Immediacy and Hypermediacy

"New digital media oscillate between immediacy and hypermediacy, between transparency and opacity."(Bolter, 2000. p20)

Bolter and Gursin coined the terms immediacy and hypermediacy, which are present in different digital technologies. Immediacy describes a medium has transparent and focuses on the quality of the content. Designers try to make digital technologies more transparent as they want users to interact more naturally without electronic tools and forget that they are using a medium. "What designers often say they want is an "interfaceless" interface, in which there will be no recognisable electronic tools- no buttons, windows, scroll bars, or even icons as such." (Bolter, 2002. pg23). 

Bolter and Gursin use virtual reality as an example of immediacy. Virtual reality is an artificial world created by computers. It consisting of graphics and three dimensional images and users can explore the world through personal interaction. Its aim is to give users a sense of presence and experiences similar to their own daily visual experiences in real life. Three dimensional images create a greater immediacy for the computer experience and digital graphics are increasing popular as they are more realistic, lively and exciting compared to texts and instructions on a computer. Designers of computer graphics do not want ruptures in their virtual worlds and they want to achieve 'photorealism'. They want to produce graphics which have a realistic appearance to photographs. "To achieve photorealism, the synthetic digital image adopts the criteria of the photograph." (Bolter. 2000. pg28).  

The opposite of immediacy is hypermediacy. Users of hypermedia 'window style' technologies are made aware of the interface. Multiple representations and layers are included in the windows, such as graphics, image, text, menus and scroll bars. Users are active when pressing these buttons and this makes them constantly aware that they are using a medium. Hypermediacy focuses on the users attention and interactivity whereas immediacy focuses on the content being produced.

Overall, immediacy refers to looking through media and hypermediacy focuses on looking at media. Interactivity with digital technologies creates realism for the users. Being absorbed into different virtual realities helps them to escape from their own reality. As Erkki Huhtamo (1995) says, technologies is becoming more like second nature to us.



Bibliography:

Bolter, J.D, (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media. New Ed. MIT Press. (p20-50)