Convergence, Remediation and Metamorphosis

“All forms of communication are tightly woven into the fabric of the human communication system and cannot exist independently from one another in our culture. As each new form emerges and develops, it influences, over time and to varying degrees, the development of every other existing form. Co-evolution and co-existence, rather than sequential evolution and replacement, have been the norm.”  (Roger Fidler, 1997. Mediamorphosis.)   See John McCann’s Blog.

In this overlapping – rather than linear – evolution of communications systems, some technologies afford (encourage) development of quite specific ‘participation’ models – some of which have been breaking copyright law for years (before the law finally catches up).  This situation has been partly created by technologies that now tend to blend together and create new possibilities.  What are the results and implications of this complex merge of technology? The emergence of the telephone, for example, provoked changes in human behaviour and in the ways distance began to take on a different meaning.

In the late 20th century computers began to merge with telephony, and more recently they have begun to function as televisions and even eye-glasses. This melding and metamorphosis has had an impact on the shape and design of the telephone, the computer and the TV.  And if the hardware has an impact on how we think, the reverse is also true. For example, the idea of the computer came along in the nineteenth century, long before it was able to be built. Other things had to be invented and developed before a computer could be built.

Inventor Martin Cooper holds one of the first mobile phones in this undated handout photo.

Increased knowledge of this history of computing – and the cult success of a novel  (The Difference Engine, 1990) by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling – has given rise to a recent fashion or design cult called Steampunk.  This mismatch between technological design begs several questions: – Have these different shapes for technologies come about because of technical advances or because of fashion, usage and/or thinking (i.e. about space, time, lifestyle, media, advertising, identity)? What else might these changes reflect? How do technologies through history relate to each other? Must one technology develop before another can take over or build on what has gone before?

In their book Remediation, academics Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin ask, What is new about the so-called ‘new media’? Enthusiasts, they point out, often assume that digital media must break radically with the aesthetic and cultural traditions of their predecessors. However, new media and new genres are best understood by examining the ways in which they refashion or ‘remediate’ older forms. Computer graphics, virtual reality, and the World Wide Web define themselves by borrowing from and remediating television, film, photography and painting, as well as print. Virtual reality remediates film as well as perspective painting; digital photography remediates the analogue photograph; the World Wide Web refashions almost every previous visual and textual medium. Furthermore, older media can remediate newer ones. For example, television is making such extensive use of computer graphics that TV screens often look like pages of the web.