Immediacy, Hypermediacy, Virtual Reality, Dreams, and More

Immediacy, at first, seems to be the only logical approach to representing a visual message. It could potentially bring a new perspective on a subject being discussed—one that "feels real". When I think of the goal of immediacy, I think of the realm of dreams that we all experience when asleep. Dreams, if we are unaware of them while dreaming, feel as real as "real life" itself—even if they are ridiculous sometimes. For instance, I have had a dream in which the perspective changed from my own, to my father's, and then to a perspective that was separated from any human perspective. This dream scenario is similar to the Meredith Bricken quote that Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin referenced when talking about what we strive for with immediacy:

"'[Y]ou can be the mad hatter or you can be the teapot; you can move back and forth to the. . .rhythm of a song. You can be a tiny droplet in the rain or in the river." (Bolter 314)

Seeing like a teapot is not like reality at all. Mostly because a teapot does not see anything, because it is inanimate. But the point of view is possible with the media of virtual reality, which is designed to feel like it is real.

When Bolter and Grusin talk about the concept of hypermediacy being used to form immediacy, it seems contradictory. How is it possible to use multiple means of media to make things seem to be without medium? The hypermediacy of creating digital graphics is one example that Bolter and Grusin use to explain this concept (Bolter 314). For example, a digital photo can be manipulated to add lightning to a scene that was originally taken on a storm-less day. Using digital photography software, the scene can be manipulated to look as though there really was a storm in there. But this raises a good question: Is this manipulation of a picture, or the virtual reality from before, a way of representing reality, or are they both just deceptions that cannot fully represent reality? This question takes Bolter and Grusin's claims towards hypermedia being a way of immulating reality and formulates the possibility of deception through media. Media could be used to form pseudo-realities that seem real but are actually far from the truth of reality.


Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. “Remediation.” Configurations 4.3 (1996): 311-358.
          Available at < http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/configurations/toc/con4.3.html. >