Remediation Defined

"Remediation," it seems, has many different definitions, according to Bolter & Grusin. Simply put, it is "the representation of one medium in another." It is the blurring of lines between art forms. Mathematics informs linear perspective informs Renaissance painting informs early camera obscura works informs video informs cinema informs webcasting informs new digital media. It is the digital picture that looks like a photograph. It is amatuer webcasting that resembles a documentary. "Remediation" can be borrowing, refashioning, homage through montage, or replacement of one media to another.

"Our culture wants both to multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation: ideally, it wants to erase its media in the very act of multiplying them." "Remediation" is concerned with the way we contruct and view experiences other than first-person. People need to see and resee the moments of their lives in as many forms as possible. We want the blending together of these various perspectives; we don't want to see the medium that brings us experience and memory. It's not the "what," but the "how" that remediation is concerned with.

What I don't understand in all of this is the importance of living in the "now." Virtual reality isn't an attempt to make life easier or to make media disappear altogether; for me, it's what we do to avoid reality itself. I guess I could go round and round forever debating virtual versus real. Why would you want a computer to discard its' GUI (in an attempt to virtually guide the user through a digital environment in a way that is "natural") when you can just discard the computer and experience the "natural" naturally? I don't know if that even makes sense. My belief is that, someday, when the world gets to the end of the line (i.e. virtual reality reigns supreme), we're going to find out that the only way to take pleasure in life is to allow your own, personal, daily perceptions to become the only medium you can trust.