Authorship in new media.

New Media is the frontier of a brave new world. The possibility of hypermedia online is eternal. Now each of us has access to express ourselves in any way possible to the entire world.

In the past artisans created personalized permanent crafts, anything they made was unique in its own way and couldn't be altered without losing the integrity of it's craftsman. When Ford invented the assembly line he did two things: create a process of assembly that could be easily duplicated again and again, and a uniformity of parts adopted from a similar method used by the military.

Now, Online software allows a union of artisan and industrial craftsmanship or authorship.

Immediacy, remediation, mediation

In Remediation, J. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin question the implications of the new digital age and specifically our immediacy that has resulted from it. They first set out to convince the audience that perpetual immediacy is real and though there are glitches in our media still, the age of hypermedia and complete submersion in visual reality is here.

My main question to Bolter and Grusin is: Why does it matter? They take so much time explaining how computer graphics have taken over and can transport their audience into any reality they choose and how hypermediacy is so popular, but what are they trying to prove? What is remediation?

Remediation

As I looked through Bolton and Grusin’s text, several differing ideas of what “remediation” is come to mind. Prior to reading (and even after), I have always perceived remediation as a necessary human function; most prevalent in the entertainment industries. What I mean by this is that when I hear the term, I almost instantly think to the music industry; and its clever re-incorporation of old tunes that were once very popular. By doing this, the remediator (or the one that is incorporating the older tune in their new song) retains and strengthens the roots of the original tune, whilst feeding off of the popularity already associated with the tune for their own personal gain.

Remediation: Strange Days

Well now, I observed that this reading seemed to really work hard on drawing in the audience which was okay, but I can't help but ask why the writer or narrator seemed to disregard that all of these technologies that were mentioned, along with this new technology called "the wire" all stemmed from prior foundations of technologies that were already in existence? I mean really, the invention of "the wire" did not originate completely by one person which somehow held the key to all technologies.

Pictures About Pictures

Mitchell's essay, "Metapictures" is an essay on pictures about pictures. Something that personally bothered me with this essay is the idea of self-reference. I still don't necessarily understand it. Is it trying to explain how if you're looking at a picture, all you need to do is look at it to understand what's going on and not have to venture and do further research? The idea of having everything you need to understand the image already present in one sounds like a plausible idea, but is it still applicable if one was to change the perspective---like from modernist to post modernist?  

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)

Remediation and Originality

The subject of remediation and originality is fitting to come after the discussion of tropes and metaphors.  Since in the process of reading about tropes we learn that a very effective way of understanding certain things is through comparison using tropes.  It is through these tropes and metaphors that we best find the way to explain the look, feel, sound of things around us in the world.  We use our previous knowledge to explain many things in the world around us.

Response to 'Pictorial Turn'

Just like Joe, I also was pretty stuck on the term from last class. While I was working through the reading last Wednesday I struggled to grasp the concept of pictorial turn as well. I really liked how Joe interpreted the quote that Mitchell paraphrased Derrida saying, "there is nothing outside of the picture." (41) I struggled with interpreting this statement also, so I am glad Joe brought it up. I really liked how he explained that the meaning of this phrase relates to pictures just like it does when said by Derrida about text. The idea behind the original statement about text is that anything outside of the text is influencing the text so thus it is not outside of the text but a part of the text. This is also true with pictures... anything outside of the picture, that gives context to it, is not outside of the picture but part of the picture itself. (Picture frame?)

Immediacy

In the piece Remediation, I particularly enjoyed the section about the double logic of remediation. It seems as if the main intent of modern day technology is to expedite the process at hand, while there are always complicated and more detailed types of technology.  “Immediacy depends upon hypermediacy. In the effort to create a seamless moving image, filmmakers combine live-action footage with computer compositing and two- and three-dimensional computer graphics” is especially interesting. The consumer wants everything as soon as possible, when in reality the producers go to great lengths to prove that the end result is immediate even though it is actually not.  

Mulitstability

"Metapictures"  by Mitchell is all about "pictures about pictures". While reading, I found the term "multistability" to be very interesting. Multistability, as Mitchell says, is a phenomenon where images primary function is "to illustrate the co-existence of contrary or simply different readings in the single image" (Mitchell 45). "My Wife or My Mother-in-law" and "Duck-Rabbit" are both pictures that act as multistable images. These image are two images that are placed together in a such a way that they look like one image. 

Remediation, Hypermediacy, and Metapictures

In Remediation by J. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin, I found the self-titled section, “Remediation,” because of their concept of remediation.  They reference Marshall McLuhan: “the content of any medium is always another medium…a more complex kind of borrowing” (339).  This, I think, asserts that everything is a remediation, which I know due to previous class discussions, not everyone agrees with.  Another definition of remediation I found helpful that Bolter and Grusin provide is “The content has been borrowed, but the medium has not been appropriated” (338).  In other words, remediation is taking the same message, but translating it through a different medium.   

I question, though, how McLuhan and Bolter and Grusin define the term “content”: Is “content” synonymous with “message”?

Pictorial Turn

I’m still stuck on this term “pictorial turn” from last class. It really doesn’t feel like I’m getting anywhere either. There was one rock I was able to hold onto as I floated down towards the water fall and that was wen Mitchell paraphrased Derrida in saying “there is nothing outside the picture.” (41) This comes from Derrida’s popular quote “there is nothing outside the text” In which he relates life to being a text and that everything that has the slightest effect on the text in life, is actually part of the text itself.  It’s not only a big way to say that the context is paramount in understanding it, but also to illustrate that the context has a broader scope than we might typically give it credit for.  When he says “There is nothing outside the text” I think he means that anything you might interpret as outside the text, but relating to it, is actually a part of the text itself.

Originality and Remediation

This blog I will warn is a rant dealing with my previous experiences with Bolter and Grusin and that dreadful thing, remediation (not really dreadful). Although some may not have had the same experience I did with remediation- I would like to still endeavor with this blog.

Within the contexts of remediation there can be a sense that everything a person does will never be original. As Bolter and Grusin state "the very fact of remediation, however, ensures that the older medium cannot be entirely effaced [because the] new medium remains dependent on the older one" (Bolter & Grusin). This goes back to the fallacies that were obtained with rhetorical velocity, that rhetorical velocity equals a remix, which in fact it does not. Remediation according to Bolter and Grusin does not reject originality.

What is Immediacy?

When dealing with the concept of immediacy, questions are raised about virtual reality. Immediacy is also defined as a “disappearing act”. (315) The purpose of virtual reality and immediacy is to put the computer-generated image in the viewer’s face. The graphic puts the person in a stationary point to view the graphic generated world that appears to be around them. The experience of virtual reality is also called into question. In what ways is virtual reality necessary? What does it add or create in reality of life. Perpetual immediacy is experience without mediation. What this means is that the virtual reality will diminish “the mediating presence of the computer and its interface.” (316) The actual devices that are used to create the virtual reality are taken away, disregarded, or unapparent.

Bolter and Grusin “The Logic of Immediacy”

Bolter and Grusin, in this section, introduce us to the term immediacy. In situations such as virtual reality, it is important to be unaware that one is wearing a wire, headpiece, or whatever other equipment is used to transport an individual into a virtual world. When discussing first-person- point of view in virtual reality, Bolter and Grusin state, “...the viewer should forget that she is in fact wearing a computer interface and accept the graphic image that it offers as her own visual world” (316). However, one of the issues that come along with trying to create this sense of immediacy is that one can never completely replicate the features of the real world in a virtual setting. 

Remediation

After reading about remediation and learning about this object “the wire”, I was able to ponder on many things that I felt deserved more attention. “The wire is just a fanciful extrapolation of contemporary virtual reality, with its goal of unmediated visual and aural experience; and the proliferation of media in 2K L.A. is only a slight exaggeration of our current media-rich environment, in which digital technologies are proliferating faster than our cultural, legal, or educational institutions can keep up with them.” This quote stood out to me most because it spoke about media in our culture today which is what I think is most important when discussing remediation. Because different technologies are coming about so swiftly in our society today, we have to consider why this is happening at such a rapid pace. An easy answer to run to for this question would simply be remediation. But when we further define what remediation is, we find that it is more of correction or improvement to something that is not good enough.

Mitchell, Intertextuality, and Heteroglossia

Mitchell originally sets out to propose that if metalanguage is plausible, so too is a theory based upon metapictures. It's basically stated that pictures, in fact, provide their own metalanguage and that is precisely how they become self-referential. The first examples of this (formal self-reference and generic self-reference) are mostly centered around the picture itself; the examples either reference the individual picture or the state of being a picture as a class. Although the pictures are self-referential, they immediately come into to dialogue with spectator interpretations. In order to be a metapicture at all, according to Mitchell, requires a dialectical relationship between two or more different, opposing readings of the picture. This immediately cued me to the fact of its intertextuality. The reading of the Egyptian picture could be a laugh at the Egyptians for representing only what their conventions allowed them to represent (i.e. not allowing them to "see" what was really there to be represented), or it could be a laugh at modern ideas that Egyptian figure drawing was more primitive (because it showed them engaging in modern techniques of figure drawing). Either way, the metapicture depends upon these two readings in order to be a metapicture but those two readings depend upon the intertextuality of the picture (i.e. the play of the modern spectator, modern figure drawing techniques, known facts about the Egyptians, etc.).
 

Remediation Is A Good Thing

I have read Bolter and Grusin's "Remediation" in one of my previous classes and it is a very relevant text that I enjoy reading.  The term 'remediation' has started to pop often recently given the transformation of old media and the creation of new ones.  Some say that remediation seeks to erase older media but I disagree with that belief.  I believe remediation allows older material that was made in older media to be made relevant in culture.  One goal of transferring content to a newer medium is improvement.  But improvement does not have to mean replacement.  In fact, remediation is something that should be accepted as well as something that does not have the purpose of erasing older media.