On "New Media from Borges to HTML" by Lev Manovich

The thing that strikes me most about this article is the struggle to define the term "New Media." The author presents eight different lenses through which to perceive the term:

1) New Media vs. Cyberculture
2) New Media as Computer Technology Used as a Distribution Platform
3) as Digital Data Controlled by Software
4) as the Mix between Existing Cultural Conventions and the Conventions of Software
5) as the Aesthetics that Accompanies the Early Stage of Every New Modern Media and Communication Technology
6) as Faster Execution of Algorithms Previously Executed Manually or through Other Technologies
7) as the Encoding of Modernist Avant-Garde; New Media as Metamedia
8) as Parallel Articulation of Similar Ideas in Post-WWII Art and Modern Computing.

The lens I found most interesting is the fifth. As new modes of communication have been made available to the masses (the internet, television, radio, literacy etc.) There have been countless attempts by those who utilize these modes to consider the implications of their use, to establish conventions, and to push against and through those conventions.
I thought almost immediately of one reading of Plato's "The Cave." Many consider "The Cave" to be Plato's reaction to the idea of widespread literacy, and for reasons similar to people's refusal to immerse themselves in digital information exchange (alienation from the "real" world, etc), Plato seems to be against it. And yet, as with reading, internet users have the ability to opt out. The internet still does not have the power to fully emulate the human experience. Virtual reality is still largely text based, even if there are spacial and interactive qualities to the internet.
But digital technology does afford me, as an artist, a whole new dimension of expressive ability. Looking through Manovich's sixth lense, I understand that I cannot do the work I do without the use of a computer and that everything I make is the result of piling on algorithm after algorithm to achieve an image that I feel is successful.
But beyond understanding what the computer can do for me, I want to revisit Wardrip-Fruin's desire for people to question how the computer limits them in terms of expressive capabilities.
What would I like to see personally? I want my process to be more tactile. If I could create abstraction out of representation by touching the screen as opposed to using the mouse, the process would be much more satisfying.

Something a little like this:



But with my own video work...