Modularity

The human body is a giant organism that is composed of various different interdependent organs (or parts) that allow it to properly function. Normally, one part of the human body cannot be removed without causing serious consequences. Every organ somewhat relies on each other. The human body is interdependent of each other, therefore it is not modular. It is not self sustaining.

Modularity is one of the 5 Principles of New Media as defined by Lev Manovich. It is the idea that ” a new media object consists of independent parts, each of which consists of smaller independent parts, and so on, down to the level of the smallest ‘atoms’ – pixels, 3-D points, or text characters”(Manovich, 31). This is why there is such interchangeability available. Since no one piece is dependent of another, if something were to malfunction it would not affect the system as a whole.

Unlike new media, the human body is nowhere near as interchangeable. If something were to malfunction in the body, removing the problem at the source  wouldn’t solve the problem. It would probably make things worse. We cannot upgrade ourselves if something stops working. We can’t become 6 Million Dollar Men.

The World Wide Web can be considered as an extension of man, just like Marshall McLuhan said (McLuhan, 82). But can it be considered as an evolution of man? In a perfect world, wouldn’t we want to be able to fully customize ourselves? You could give yourself a new heart if you ruined your old one. You could make yourself thinner just like you would be able to rescale an image.

The Internet and new media technologies allow us to do that. The Internet allows us to customize everything within a digital setting, and is a rapidly evolving organism. It keeps advancing at an exponential rate. The World Wide Web is an extension of the 6 Million Dollar Man.