Train Station, Pandora, & YouTube
B&G: Bolter & Grusin–Remediation)
In 1895, Lumiere brothers refashioned the medium of photography into a time-based medium, and presented one of their short films, “Train arrival in the station of La Ciotat” at their theater. The audience, immersed into the visual experience and unable to differentiate the “real” from what they saw in the film, responded to this remediation by running away and leaving the theater as soon as a train came towards them on the screen. This immediacy, as B&G address, only happens when the media becomes transparent to the viewer, and it’s very different from hypermediacy where multiplicity of the representations and opacity of the media keeps viewers aware of the medium. The excitement that Lumieres’ viewers felt in 1895 has been continually desired by filmmakers who try hard to apply hypermediacy through the use of special effects, animation, and live-action methods. B&G seem to think that filmmakers’ obsession with hypermediacy is because immediacy is harder to achieve once the viewer becomes aware of the nature and the technology behind the medium. B&G especially believe that the narrative has never been successful to immerse the viewers into the story. While, their reasoning would certainly apply to mainstream movies where characters are generally not well developed and therefore the sense of empathy with the characters is hardly achieved, a good narrative allows the viewers to live the personas- if they are developed well, and be them for a few hours; therefore complex and strong narratives, can certainly absorb the viewer into the screen.
A more recent example for this push for hypermediacy in order to create immediacy and excitements is “Avatar” where millions of dollars were spent to create an immersive “real” experience. Avatar viewers immerse into Pandora through the special effects and the 3D experience, and just like with the Lumiere brothers’ train station, become excited, uncomfortable, and at awe with “the cinema of attractions.” However, such immersion soon replaces with complete awareness of the media or the hideousness and heaviness of the glasses. But as B&G illustrate, immediacy and hypermediacy are co-dependant and eventually the multiplicity of representations achieved through sounds, effects, and actions absorbs the viewers back in to the screen and the glasses and the effects become transparent. Like many other mainstream movies prior to it, Avatar uses hypermediacy to achieve immediacy and to construct the “real.” In fact, construction of “real” in films is sometimes so believable that it redefines viewers’ sense of “real” in the real life and forces them to frequently compare real experiences to the ones in the films. Therefore, “it’s like in a movie” is repeated over an over again by tourists visiting Caribbean’s or Hawaii, or even by guests at a wedding.
Shifting our attention from the high budgeted Hollywood feature to generally inexpensive user generated videos on YouTube, we can easily detect hypermediacy and immediacy within the remediation of traditional filmmaking. While filmmakers offer their viewers the “real” through the story, narrative and special effects, online videos define itself by borrowing and refashioning film, TV, and photography, and offer authenticity by being instant and real-time. Because of multiplicity of uploads and the immediacy of the experience, viewers look through the interface but at the same time at the interface. User generated online videos, have effectively remediated the media into more transparency and full opacity.
As B&G point out, new media refashions older media and older media refashions themselves to answer that challenge. User generated videos, have already affected the old film/TV media in terms of narrative, production, and distribution.
