” in that the user modifies the media object using templates, or in this case, using simple keys to navigate a created world template. It embodies the principle of “Variability” in that the game can exist in the countless amount of ways that you play it, or as Manovich puts it, new media “can exist in different, potentially infinite, versions” (56). Finally, “Passage” embodies the principle of “Transcoding” in that the game’s structure follows the “computer’s organization of data,” which in part can be found in the accompanying folders of the game’s download which contain numerous graphic and music lists (63).