Remediation: Understanding New media

Bolter, J and Grusin, R. (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media,

Remediation is the process whereby computer graphics, virtual reality, and the World Wide Web define themselves by borrowing from and refashioning media such as painting, photography, television, and film. (http://english.ttu.edu//remediator.html)

Remediation: has not just appeared recently, but has been using the same process for the last several hundred years.

“A painting by the 17th Century artist Pieter Saenredam, a photograph by Edward Weston, and a computer system for virtual reality contains remediation”

All of these are similar because they try to achieve immediacy by ignoring or denying the presence of the medium. All of these artists seek to put the viewer in the space that the image is viewed.

The process of remediation makes us aware that all media are at one level a play of signs, which is a lesson that we take from post structuralist society, at the same time this process insists on the real.

Strange Days

The film strange days relates specifically to the whole concept of virtual reality because it offer the viewer an opportunity to actually experience life in another persons shoes, anything that can possibly be imagined- you can be.



The process of jacking in/ or wire tripping allows one consciousness to be transferred to another. The whole concept embodies a desire to get beyond mediation.

This film captures the contradiction between the ways that new media functions in our everyday society. The fact that we want to use technology without having to deal with it.

Immediacy

The whole concept of immediacy has been taken onboard by film and TV producers- whereby they will make all the action take part from the viewer’s point of view, whether that’s a fireman, police officer or a racing river. This is to make the viewer feel like they are “really there”.



Here is a snippet of the film “Cloverfield” where the whole concept of immediacy has really been utilised. Whereby the viewer has literally been thrown into the action. The other characters in the film engage with us “the viewer” to enhance the feeling that were actually within the film.

With the furthering of technology there is more of a demand for immediacy, this is shown in the way that digital images are much more lively and exciting than simply text on a screen. And a video chat will have more of an impact than a telephone conversation. This desire for immediacy is also apparent in major blockbuster film. People are using stunt men less and are now opting for CGI and special effect.

Even within the home there is a greater experience of immediacy using a graphics tablet or a mouse allows for easier and quicker access. Many designers say that they want an interface-less interface. This is why technology such as the iphone has become popular.

Transparent Immediacy

Virtual reality is very immersive which means that its sole purpose is to disappear. The actual process is difficult due to the amount of equipment that is required. Unlike in the film “strange days” where all they simply had to put on was a simple lightweight skullcap. With virtual reality people expect virtual reality to diminish and to ultimately deny the mediating presence. In virtual reality the helmet that the user wears contains an eyepiece, which has a tracking device, which registers the change of direction the user makes and thus draws a new image. This is very similar to the concept behind Alberti’s window. Where the users are not only looking out of the window but are actually within the space.

Alberti’s “window”

Hypermedia

The logic of hypermediacy is most obvious in the in the “window style” of the World Wide Web pages, which has a desktop, a multitude of programmes and in the words of William. J Mitchell (1994) “privileges fragmentation, indeterminacy, and heterogeneity and. emphasises process or performance rather then finished objects”.

An example of hypermedia form is the BBC news 24 channels. There is a verity of information all displayed at the same time. In this particular screenshot is the screen displaying information. The man is talking about a subject. There I a bulletin about mobile networking. A bulletin about football as well as the time, all displayed at the same time. This medium allows for “random access”. This means that there is no structured beginning, middle or end, its all-available information.

BBC News 24

An example of hypermedia form is the BBC news 24 channels. There is a variety of information all displayed at the same time. In this particular screenshot there is a screen behind the presenter displaying information. The presenter is reporting the latest news. At the bottom of the screen there’s a bulletin about mobile networking, as wells as the latest information about football scores, all displayed at the same time. This medium allows for “random access”. This means that there is no structured beginning, middle or end, its all-available information.

Terms

Remediation: Is the process whereby computer graphics, virtual reality, and the WWW define themselves by borrowing from and refashioning media such as painting, photography, television, and film.

Immediacy: is the perfection, or erasure, of the gap between signifier and signified.

Hypermediacy: is a "style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium".

Mediation: is the representation of an object, a formative interface whereby the object of contemplation is structured and presented by some intervening medium.