In
the final section of Remediation, B&G break out three self orientations–three
varieties of self in light of the forceful processes of remediation: the
remediated self, the virtual self, and the networked self. The remediated
self basically begins with a notion of self as summative and re/configurable
(like William James’ empirical self (233)) rather than rigid or authentic.
Remediated self gives way to (at least) two variations of self: immersed
and interrelated/interconnected. These selves correspond to the poles of
remediation; the immersed experiences the visually mediated as transparent and
immediate; the interrelated/interconnected self experiences the visually
mediated as opaque and navigable (232). According to B&G, we experience
ourselves in both ways. This connects up with expressive activity, too.
Virtual reality (where the user moves through) fits with romantic selfhood,
while opacity and ubiquitous computing are akin to the fixed-subject self of the
Enlightenment. The clearer part of this first chapter in section
three–"The Remediated Self"–builds on the duality of self as object and
subject in the specific case of bodybuilding. In bodybuilding, when "the
body is reconstructed to take on a new shape and identity," the body as medium
seems most plausible (237).
Tag: new media
Bolter and Grusin – Remediation (1999) II
Let’s call this entry part two of three. I’m a bit behind (behind what? just
my own schedule), but I’m through the application chapters–the middle 140 pages
of B&G. In the paragraph opening into the final section, "Self," B&G write
that these middle chapters are applications of remediation as a process.
In their glossary, B&G define remediation this way:
remediation Defined by Paul Levenson as the "anthropotropic" process
by which new media technologies improve upon or remedy prior technologies.
We define the term differently, using it to mean the formal logic by which new
media refashion prior media forms. Along with immediacy and hypermediacy,
remediation is one of the three traits of our genealogy of new media. (273).
B&G discuss remediation as this logics-guided process involved with a variety
of media throughout section two: computer games (88), digital photography (104), photorealistic
graphics (114), digital art (132), film (146), virtual reality (160), mediated
spaces (168), the www (196), and ubiquitous computing (212). In the final
section, "Convergence," B&G offer an explanation for more various push-pull
relationships among media. Whereas remediation tends to describe a uni-directional
process of influence, convergences are akin to blends–multi-directional
shapings felt among media (where television flows into the www and the www flows
into television). Convergence rel. to remediation: a sloshing media
spillway, a complex subversion of remediation’s teleology.
Bolter and Grusin – Remediation (1999) I
The remediation project depends on a double-logic. Tangled around and
around one another, bread-tie like, hypermediacy (opacity) and immediacy
(transparency) stand as the two poles between which all remediation oscillates
(again, oscillations, as from Lanham). Hypermediacy is the
"frenetic design" that comes with exciting and blending mediaforms into one
another. Immediacy refers to the dreamwish of closing the gap
between the real and the mediaform. Hypermediacy invites others to
enjoy the interplay (explicit); immediacy strives for the perfect
mimesis, a match with reality so convincing that the real/virtual distinctions
wash together, ripple-free (tacit). Remediation, relative to these poles,
synthesizes, collects them together again, keeps order, shepherds inventive
deviations and garbled others back in step: web ‘pages’ inhere newspaper layout,
television inheres film, blogs, just like diaries.
Lanham – The Electronic Word (1993)
Technology, democracy (explicit in the subtitle), rhetoric education and
curricular reform recur as themes in Lanham’s The Electronic Word.
The book sets out with an overarching consideration of the material,
instrumental and ideological transitions in the interfacial revolution from book
to screen. The screen has rattled the "reign of textual truth" (x), opened
up the meaning of "text," and, consequently, challenged traditional-humanist
rationale for moralistic training via literary works (lots on the Great Books
debate here) . EW is set up for reading as a continuous book and also as
discrete chapters, according to Lanham; the chapters make frequent intratextual
reference (i.e., "In chapter 7, I…"). He gives readings of
rhetorical/philosophical traditions and more recent –phobe and –phile
orientations toward microcomputers and related computing activities–activities
he regards as deeply rhetorical and thoroughly transformative for commonplaces
about text, decorum, higher ed, and the humanities. EW is probably
one of the earlier takes on a digital rhetorics, even if he frames a compelling
range of precursors (xi)–"a new and radical convertibility" of "word image and
sound" (xi) staged in Cage’s experimental art and music, Duchamp’s readymades
and even K. Burke’s poetry.
Eloquent Images III
Barta-Smith and DiMarco – "Same Difference: Evolving Conclusions about
Textuality and New Media," 159-178
In "Same Difference," Barta-Smith and DiMarco argue for an evolutionary view of
new media (precedent rich) rather than a revolutionary view (precedent creating
or precedent exploding). Beginning with "what is a visual
revolution?" and concerns about discussions of new media that "suppress
continuity" (161), they apply a sophisticated reading of Maurice Merlau-Ponty as
a way to "celebrate imitation as combination and succession" (163). An
evolutionary frame tacks new media to certain historical trajectories (there’s
been visuality ever since the first eyeball!). The article rings solidly
with a developmental view (in fact, it reminded me of Emig’s "The Origins of
Rhetoric: A Developmental View," speaking of evolution) and there are frequent
references to perspectives from cognitive science. Visual evolution is
distinct from imitation (which emphasizes the causality connecting visual
assimilation to sensorimotor activity) in that it recombines and leads to
"structural integration" (173) and reorganizes existing cognitive patterns.
Theirs is a nuanced argument, and it’s interesting to me because I haven’t read
much about on new media and cognitive science.
Eloquent Images II
Wysocki – "Seriously Visible," 37-59
First, hypertexts, in their affordances of choice, are inherently engaging, and
these engaging properties (engagementalities?) extend to civic and democratic
practices (freedom, liberty, etc.). Second, predominantly visual documents
are unserious; they are the stuff of children’s books–lite, silly and
non-rigorous. Wysocki opens with these old feints, and offers "responsive
counterexamples" elaborated through analyses of
Scrutiny in the
Great Round and
Throwing Apples
at the Sun, two visualmedia pieces. Before introducing the
counterexamples, Wysocki thickens the air with surveys of the critical tensions
invested in the opening positions. To set up the idea of hypertext reader
as civic agent, she cites Lanham, Bolter, Edward Barrett (cognitive science),
Woodland, Nielsen, then extends to Mill, Habermas and Virilio to explain the
correlation between hypertext as choice and the dependence of public sphere on
divergent opinions. Importantly, Wysocki includes a section in the essay
(40-41) to acknowledge the "quickness of [her] preceding arguments" before
imparting a second survey of positions suggesting that the visual is elementary,
again from Habermas and Virilio. Included here are a series of scholars who
have called for renewed attention to the complexity and dimension of images
(42-43). Before shifting into the analysis of the visualmedia pieces,
Wysocki explains,
The assumption behind the critique of the visual is that we take
in what we see, automatically and immediately, in the exact same way as everyone
else, so that the visual requires no interpretation and in fact functions as
though we have no power before it[…]; the assumption behind the celebrations
of hypertext is that any text that presents us with choice of movement through
it necessarily requires interpretation (43).
Eloquent Images I
Bolter – "Critical Theory and the Challenge of New Media," 20-36
In this brief article, the first in Hocks and Kendrick’s Eloquent Images,
Jay Bolter begins with a historical overview of the image-word problem.
He traces a larger outline of new media by propping up a series of artificial
dichotomies: visual-verbal, theory-practice, critique-production,
ideological-formal (34); the project of new media is to collapse these terms.
Bolter explains that unlike film and television, which few cultural critics
conceived of as full-scale replacements for print, the web and its hyper-blended
forms of discourse introduce a different kind of contest between old and new media
forms. Yet it would be a mistake to view new media forms and print as strict
teleological trajectories, each edging out the other, competing for a mediative
lead. This matters differently if you’re the CEO of a Weyerhaeuser, I
suppose, and maybe there’s something to the race track metaphor (one car to
each, one driver, one big-dollar sponsor) that admits or allows for the capital
backing of media forms. That’s not really Bolter’s point here. He
explains, "It is not that there is some inadequacy in printed media forms that
digital forms can remedy: New digital media obviously have no claim to inherent
superiority" (24).
Tufte – Visual Display/Quantitative Information (1983)
Excellent graphics are simple, clear pictures of numbers, Tufte argues in
this "landmark" book,
The Visual
Display of Quantitative Information. Basic graphical designs–"box plots,
bar charts, historograms, and scatterplots" (124)–have in common principles of
functional simplicity and clarity. Note the review comment attributed to the
Boston Globe: "A visual Strunk and White." I read the first edition, and it’s
currently out in a second edition, so these notes should be so-understood.
They reflect the 1983 edition–the version that later needed an update for one
reason or other.
Taylor and Saarinen – Imagologies (1994)
In Imagologies, Mark Taylor and Esa Saarinen weave and warp through a series of new media (vintage 1994) fabrics. I call them fabrics because the book’s designer, Marjaana Virta, does: “Mediatext: A collection of fabrics…” (jacket). And if we can call Imagologies a “book”–rich ironies here for all their project does to frazzle the paradigms of print–the visual designs and variations are as striking as any of the stuff we might otherwise classify as content. Perhaps as much as any paper-bound book could hope to, Imagologies pushes and
sometimes exceeds the constraints of the bound page.
Telepresense
Jet Blue’s mechanical glitch and
emergency landing
in L.A. close to twenty-four hours ago has re-re-re-played out in both the
footage and the passenger accounts. The flight returned safely despite the
sideways-jammed and intractable landing gear; the culmination was a straight,
frictional grind to a halt. Thereafter, the angle of many of the news reports
has been the visibility of the event as it unfolded on the television monitors
inside the plane. One of Jet Blue’s most prized features is a one-per-seat
television monitor that can tune to a variety of programs, including live
national news broadcasts. Stunning as it must have been, what resulted was
disfiguration of the flash-of-celebrity fan on the Jumbo-tron: "Look, we’re on
TV."
