_The Digital Dialectic_
Peter Lunenfeld, Editor
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999)

In the months since "ReadMe!"–nettime's bible of net
criticism–mainstream book publishers have started to get nervous. "Our
cover has been blown!" they squeal, seeing how flimsy their new releases
actually are. Never has so much interesting cultural production
(net.art) been so overlooked by those who control the presses.

To help, Peter Lunenfeld has organized _The Digital Dialectic_, a series
of essays (nearly all culled from his So-Cal "mediawork" posse) on one
central theme: using the dialectic to examine our current technoculture.
For the new media artist, _The Digital Dialectic_ offers much
interesting material.

Carol Gigliotti's essay on "The Ethical Life of the Digital Aesthetic"
is helpful. She addresses the question of new media art, and comments on
how it might be produced and institutionalized within the emerging
digital world. In "Replacing Place" William J. Mitchell describes the
creation of online "place" through avatars, MOOs and palaces. His brief
treatment of Ken Goldberg's "Telegarden" leaves more to be desired.

Lunenfeld's "Unfinished Business" is fashioned around the process of
becoming. Mirroring the dialectic itself, Lunenfeld's envisions his
essay as "always unfinished," able to change with the advent of new
ideas. His work is filled with interesting meditations on computers and
culture.

The highlight of _The Digital Dialectic_ is Lev Manovich. Long time
readers of RHIZOME DIGEST know Manovich's work well. His insightful
"What is Digital Cinema?" aptly plots the historical movement from early
cinema to new media. As he argues, today's digital cinema incorporates
both the artificiality of older animation techniques and the realism of
photographic techniques. "Digital cinema is a particular case of
animation that uses live-action footage as one of its many elements," he
writes. The *usefulness* of Manovich's analysis is refreshing–indeed
his essay is likely the only one with lasting value in this collection.
Through it one can begin to think historically about the evolution from
film to new media. Manovich ends the essay by examining a series of new
media art works including Natalie Bookchin's "The Databank of the
Everyday."

If you're wondering what "dialectics" has to do with digital media, well
then join the crowd. Lunenfeld should be commended for forcing his
authors to stick to a theme–just writing about computers doesn't cut it
anymore–but perhaps "dialectics" wasn't the best choice. Conflated are
the dialectical *method* (think Socratic dialogue, back and forth) and
the dialectical *structure* (you remember… thesis, antithesis and
synthesis). The former is fine, imho, but using Hegel to talk about
computers? That seems a bit far out.

I asked Lunenfeld whether he was interested in the dialectic because he
thought it best describes the nature of the digital, or because he liked
the structure of back and forth dialogue… or both?

Lunenfeld: "The short answer to your question is both and more. I'm not
sure if any one method could 'best' describe the nature of the digital,
but a dialectical approach seemed a strong way to ensure that the
'newness' of electronic media and environments never totally overwhelmed
the authors' critical faculties. That to me is the value of using such
an ancient analytic tool."

Lunenfeld displays a skepticism for what he calls "amateur
futurism"–embodied in the glossy-eyed utopianism of Wired Magazine.
Instead, through his editorial selections especially, Lunenfeld
privileges alternative media outlets such as the new media publishers
Voyager and Purple Moon. But what about site specific organizations,
like RHIZOME, that still survive on small doses of this "amateur
futurism"?

Lunenfeld: "I think that my central definition–that the digital
dialectic grounds the insights of theory in the constraints of
practice–was my way to move past what I've elsewhere discussed as
'vapor' theory, a dialectical immaterialism that was so prevalent
throughout this decade in the pages of Wired, on trade show floors, and
in academic seminars on cyberculture. I think that to a remarkable
degree the sort of unsubstantiated waffling about the 'future' impact of
digital media is mercifully absent from this collection."

Ok, so there's good amateur futurism and there's bad amateur futurism.
In his chapter "The Cyberspace Dialectic" Michael Heim goes into further
detail, arriving at a happy compromise in what he calls "virtual
realism." Sound familiar? Remember "technorealism," the "get real! we're
techno savvy, but still responsible!" philosophical fizzle from last
year? Heim's virtual realists are similar: "The delicate balancing act
sways between the idealism of unstoppable Progress and the Luddite
resistance to virtual life." Respectable, but totally forgettable.

Is _The Digital Dialectic_ destined for the library shelf, its topics
(hypertext, MOOs, even CD-ROMs) having faded in the brilliance of newer
trends? Predicts Lunenfeld, "Nothing ages faster and becomes
inaccessible quicker than electronic media… We will still publish in
book form that which we deem to have lasting significance." In a world
of Baby Boomer technobabble, Lunenfeld's voice is exemplary. Forgive him
his sins–jabs at the Surrealists, jabs at the Deleuzians, jabs at the
postmodernists–and we will surely gain from his effort.