Immediacy and Hypermediacy:

When the Internet became so popular between 1998 and 1999, some of communication scholars anticipated that traditional media (older electronic and printed media) would be soon disappeared or at least decreased. Electronic and printed media had to seek to reaffirm their status within a culture as digital media challenge that status (5).  It was certain that digital technology stimulated the change of the media. So then, which attributes of digital media captivated people? There are many features but, I think, one of the most attractive things is to extend the range of representation. It might be attractive to communicate with a variety of representative tools. This extended representation implies many possibilities, two of which are immediacy and hypermediacy.  

Think about online role-playing games like World of Warcraft and Diablo. Such online games enabled users to achieve immediacy by ignoring or denying the presence of the medium, seeking to put the users in the same space as the objects viewed (11).  The games also enable users to control very detailed hypermediacy. As Bolter & Grusin said, immediacy and hypermediacy are mutually dependent (6).

Rip Van Winkle Hypothesis:

If Rip Van Winkle woke up today, having fallen asleep in 1984, already possessing a driver’s license, and knowing how to use a Xerox Star or Macintosh computer, he would be just as able to use today’s personal computers as drive today’s cars. (39)

I basically agree with this hypothesis. This assumes that as long as the essential of technology is not changed, the technology cannot reach new paradigm, and the period from 1984 to the present is in the same technological paradigm. As he mentioned, it seems that the boundary among digital devices is ambiguous. iPad has all functions but it does not called a laptop. Digital media are being mixed and converged but their functions have been already existed. They just change their covers. That is, the changed is just the design of appearance.

Apple company products are more likely to be related with this issue. Probably, the first image about Apple products is notable designs. Because of their good design, I do not mean the products are functionless. The design might fill the short parts of function. In that sense, I might say Apple products fetish because the appearance (design) hides the essential (function). Consider about wearing cloth. Whatever a person wear cloth, his/her essential would not be changed. But, dressing has obvious visible effect. That is why we wear a suit for a formal event. Analogically, Apple products change their design, but essential technologies. Of course, there are some functional changes but I don’t believe that a simple change in form factor is going to move beyond constraints of existing Apple digital devices (39).      

"The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act." - Of Shirky's speech
                                                                                                                                      
There is a case when we don't perform things because we think we can already do the things. But, this is a false thought. Not until we represent our ability, though it is trivial, we cannot say that we conduct the things. Probably, people who have learned to play instruments such as piano and guitar might know what I mean. A student who learns to play the piano  sees a music score and thinks this is playable enough. After a couple of days, s/he tries to play the music but feels it is not as playable as s/he thought well. My point is "if a person does not express his/her ability, the ability cannot be completed. Likewise, the LOLcats design, Shirky mentioned, might be a foolish creative performance, but if users didn't represent the foolish actions, there would be nothing about creativity. This is one point of "cognitive surplus" Shirky asserts.

Franky, I was trying to find out commonalities among three materials, Meggs' article, Howard's book, and Shirky's lecture, for next seminar. Instead of commonalities, I found myself some shared words among them: media (all possible communicative devices from humanistic tools like language and visuals to technologies), accessibility of information, and positive and developable change.

A History of Graphic Design (1998) describes the evolution of human communication tools, specifically, written language. According to the book, there are largely two written language types; one is logogram or graphic characters such as Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphs and the other is alphabet form.

First, let's look at hieroglyphs. This was invented by figures of things. For example, these letters was made by imitating figures of sun and moon. Contemporary Chinese language still has a number of hieroglyphs whose combinations makes new meanings. It is interesting because new meanings made by the combinations are logically going on. Let me introduce some letters. Tree is represented as "木" in Chinese. When it is double written like "林," it means forest. When it is triple written like "森," it means forest with a lot of trees.
Unlike such graphical character systems, "an alphabet is a set of visual symbols or characters used to represent the elementary sounds of a spoken language"(27). This alphabet's invention encouraged more active human communications because its written systems are easier than hieroglyphs. From a historiographical view, letters as written communicative tools seems to evolve into more convenient and accessible forms.

Technology changes rapidly; Humans don't: While technologies may change rapidly human beings don't!
While reading this chapter, I came up with one issue: technological determinism vs. social determinism (we have already read about this issue last articles). A few months ago, Steve Jobs launched iPad which is a form of table computer. There are a lot of opinions about the tiny computer. But those opinions are largely divided as two: one group argued that iPad is really cool and it helps users more effectively communicate, and the other group asked what iPad is different from other lap tops or tablet PCs.

First group basically follows technological determinism. That is, technological developments can result in social change. Second group implies social determinism. That is, social demands cause technological developments. Actually, social determinism seems to be more persuasive than technological determinism in a capitalistic sense. As Howard said, the reason Hiltz and Turoff excellently anticipated the future of media environments is that "they based their predictions on a sociological understanding of the history of communication technologies and on deep-seated understandings about fundamental social needs rather than technological possibilities"(207). 

However, consider about iPad case again. Who has imagined the form of iPad? I mean, is this really a socially-demanded technology? I think Apple Company tried to change societies in a technological deterministic perspective. Functions of iPad are not new any longer. Some said iPad is a bigger version of iPod. There is NOTHING about new technology. It just changed its appearance as Lexus and Camry have the same engines, different bodies. According to Maxism, it might be called fetishism. I would like to call this iPad case instrumental surplus. This instrumental surplus makes users more interested in an appliance itself than information or the access of the information. Thus, I don't think human being doesn't need to sensitively respond the rapid technological developments. Socially-demanded technologies do not appear as quickly as we think so. Their appearance looks so fast because there are lots of instrumental surplus.

Digital: a movement toward human instinct

Prabably, when I was around 13 years old, computer music appeared and became so faddish in Korean pop music market. It was called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). Many people were fanatical in the songs composed by MIDI. In my thought, there are three reason. First, people would enjoy their diverse and multi-changeable sounds which existing formal instruments (guitar, piano, drum etc.) could not imitate. Second, they would pay attention to, so called, "sampling," which is a way to compose and arranage a song by MIDI. A composer gets a sample which might be a part either of rhythm or melody of a certain song and inserts the sample into a song the composer is working. People would feel fresh when listeing to such a MIDI technique.

Of course, computer-aided music had been created before MIDI by things like synthesiser. Actually, synthesiser can be also one of MIDI. However, it is literally a computer-aided instrument. Simply put, it is not a computer, but an electronic musical tool implanting computing system. This is not only a distinct POINT between computer-based music (by MIDI) and computer-aided music (by synthesiser), but also the third reason why computer music was so attractive. That is, a computer is in my room but a synthesiser not there.

Even though not sharp readers, you might get it. Right! Computer is for everyone, just common people, but synthesiser is for musicians. The computer composers have is basically not different from one in my room. In other words, that means everyone who has a computer can make music. How fantastic! Anyone can play guitar on his/her computer. MIDI, this "infernal machine" enabled an RW culture beyond RO culture (33). Listerners begun to not regard music as artifact only musicians deal with any longer. It was possible for common computer users to create music and participate in it. MIDI absolutely resolved Sousa's fear that "fewer and fewer would have the access to instruments, or the capacity, to create or add to the culture around them; more and more would simply consume what had been created elsewhere"(25). It is more democratic in the sense of participation.     

REMIX: For me, it is a familiar word, which reminds my nostalgia. Before saying about my nostalgia, let me first go back the second reason of computer music's popularity, "sampling." Some musicians used to remake the same song with sampling, then they called it "remix version." as far as I remember (now sampling is so popular that no musicians would not think of it as a special technique as they remake with it). I liked remix version than original one. So, at that time when computer music became popular - it's time to tell my nostalgia - I would like to make my own remix version, using songs I enjoyed. These were all forms of cassette tape, that is, analog formats. I picked several pop tapes (I remember some; Boyz II Men, Michael Bolton, New KIds On the Block and someKorean pops) and prepared one empty tape to copy the songs. Right, my method to remix them is a physical combination; to link parts of each song. That was my remix version. I feel, probably, RW is kind of one of human instincts. I really wanted to make (write) something after listening (reading) to the songs I liked. In that sense, it might be indispensible that digital technology appeared.

Another issues Lessing discussed is copyright. This has been still being one of hot issues online. His point is that copyright laws online should be least in the extent which protects copyrighters. Bascially, I agree with him but his argument is more or less ambiguous and not clear. He said "ther is no plausible argument that aloowing kids to remix music is going to hurt anyone" (114). He is right. I was also such a kid. But, I don't think that an illegal use of other's product itself can casue physical injury. Think about it. You upload my picture on facebook and someone downloads and retouch it, and spread out online. Oneday, you go to a website and encounter your remixed picture again. How would you feel? I know this is an extreme case but we have to consider about that. It is related to online privacy issue.
 

See the unseen

I remember a visual artifact, "Viewer (1996, see more)," which I saw in The Museum of Modern Art in NYC. The artifact made by Gary Hill, a American video artist, represents a set of people wearing different cloths, looking different social background and ethnicity via a projector. It is not a picture but a video, although it is almost motionless. There, I took a picture of it below. 

What I felt when seeing that was kind of post-modernistic ideas. While I was watching people projected on the screen and confronting them, I was confused whether I was seeing them or they were seeing me. I thought it is possible that not only I as a subject recognize the video art just as an object, but also, conversely, I might be showed as an object to people on the screen. That is, it seemed that the artist tried to break down technical relationship between a subject and a object - between viewing and viewed.

Technological developments and increasing non-textualized contexts have helped build new paradigm between subjects and objects; between viewers and the visual (described in Sturken and Cartwright's article) and between writers and readers/publishers (described in Sullivan's article).

As Sturken and Cartwright said, we are living in a flood of the visual. Also, there are a number of means representing it thank to digital media. But, visualized contexts can also cause any ambiguosness that people might feel when they look at images, try to interpret them. So, we need to know how to look images, and, at the same line of logic, "Practice of Looking" emphasizes how people have to receive the visual. The authors siad "studying visual culture is about seeing not only what is shown, but also how things are shown and what we are not shown, what we do not see."(6) See the unseen!

Active viewers tries to see the unseen while passive viewers tend to see just the seen superficially. Regardless of how viewers read images, however, meanings intended by producers creating them independently exist and affect viewer's interpretation. And then, they are again affected by another like authority and power. To explain it, Sturkent and Cartwright adapt Foucault's concept, "author function as a means of thinking about the producer function, and take an example of Nike advertising.
"We attribute the producer function to  Nicke because the corporation and not the actual creative director of the ad, is the entity that owns and appears to speak through the work."(53)

Such meanings created by any power can be deconstructed, reinterpreted, reconstructed by new media. "The new modes embraced by youth culture consumers are about networks, connections, and aggregation - using websites and social networking to link to their interests and friends, and blogs to create networks about their style choices and social concerns."(89) Sullivan also argues that electronic writing would overcome dominant controling of the page by publishers, suggesting some alternative models of the writer-text-reader relationship shifted from traditional writing to electronic writing. Some of models even implies the concept of hypertext.This article is so predictable when we consider that was published in 1991.

Echo: made by oneself, not by a computer

Frankly, I was thinking why Dr. Howard let us read Laurel's article which was published in 1993. It seemed be kind of a very initial version that treats "human-computer interaction (HCI)." I mean we could read more recent articles because this area has increasingly changed and updated. While reading it, however, I was impressed by the author's insight about interface design. Specially, it is very predictable that "a scene design is not a whole play - for that we also need representations of character and action (10)." It reminds me "presence," that is a theoretical concept describing the effect that people expereince when they interact with a computer-mediated or computer-generated environment (Sheridan, 1994, from wiki).

In this chapter, the author entirely talks about how theatrical elements and theories apply to designing interactions between human and computer. All actions related to computer-interactions is represented by people. The human is an indispensable ingredient of the representation (2). In real, it is human who is the subject doing something like writing, painting, and editing in interaction with computer. But, I do not think this is sort of  interactive behaviors. If there is absolutely a mutual interaction between human and computer, and that is a part where HCI (or interactive design) is studied, we need to know certain models of iteraction (or communication), one of which is "the notion of common ground  described by Herbert H. Clark and Susan E. Brennan (1990) (3)." Simply put, the model means that purposive interactivities are achieved based upon common ground and accumulation. The notion of common ground not only provides a superior representation of the conversational process but also supports the idea that an interface is not simply the means whereby a person and a computer represent themselves to one another (4).

Probably, interaction based on common ground!

This concept is from human-to-human coversation, so called, speech communication. I came up with "feedback,"one of concepts in communication theories when I read common ground. In communication, feedback has been a vital idea breaking limitation of linear communication. In this point of view, I thought there must be also "feedback" in interaction between human and computer because it is reciprocal. Then, what would be "feedback" there? Probably, the feedback is like echo in HCI. Think about how we use our computer. Interactions with computer are physically mediated by the monitor screen, but, as mentioned above, an individual oneself perform all things as a subject; to turn on and off a computer, run software, and organzie files. This looks like not mutual but one-way actions. If we interact with computer and receive somthing like a message from it, then the message-like comes from our actions, not computer itself. When it comes to "represntation," who feels the things represented? It is, after all, by the users who represent them. Laurel states that "you either feel yourself to be participating in the ongoing action of the prepresentation or you don't (20-21)," suggesting additional rudimentary measure of interactivity. Users themselves are engaged in their behaviors on computer That is why I mentioned that feedback is like echo here. Interface itself does not explain anything. When a user is mediated via the interface, it does have any meaning.

The analogy adapting theatrical view to human-computer activity looks so sharp. However, we should not forget that we deal with digital content, not analogue. Undoubtedly, there is a huge distinction. I understand what the author tried to say trhough theatrical perspective as an interface metaphor but we have to consider differences between digital and analogue.

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