remediation and games

Bolter and Grusin:-

"We call the representation of one medium in another remediation, and we will argue that remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media.  What might seem at first to be an esoteric practice is so widespread that we can identify a spectrum of different ways in which digital media remediate their predecessors."

Below is the spectrum of ways new media 'remediates' the older media.

IMMEDIACY                                                                          HYPERMEDIACY

Media that aspire to a condition of transparency.            Artefacts that are aware of and wish to

The aim is to make the viewer ‘forget’ that they               display their own constructed nature.

are watching a movie, for example, and be drawn          They call attention to their own constructed

in to the experience.                                                            nature all the time.

•Immersive virtual reality                                                     *WWW

•Photo realistic images                                                      *Video Game HUDS

•So remediation can refer to a whole range of conventions.For example we find examples of Aesthetic conventions being constantly traded between different media.

•‘Photorealism’ an example of ‘immediacy’ as it is not to preserve the medium of ‘photography’

•Similarly ‘Hypermediacy’ is not the aesthetic preserve of the world wide web, its conventions have been picked up by, for example, television rolling news.

The rules governing the `perspective` of 3D shapes on a flat surface that dominate contemporary computer games, were first worked out during the Renaissance.

                                                     The  Masaccio Trinity  circ 1430

Example of images made to look 3d in computer games below.

Why does remediation take place?

•It may take time for a new medium to develop unique forms of content.

•Similarly it is not so surprising that successful conventions end up being traded between different media. The ‘goal’ of computer games was to render into visual 3D the text based narratives of early computer games.

•Television programme makers took the successful format of ‘Variety’ programmes from radio, who had themselves taken the convention from the music halls.

Remdiation in films and games

Video Gaming and Film:

Bittanti (2003) looks at the history of video gaming in film and claims that there is a convergence taking place.

Bittanti claims that there are now a body of films that remediate, comment on, quote and adapt video games.

So much so these films are a genre of film in their own right. He calls them Technoludic Films. A combination of Technology and Ludus (Latin for play).

Technoludic Film as Commentary

Here, Bittanti says, the video game is subordinated to the film.  Film is used to

critique the other medium (the video game).  Film projects societies deepest

anxieties about the medium of the video game, especially in relation to the escape of the self and the body from `reality`.

Among the films that exemplify this are The Lawnmower Man (1991) eXistenZ (1999) The Matrix Trilogy (1999ff)

Technoludic film as quotation

Here video games appear in films for illustrative purposes. They are not the central theme of the film but form part of the fictional world that the film is attempting to create.

Films that exemplify this approach are Blade Runner (1982)  Clockers (1997) a modern example of this sort of film would be Inception (2010)

Technoludic film as remediation (1) adaptation

Brittanti uses remediation in its most straight forward form to refer to the direct adaptation of computer games as a source text for a film, not simply a theme. These are often translations or tie-ins of successful games however the films – as films – have often been critiqued for the low quality of the scripting and acting.

Films that exemplify this approach are Super Mario Brothers (1993) and Lara Croft : Tomb Raider (2001) Dead or Alive (2006)

Technoludic film as remediation (2)

We have seen that there is a broader conception of remediation which is about the incorporation of aesthetic and narrative codes from one form of media into another.

There are a number of films embody into their narratives and / or style some of the conventions that we usually find within video games.  Films that appear to exemplify this are Groundhog Day (1993)  Toy Story (1995) Run Lola Run (1998) 

Hello all again this has been a good reading and I didn't want to foul it with my rubbish so I have copied a majority of this from the source and added my own slight changes to it i.e. spelling and punctuation but that is it as i don't see a need to change something that conveys what they are trying to portray effectively already.

Many Thanks

-Dan