web designers of the world unite

Take a look at this web site and try to read it through the web design principles provided in The Non-Designers Web Book (Robin Williams and John Tollet, 2006). For those who did not read this book, just a hint that there are four basic principles, which according to the book, "will not make you a brilliant designer, and they will not lend you $ 20000 web design contracts, but they will keep you from embarrassing yourself in front of millions of people." So, these principles are: alignment, proximity, repetition, and contrast.

Alignment: Referring to the alignment of the website, the first observation is that the alignment is not uniform. In other words, the headline and the Search panel are aligned at the center, while the basic text is on the left. Also, the navigation bar features some dang borders, which furthermore emphasize the isolation and the lack of the communication between different elements of the page

Proximity: Paragraphs are not related to their titles. Instead of breaks the web designer used Enter button to provide new paragraphs. Nevertheless, due to the colored lines which divide each paragraph it is possible to grasp the connection of these elements.

Repetition: Some innocent clicks can provide an impression of a non-website: pages are not related with each other in some way. They don't share a common logo, graphic or any other multimedia device.

Contrast: At a first glance, there is a focal point in this web site. See for example the head with its capital letters. But, what is the specific of this site besides it being an overall "History Archive." (sic). In addition, the rest of the front page represents a table with confusing geographical and historical facts.

P.S. I have to be honest: it is always easier to criticize others' work than to make something valuable yourself.

fundamental issues

"Of the subjects in the secular curriculum, it [history] is the best at teaching those virtues once reserved for theology-humility in the face of our limited ability to know, and awe in the face of the expanse of human history.

On his journey from China to India, the Venetian traveler Marco Polo ventured into Basman, believed to be Sumatra, where he chanced upon a species he had never before seen: the rhinoceros. But Polo did not see it that way. As his diary records, he saw instead

unicorns, which are scarcely smaller than elephants. They have the hair of a buffalo...[and] a single large, black horn in the middle of the forehead. They do not attack with their horn, but only with their tongue and their knees; for their tongues are furnished with long, sharp spines... They are very ugly brutes to look at... not at all such as we describe them when... they let themselves be captured by virgins.

Our encounter with history presents us with a choice: to learn about rhinoceroses or to learn about unicorns. We naturally incline toward unicorns-they are prettier and more tame. But it is the rhinoceros that can teach us far more than we could ever imagine."

(Wineburg Samuel, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, 2001 24)

aurea mediocritas

My last week reading of Manovich had a therapeutic effect of not letting me too enthusiastic about the new media technologies. Usually, especially in graduate school, when you are subjected to the prospect of learning something totally new, there is a wave of irrational enthusiasm which is seldom to result into a Mega-project of the same scale. Nevertheless, the soft grounding may result in a series of small but not less important projects. Still, I do not exclude the fact that after a series of other refreshing readings my current mindset will bet on the further minimalism.

So far, the readings for this week have managed to revive a sort of enthusiasm, and at the same, to keep the skepticism alive. Starting with the promise for a lucrative combination of new and analogue media, continuing with a retrospective and some prospects of the digital history and, at last but not least, the survey of certain practical issues which are encountered by historians in their taming of the new media.

The most interesting idea for me is how along with the developments of the new technologies and of infinite possibilities of the computation, historians are confronted with the prospects of creating or reinventing the total master narratives, which in addition to written-based scriptural illusion of the past would also speculate on the "total reproduction of the past as it was lived by those people" making use of new video and other technologies.

Of course, video and audio materials are not new to any type of totalitarian regimes, and they were used extensively either in Nazi Germany or in Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the fact that computer shapes its content according to the will of its user can prove much more dangerous than The Triumph of the Will, because the user-friendly interface will customize its propaganda tools according to the needs of each individual.

projects

As any new media project is a work in progress, I hope this start will be a "good progress." After reading Manovich and a couple of articles for Learning and Teaching History in a Digital Age, which is another course I am taking this semester, I was inspired to think about the following projects:

a) in line with my dissertation interests with the borderlands of modern Eastern Europe and with Manovich's observation that, with the usage of new media, history is becoming more spatialized, one possible project would be the virtual representation of two border regions or two border towns during the first half of the 20-th century. As a possible model for this type of projects I liked the idea of Hypercities

b) since I spent this summer in the Moldovan archives and I noticed that they don't have any websites or home pages, I decided that a viable project would be to design such a website with the possible extension of creating a database with digitized documents.

In this way, my project proposals are quiet complementary. On the one hand, first project seems to be a bit S(cience)F(iction). On the other hand, the second project looks quiet viable. Although, with the current level of Moldovan bureaucracy, it is not impossible that my evaluation would have the opposite results and the first project will be much more realistic than the second one.

"The Language of New Media" by Lev Manovich

For those who are interested in the complex marriage of culture and new media this book is a compulsory reading.

Since this is my first experience with a book on the effects of new media, it is obvious that my impressions are somehow overenthusiastic or amateur. First of all, many thanks to Manovich for bringing me back on Earth from the infinite dreaming about the innumerable possibilities of new media. After this reading, I will start to enjoy the smell of the documents and to pity the future historians who would rely mainly on the imperialism of the screen for their future research projects. Obviously, I would not like to be misunderstood: new media provides huge possibilities but it also hides important traps.

One of the positive aspects of “the digital materialism” is the rapid inter-connectivity and intercommunication of different means of information and historical sources. Nevertheless, historians are no longer mass producers of history. What Manovich calls “individual customization” is not limited to the present of post-industrial society. It actually implies customized versions of the past. Each computer user can generate infinite versions of the past.

To a certain extent, this fact generates a phenomenon, which optimists would call “democratization of historical craft” while pessimists would term to be “the end of the professional history.” Does this mean that everyone can become a historian? Still, this question is not limited only to the historian’s craft. It also applies to other “professional spheres.” I know that there is no final answer to this question but I hope that after this semester I would at least be able to carry a debate on this issue

P.S. For other thoughts on this matter you might consider my comments on the following page

metamorphosis

Today this blog and its author are expecting to expand its audience to the English-speaking audience. As usually happens for an event to happen, one needs the illusion of planning this event out of random circumstances. Actually, I was planning to switch to English some time ago, but due to my objective laziness I was unable to overcome the subjective perception of the missing circumstances. Due to a new course on History and New Media, which I am taken now at George Mason University, I will try to subvert my objective laziness and to take advantage of the random circumstances to develop some of my ideas regarding the peaceful and constructive cohabitation between history writing and electronic devices. Hopefully, it will last more than one semester.

P.S. To those few readers who followed my earlier native language thoughts, I am confident that most of them fluently comprehend English, and this will not be a problem for our further cooperation.

vinegret

Exista o expresie ruseasca care reprezinta ceva foarte abstract dar in acelasi timp dureros de familiar. Este vorba de "vinegret". De fapt vinegretul in traducere libera ar insemna o salata de legume: sfecla, ceapa, cartofi fierti, mazare verde si castraveti murati. Pe de o parte avem parte de un deliciu estetic. Va dati seama ca un asemenea buchet nu poate sa nu ne trezeasca sensibilitatile noastre fie acestea chiar si doar gastronomice.

Pe de alta parte, acelasi deliciu estetic poate fi in acelasi timp si un manifest al corectitudii politice. Intr-un fel vinegdretul este admirat atat de cei de dreapta cat si de stanga. Stanga admira culorile sale revolutionare si calitatile sale de "mancare a proletariatului". Dreapta apreciaza precizia "dreptunghiurilor" si conservarea formelor. De centristi ce sa mai vorbim: acestia in sine reprezinta un vinegret, adica o salata dintre sfecla proletara si maslina burgheza.

Vinegretul are priza la toate categoriile sociale. Risc sa presupun ca aceasta adoratie universala se datoreaza in special faptului ca fiecare grup social gaseste ceva pe propriul plac. Daca doriti vinegretul reprezinta haosul primordial, piramidele egiptene, epopeea lui Ghilgames, Stonehenge-ul, beciurile de la Cricova, lista puteti sa o duceti Dvs. pana la capat.

Unora o sa le vina in gand ideea ca acest post a fost scris datorita faptului ca subsemnatul nu a mancat destul vinegret in copilarie. Adica am putea spune ca a suferit de anemie vinegretiana sau vinegretoida. Lasam freudienii sa se chinuie cu interpretarile. Apropo de interpretari, si vinegretul cu toate ca nu a intrat in DEX, totusi a generat un sir de regionalisme, unul dintre cele mai recognoscibile fiind "vinogretul".

Percepem in forma anterioara ca glotonimul "vinogret" poate fi deconstruit pana la nivelul de "vin" si "grets". Aici ajungem sa facem legatura cu vinul si cu greturile de dupa. Adica de ce sa nu recunoastem ca in forma sa pura "vinegretul" imbina pe deplin caracteristicile cromatice ale unei puritati initiale dar si alura cadaverica a expectoratiilor de dupa ultimul Big Bang. In cele din urma le dam dreptate clasicilor care spuneau cu mare incredere "In vino veritas" dar de fapt aveau in vedere "In vinogret veritas"!