Remediation&
the Desire for Immediacy
By Jay David Bolter
Table of contents1 Introduction
2 Strategies
3 Strange days
4 Culture and status
5 Marshall McLuhan
6 Transparancy vs translucent
7 Aggressive remediation
8 Consumption of media artifacts
9 Economic position and succes
10 Producers of new media products
1 Introduction
Introduction
New media refashion/ remediate older forms
Example: Computer graphics, virtual reality, World Wide Web
[new media]
“borrow and remediate”
television, film, photography, painting, print [old media]
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
New media remediate old media
Digital photography | analogue photography
Uses characteristics from analogue photography [= old media]
Turns into digital photography [= new media]
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Old media remediate new media
Television | computer graphics
Look modern webpage
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
2 Strategies
Remediation
2 possible strategies
1. Transparent immediacy
2. Hypermediacy
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Transparent immediacy
Makes the medium invisible
Experience something as a “true world”
Examples Live point-of-view television programmes
Movies [Hollywood] Make their viewers feel as if they were really there
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Hypermediacy
Acknowledges and highlights the medium
Examples Games with split screen
You know it isn’t true You can’t be at 2 places at the same time
Music stage productions
World Wide Web
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
3 Strange Days
Kathryn Bigelow, USA, 1995
Strange days
Futuristic film = World fascinated by power and new media
technologies
Use “The wire” Place device over your head Make contact with the brain Capture sense perceptions
“Everything they saw, heard, and felt for thirty minutes captured on a digital recording”
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Strange Days
"This is not like TV only better. This is life!A piece of somebody's life, straight from the cerebral cortex.“
Character puts on the wire
Experiences world in first-person point of view shots
Subjective camera
= Form of immediacy
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
4 Culture and status
Our culture
Digital technologies are proliferating faster than our cultural, legal, educational institutions
Movie “Strange Days”
Double logic of remediation
1. To multiply our media
2. To erase all traces of mediation
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Reaffirm status
Older electronic and print media Use
Immediacy & Hypermediacy
To reaffirm their status in our culture New media challenge their status
Example “Televised new programmes”
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Televised news programmes
Televised news programmes Multiple video streams
Split screen displays
Uses graphics, photographs, texts, audio Borrowed from analogue predecessors
2 logics co-exist + mutually dependent Immediacy depends upon hypermediacy
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
5 Marshall McLuhan
Understanding media
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan “The content of any medium is always another
medium”
The content of writing is speech The content of print is the written word
Speaks about complex kind of “borrowing” One medium is incorporated or represented in another medium
= remediation
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Example
Dutch painters incorporated maps, globes, inscriptions, letters in their works
Older medium is represented in digital form
Websites: use older pictures or texts Content of older media is poured into new media
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
6 Transparancy vs translucent
Discussion of transparancy
Transparency?
Digital medium wants to erase itself Why?
Seeing painting on computer screen
=
Seeing painting in person
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Discussion of transparancy
Experience is different
Computer Click a button Slide a bar to view whole picture Untrue colors
Transparency remains the goal!!
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Transparancy VS translucent
Creators of electronic remediations
Emphasis the difference [not erase | transparant]
Electronic version = improvement
Borrowing = to be translucent !
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
7 Agressive remediation
Agressive remediation
Digital medium = more agressive
Why? tearing things “out of context”
Example: “old television and movie clips”
Taken out of context Inserted absurdly into techno-music Become a mosaic
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Agressive remediation
Game Myst or Doom remediate cinema
Games = interactive cinema
Players become characters
Cinematic narrative
Decide where to look
Player = actor and director
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Agressive remediation
Hollywood movies
Absorb/ repurpose digital technology
Special effects = standard features
Interventions = transparent
Look as natural as possible Make the computer disappear
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
8 Consumption of media artifacts
The consumption of media artifacts
2 strategies [immediacy and hypermediacy]
help us understand
1. Aesthetics of new media
2. Cultural uses
3. Patterns of consumption
All linked together!
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
9 Economic position and succes
Economic position | new media
Each new media form
Find economic place
To convince consumers Improve our experience
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Economic position | examples
From traditional telephone lines ADSL Greater bandwidth
Not only text Video & interactive television …
From CD DVD More authentic reproduction of video Better sound …
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Economic succes of workers in new medium
Depends on acquired status of the medium Webdesigners > graphic designers for print
Purpose to pour familiar content into another media form
“Gesamtkunstwerk” | hypermediated environment
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
10 Producers of new media products
Producers of new media products
Sell “experiences of immediacy”
Transparancy
Artistic and popular consumer forms
Strategy found in: Digital art installation Theme parks Malls …
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
NEW MEDIATED SPACE
“Eatertainments” Themed restaurants
Combine Traditional function of eating Entertainment qualities of a theme parc
Entertainment experience
Form of remediation Borrow immediacy from experience of science fiction film
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
Mars 2112
Consumptions of media artifacts +
Consumption of food
http://www.mars2112.com/
REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter
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