Transparent Immediacy "Discussion of this term should really consider each word separately. Transparency refers to the goal of interface designers and developers to make the “interfaceless interface†– to make it so intuitive, it erases itself for the user. In this sense, a transparent interface would be one that erases itself, so that the user is no longer aware of confronting a medium, but instead stands in an immediate relationship to the contents of that medium†(24)." Immediacy refers to users' desire for immediacy in access, understanding, and interaction. This is to say, users want an immediate connection with the medium. “The automatic or deferred quality of computer programming promotes in the viewer a sense of immediate contact with the image†(28). By extension, when one is using video to communicate with another, he or she has an equal or greater sense of this immediate contact, yet with the individual on the screen. So, is reality experienced through a medium of ultimate transparent immediacy? Or, Hypermediacy This term is sort of the opposite of transparent immediacy in that hypermediacy's goal is not transparency, but rather to be very apparent so that the user may interact with the interface. “Its raw ingredients are images, sound, text, animation and video, which can be brought together in any combination†(31). In hypermedia settings, the user is continually brought back to and made aware of the interface. If the logic of immediacy leads one either to erase or to render automatic the act of representation, the logic of hypermediacy acknowledges multiple acts of representation and makes them visible. (34). Is reality the interface of the ultimate hypermedia? And to top it off: Remediation “[W]e call the representation of one medium in another remediation, and we will argue that remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media†(45). This term refers to the idea that all new media (and virtually anything can be considered new media at its inception) relies on one or more preceding medium, which it refashions or repurposes. As McLuhan put it in Understanding Media, “the ‘content' of any medium is always another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph†(23-24). Now, we can still see that many new media examples draw on preceding media. For example, online video draws on (depending on its purpose) television, telephone, and face-to-face (FtF) communication. What is the medium reality rests upon?
Which medium i currently perceive is dependent upon the current space between spike and wave... Which medium..... when i watch the sun set over the next mountain.... The physical receives the images... the nerves in the eye translate what they find ... First medium... what my lenses pick up... Second... how my nerves interpret that... Next... those optic nerves... send that shot back into the brain... which again... depending on when you ask may be working on who knows what frequency.... Fuck then we got sound... birds and chipmunks... the leaves moving in the breeze... Medium.... vibration.... My ear picks up vibration... Translates it... send that to the same brain which may or may not be cooperating... passing thru its several mediums to reach this same place.... Take these two inputs.... add the thousands of things making up the physical feelings of the moment.... Get all that to the brain... And in the final medium.... where we find what passes for our reality... all these signals have to be mixed... to create what we perceive... Kinda complicated mess.... no wonder is so easy to get lost along the way.....
Reality is a fluid thing, that can seem solid and rigid and ordered but is far from it. No too people's reality is the same, even though for most of the time they simply assume it is because superficially it gives that impression. I love thinking about reality. Just the word is interesting. But in many ways there is no such thing as reality. If there was, then who experiences it correctly? How would you know? It seems to me that the moment we start to believe we're seeing it, we may only be seeing our version of it clearer than ever. There may be some template level reality that is the same for each of us, out of which our experience comes. All that really matters is whether the reality you currently find yourself in feels like one you want to stay in. If it does, then it's all the reality you need.
I was given the thought of reality as having qualities of transparent immediacy some time ago. Just an off-the-wall thought. I thought it was an interesting thought. I actually just realized I needed to revise my questions. Oops. Anyways, we experience reality through some kind of medium, consciousness perhaps, where we are not able to recognize the interface through which we experience it. It seems to make sense logically. Instead of watching the movie on a screen, we're actually in the movie. I forgot about the thought and experienced life for a while. Then it recently back to my mind. The idea makes sense under one assumption, the physical world we see is what's real. Now I think in some sense it is, and some sense it isn't. So let's say that it isn't real for a minute. Then I think it becomes the interface of a hypermedia. I think there's some subtle validity to the thought, idk maybe not. The physical reality we see becomes the interface for which we experience (experience being reality). We are constantly reminded of the interface. Not so much so the experience itself. What we see distracts us from the real nature of experience. But we also have those moments where what seemed so real changes in to something entirely different. And that would be a quality of a good hypermedia production.
