How is the self remediated in modern media - and what does this mean for identity

1. The self in a world of media
Bolter and Grusin: Remediation

2. Bolter & Grusin
• We are remediated
• We employ media as vehicles for defining
both personal and cultural identity.

3. Slogan of P3 (Danish National Radio)
• That which you listen to, is you
• ”Det man hører, er man selv”
• A paraphrase of a childrens
mocking:
– That which you say other
people are, you are
– ”Det man siger, er man selv”
• Point is: You become your
media while you are using it –
but you are also different from
it

4. Two logics of remediation
• Immediacy – classical holywood

5. The media is transparent

6. Two logics of remediation
• Hypermediacy – Breaking the waves camera

7. The media is very visible

8. Avatar
illustrates both
logics

9. To logics of remediation in
experiencing media
• The immersed self (lost in
the media – WOW, virtual
reality)
• The networked self is
constantly making and
breaking connections –
always aware of being
present in several media
at the same time

10. Art is about feeling present
• Quotes Cavell:
• Art has always shown
our presence
• – our presence to the
world, rather than the
world’s presence to us
• A photograph
guarantees our
being-alive

11. Alberti’s window
• We see and
understand the
world through
converting it to
something that is
presented for us
• Through frames

12. And again
The picture frame separates the viewer from the
world, but at the same time alows the viewing

13. 1. Passing through the frame into the
respresented world
(Virtual reality)
2
1
2. Objects coming through the frame and
surrounding the user (ubiquitos computing,
and hypermedia)
– The subject stays where she is, and instead the
objects of representation come to her

14. The hypermediated self
• The self oscillates between media – moves
from window to window, from application to
application, - and her identity is constituted
by those oscillations
• The Guild – episode 1
• Not unlike being on messenger, and facebook
and playing online games, while listening to
me 

15. Connectedness
• The hypermediated self is hypermediated
because they are hypertextual: they connect
users in a web of interrelated connections

16. The networked self
• A sense of presence of oneself to others – and of
the self to itself comes not through immediate
visual perception, … but through the feeling of
being connected to others through the Internet.
• The self that does the connecting is … an active
one; the self that is connected is defined and in a
sense embodied through its participation in
various media
• P. 258

17. Visualising social networks

18. Exercise
• Create a representation of the person sitting
next to you in class
• Google him/her
• Depict his hypermediated self in a collage,
where you use images to tell where you find
him/her
• This depiction can be used for his/her
portfolio, eventually