Week 2: Reading Part 2

p.12 Is there a clean break between analogue and digital media (cf. Bolter and Grusin’s concept of ‘remediation’)? Can you identify any commonalities? For example, is email based on the language of ‘letters’ and ‘the postal service’ because we have tried to fashion its communication functions in terms we are already familiar with?

The similarities between email and letters are quite easily visible. Users type an email just as they would write a letter, they can stamp it as high priority similar to a letter and they can keep an electronic address book of their contacts just as they would a written down paper copy.

The same can be said of television. Normal analog television requires the viewer to buy a paper TV guide in order to know what is on and when, whereas freeview and digital television like Sky or Virgin simply require the push of a button for a service that does exactly the same thing as a TV Guide would.

p. 17 Digitality and code. Imagine you couldn’t compose your assignments on computer. How would a hand-written editing and composition process be different?

Again, a handwritten essay is very similar to a typed one in that they share the same characteristics of a written piece of work. Where they differ is in the delivery. A handwritten essay bears a much more personalised appearance than a computer typed counterpart, due to the use of fonts over handwriting. A font has been purposefully created to look a certain way, whereas a person's handwriting is individual to them. Psychologists argue that handwriting gives us an important look into a person's mind, and can help us identify their characteristics without ever meeting them. This is a fascinating argument, and where editing a piece of work on a computer is much less efficient and time consuming, a handwritten essay falls as it looks messy if parts are crossed out. A typed essay looks more professional because of its lack of human characteristics, making the creator more of a number than a personality.

p. 21 What do you make of Lunenfield’s concept of ‘immersive interactivity’? What could we apply it to?

Lunenfield's idea of immersive interactivity is an interesting way to look at a created world. We could use this to look at games because a gaming world is created specifically to appeal to its user. The mention of games such as doom and Tomb Raider are a fine example as each of these games exists in what could questionably be a parallel dimension to our own, to be scientifically fictitious! Doom is a first person shooter where your character is called upon to fight off a series of creatures brought straight from hell, set on Mars in a highly technological facility. This is reflected throughout the appearance of the game as almost sterile, until the enemies appear. Similarly in Tomb Raider, the player has control of Lara Croft, a character created entirely for the purpose of the game developer. Her world consists of ancient tombs and caves rife with areas for exploration and long lost artifacts to gather. The fact that these environments are believable within their contexts and our own real world immerses us wholly within the experience and gives us a sense of escapism.