Many new-media enthusiasts have inherited from modernist aesthetic theory the assumptions of essentialism and absolute originality. They assume that each medium is constituted by a unique set of essential characteristics and that the task of designers is to explore these characteristics
by creating artefacts that will define the medium. Bolter and Grusin's Remediation is a study of intermedial relationships that rejects modernist aesthetics and calls these assumptions into question. Manovich's The Language of New Media does not simply accept these assumptions,
but it does seek to derive new-media artistic practice from modernism.
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