Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation Response
In Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation, authors Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin define and explore both the history and the the real-world applications of the aforementioned terms. Immediacy refers to our desire as consumers to experience something that feels real while being unconscious of the technological medium with which it is presented. In hypermediacy, the viewer is aware of the medium with which they are interacting with; various realities and representations are presented at the same time. Finally, remediation is the re-purposing of the content of one medium to another. In these cases, differences between medium are sometimes made clear rather than hidden. Through an examination of the history of these terms, we learn the nuanced relationships between new and old mediums as well as reveal our collective thoughts on what we strive for in our new technology endeavors.
Because I had never heard these terms before, I was very fascinated in seeing how these ideas were applied to different mediums that I have experienced. Particularly, the idea of the removal of the artist as an agent who stands between the viewer and the perceived reality (especially in regards to photography and virtual reality) is very interesting. When thinking about traditional painting, ideas of the real world being translated and abstracted through the eyes of the artist are commonplace; we think of how certain artists see the world in a unique or distorted way. However, this notion is not as common with photographers and those who create virtual reality experiences because they are drawing directly from the real world to some extent. However, I do not believe that people who make this assumption are considering that these artists often play with the viewer's sense of self and impressionism to abstract the experience into one that is not immediate or completely representational of the real world. Apart from photography and VR, it was interesting to see how we value different experiences depending on the medium like hypermediacy being appropriate for desktop computers but not necessarily for film. This got me thinking about the different concerns people have had about the different ways in which these mediums work and if they have any merit. If video games are aiming to become more realistic, should we be concerned about children not being able to distinguish games from reality? Inversely, if our phones and computers continue to present us with an abundant amount of different representations of reality, is this hypermediacy going to shift the way that our brains operate? What are the moral concerns of each term being described in this paper?
"1 Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation." Jay David Bolter; Richard Grusin. In Remediation, Case No. MITP-9780262268981_5. Published 2000, MIT Press, (32 pages).
Because I had never heard these terms before, I was very fascinated in seeing how these ideas were applied to different mediums that I have experienced. Particularly, the idea of the removal of the artist as an agent who stands between the viewer and the perceived reality (especially in regards to photography and virtual reality) is very interesting. When thinking about traditional painting, ideas of the real world being translated and abstracted through the eyes of the artist are commonplace; we think of how certain artists see the world in a unique or distorted way. However, this notion is not as common with photographers and those who create virtual reality experiences because they are drawing directly from the real world to some extent. However, I do not believe that people who make this assumption are considering that these artists often play with the viewer's sense of self and impressionism to abstract the experience into one that is not immediate or completely representational of the real world. Apart from photography and VR, it was interesting to see how we value different experiences depending on the medium like hypermediacy being appropriate for desktop computers but not necessarily for film. This got me thinking about the different concerns people have had about the different ways in which these mediums work and if they have any merit. If video games are aiming to become more realistic, should we be concerned about children not being able to distinguish games from reality? Inversely, if our phones and computers continue to present us with an abundant amount of different representations of reality, is this hypermediacy going to shift the way that our brains operate? What are the moral concerns of each term being described in this paper?
"1 Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation." Jay David Bolter; Richard Grusin. In Remediation, Case No. MITP-9780262268981_5. Published 2000, MIT Press, (32 pages).
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