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

REMEDIATION AND THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIACY | by Jay David Bolter

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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