Remediation : Understanding New Media

Media critics remain captivated by the modernist myth of the new: they assume that digital technologies such as the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and computer graphics must divorce themselves from earlier media for a new set of aesthetic and cultural principles. In this richly illustrated study, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin offer a theory of mediation for our digital age that challenges this assumption. They argue that new visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film, and television. They call this process of refashioning "remediation," and they note that earlier media have also refashioned one another: photography remediated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville, and radio. A new framework for considering how all media constantly borrow from and refashion other media. Media critics remain captivated by the modernist myth of the new: they assume that digital technologies such as the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and computer graphics must divorce themselves from earlier media for a new set of aesthetic and cultural principles. In this richly illustrated study, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin offer a theory of mediation for our digital age that challenges this assumption. They argue that new visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film, and television. They call this process of refashioning "remediation," and they note that earlier media have also refashioned one another: photography remediated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville, and radio. Cover......Page 1 ISBN 0-262-52279-9......Page 2 Contents......Page 3 Preface......Page 4 Introduction: The Double Logic of Remediation......Page 7 I Theory......Page 21 1 Immediacy, Hyperrnediacy, and Remediation......Page 23 2 Mediation and Remediation......Page 54 3 Networks of Remediation......Page 65 II Media......Page 86 4 Computer Games......Page 88 5 Digital Photography......Page 104 6 Photorealistic Graphics......Page 113 7 Digital Art......Page 136 8 Film......Page 150 9 Virtual Reality......Page 163 10 Mediated Spaces ......Page 171 11 Television......Page 187 13 Ubiquitous Computing......Page 198 14 Convergence......Page 213 III Self......Page 218 15 The Remediated Self......Page 220 16 The Virtual Self......Page 231 17 The Networked Self......Page 244 18 Conclusion......Page 254 Glossary......Page 260 References......Page 263 Index......Page 272 Back Cover......Page 282 In chapters devoted to individual media or genres (such as computer games, digital photography, virtual reality, film, and television), the authors illustrate the process of remediation and its two principal styles or strategies: transparent immediacy and hypermediacy. Each of these strategies has a long and complicated history. A painting by the 17th-century artists Pieter Saenredam, a photograph by Edward Weston, and a computer system for virtual reality are all attempts to achieve transparent immediacy by ignoring or denying the presence of the medium. A medieval illuminated manuscript, an early 20th-century photomontage, and today's buttoned and windowed multimedia applications are instances of hypermediacy - a fascination with the medium itself. Although these two strategies appear contradictory, they are in fact the two necessary halves of remediation Media critics remain captivated by the modernist myth of the new: they assume that digital technologies such as the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and computer graphics must divorce themselves from earlier media for a new set of aesthetic and cultural principles. This text offers a theory of mediation for our digital age that challenges this assumption. They argue that visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film and television. They call this process of refashioning "remediation" and they note that earlier media have also refashioned one another: photography remidiated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville and radio 'remediation' Emphasises How All Forms Of Media Constantly Borrow From And Refashion Other Types Of Media. The Authors Argue That The New Media Of The 90s Pay Homage To Earlier Forms And Thereby Achieve Their Own Cultural Significance. Immediacy, Hypermediacy, And Remediation -- Mediation And Remediation -- Networks Of Remediation -- Computer Games -- Digital Photography -- Photorealistic Graphics -- Digital Art -- Film -- Virtual Reality -- Mediated Spaces -- Television -- The World Wide Web -- Ubiquitous Computing -- Convergence -- The Remediated Self -- The Networked Self. Jay David Bolter And Richard Grusin. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [276]-284) And Index. This text offers a theory of mediation for our digital age. It argues that visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning earlier media. This process of refashioning is called "remediation"