Databases as a form in Digital Literature

“however, from the point of view of user’s experience a large proportion of them are databases in a more basic sense. They appear as a collection of items on which the user can perform various operations: view, navigate, search. The user experience of such computerized collections is therefore quite distinct from reading a narrative or watching a film or navigating an architectural site. Similarly, literary or cinematic narrative, an architectural plan and database each present a different model of what a world is like. It is this sense of database as a cultural form of its own which I want to address here. Following art historian Ervin Panofsky’s analysis of linear perspective as a “symbolic form” of the modern age, we may even call database a new symbolic form of a computer age (or, as philosopher Jean- Francois Lyotard called it in his famous 1979 book Postmodern Condition, “computerized society”),2 a new way to structure our experience of ourselves and of the world.”

—  Lev Manovic, The Language of New Media, 2001

In the article Manovic is exploring the use of databases in relation to digital literature. This exert is of importance as it explains the importance of understanding the fundamentals of a database in relation to not only narratives but also as a cultural form. In this article Manovic brings the reader’s attention to the fact that all digital literature is, in its varying forms, a database. The question of the importance of the database format in enhancing the reading and playing experience is raised through this assertion. If the assertion is accepted then when one approaches any piece of digital literature they must also consider it as a database of information.

This article also highlights the distinct experience of reading a piece of ‘traditional’ literature of which there is only one, usually linear, approach available to the reader and the process of reading digital literature. The next logical question that must follow is whether the different way of approaching and reading digital literature enhances the experience or whether it is simply different.

The concept of the computer age is also mentioned, the importance of technology and the reliance on the ever-growing digital world is all presented as central to the experience of digital literature as a database. Manovic suggests that it is a reflection of the wider world and that it has actually created its own cultural form. One must then consider to what extent this is valid within their experiences of digital literature as well as possibly adjust their own views on what constitutes a database. Manovic also suggests that these new forms of databases may lead to an adjustment in our experience of life and reality.

Further reading into Jean- Francois Lyotard indicates that he strongly believed that with advances in technology came necessary changes with ways of transmitting information as well as new ways of acquiring knowledge [Jean-Fracois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 1979]. Manovic’s reference to this piece of work signifies an alignment with the concept. The reader then must also consider this in their analysis of any digital narrative. They must also consider the constant changes in the technology available and therefore the ways in which any teaching or research in this field is conducted must also be constantly changing.