Bolter & Grusin

So, after realizing that I seemed to have forgotten to order my Bolter and Grusin book at the beginning of the year, I placed the shipment of the book on Amazon. The book did not get here until last week, so I had an unfortunately large amount of work to catch up on. I have not done any posts on the book besides the one which defined remediation. I borrowed a book for this reason. Now, given a quiet weekend in my apartment, I’m finally prepared to post a very long book concerning nearly all pages of B&G.

B&G 53-87

Within this section, the true definition of remediation is remediated in varying ways. Just through the fact that the definition is always been reworked, redefined, and added onto illustrates the very point it’s trying to make. The purpose of remediation is to improve a medium. This passage also exhibits the sometimes reluctant public from accepting new remediated media. I take myself as a personal example. For Christmas, instead of a new apple iphone, or any other new technology, I asked for a record player so that I could listen to all of my parents’ old albums. I would much rather stick with what is reliable than risk buying the prototype of new remediated technology and regret it (or at least regret paying for it.) I’d also like to point to a broader idea of remediation. Remediation of man can be seen, as our experience within technology (often times the showing) and reading (often the telling) man grows up to be more intelligent than his cavemen predecessors.

B&G 88-131

The thing that fascinated me the most within this selection was the idea of escapism in relation to remediation. You escape and interact with people both real and unreal. For example the person you chat online with probably describes themselves differently than you would describe them. Does that make them any less real? Or what about avatars, or virtual realities? You see and experience these things but if they are not tangible, does that make them not real? While escapism might temporarily remove you from physicality, is the life and you and others lead away from the physical world any less substantial than your own “real” life. In regards to this “unreality” within digital media like photographs, it does seem to make the argument of real and unreal slightly murkier. Altered photographs seem to be acceptable as art, while unacceptable in things news stories. Where is the line, and how does one define reality within our common conception of remediation?