Remediating the Medium

Sven Birkerts is deeply fearful of remediated texts – hyperlinks, electronic essays, the digital world as a whole that does not live within the pen and on the paper. Indeed, the more tangible medium of print is giving way to new media, and this reality is represented in the prevalent culture of Facebook, blogs, email, and text messaging. According to Birkerts, “hand-written letters gave way to typed letters, which became word-processed letters a great many of the, structured in advance software…e-mail chatter is making rapid inroads on the tradition of paper envelop and stamp” (Birkerts 227). Electronic media are undisputedly making a push to overcome traditional media. However, these forms still exist, but their messages are now made all the more powerful by their medium. A hand-written love letter means much more to the recipient than an affectionate e-mail. The freedom to choose the medium in which a writer works makes the message all the more powerful. We are not forgetting the importance of print media but rather highlighting its importance by using it as a truly worthy and appropriate genre. Blogging is a medium, much like the old-fashioned journal, for ideas that are not always fully developed but rather quick and interactive. One would not necessarily make a book out of the ideas presented in a blog or a journal. One does not use the fine china for a backyard barbeque with family, and one does not use print media for discursive wandering. Rather than replacing traditional means of writing, people are simply given greater choice of how they wish to present such writing. Marshall McLuhan in his work, The Medium is the Massage, suggests that new media has a purpose; it is not to replace old methods but to extend them. The medium is a persuasive tool, it “work[s] us over completely” (McLuhan 25).
Remediated texts are not to be feared. With any artistic form, there are pieces that stand out and make use of the medium in ways that enhance rather than detract, and there are pieces that fall flat and are a poor representation of what can be done with the tools at hand. A clay sculpture made in an elementary art class will not look like one molded by professional hands, but one cannot judge the merit of this mode of expression by its basest form. Janet Murray, author of Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace and a teacher of electronic fiction, proposes that one not look at the potential for failure within the genre but at the potential for great success and originality. Murray states that “the spirit of the hacker is one of the great creative wellsprings of our time, causing the inanimate circuits to sing with ever more individual and quirky voices; the spirit of the bard is eternal and irreplaceable” (Murray 9). The modernist writer is still endowed with the poetic nature of old writers, but he has evolved with the changing times. Some electronic texts have more merit than other, just as with any text, but the potential for greatness is still housed within the artist and his medium.
The internet offers the writer new choices on how to craft his message, potentially making it more powerful than he could with mere pen and paper. For example The Museum, a hypertextual story that lives only as a web-based text, makes use of the internet and its advantages to mirror the experience of a museum. One can choose which room to enter, which pieces to look more closely at and which to walk past. This text is not without its flaws (it was perhaps a bit discursive, and the hyperlinks were at times too distracting to concentrate on story). However, the medium was more effective in giving the reading the experience of a museum than pen and paper would have done. The emphasis is on the reader to create meaning from his individual experience much like when one looks into a painting or a sculpture housed in a museum. “The medium is the message” (McLuhan 26). It works over the reader and is meant to enhance the reading experience. The level of success that a remediated text achieves depends on numerous factors, but the artist is at least now free to choose.

Techno-Speak

“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The short answer, quite possibly yes, at least in the sense of memorization and such, but the more important question for me would be, is it worth it? Are there benefits to having a wealth of human information at our fingertips that makes losing the ability to retain it all worthwhile? Before humans began writing information down, people had herculean memories. In comparison, the brains of today are rather puny in their ability to recall facts. Studies have shown that when people believe that a piece of information will be available to them later, they are more likely to forget this bit of human knowledge. Nicolas Carr’s aforementioned question raises issues of minimal memorization, lack of concentration, and technological dependence. It is the last line of Nicolas Carr’s article that is especially unnerving: “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (Carr).
By now, many of us must realize what we are losing through Google, through the internet, through 24/7 distraction, but we are still plugged in. We therefore continue because we believe the damage to be worth it, so what do we gain? In terms of essay-writing, we stand to gain much from the advancements in technology. Hyperlinks, in particular, help to facilitate the creative mind. Adam Kenney’s digital interactive cyberdrama, The Museum, is composed of text and hyperlinks, leading the reader in whichever direction he wishes to go, much like a real museum. Kenney’s choice of media works to simulate the actual experience of a museum, making this particular medium far more effective than pen and paper for this particular message. These elements of choice and interaction in The Museum work to push the limits of the traditional reading experience. Janet Murray, author of Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, notes that her electronic fiction students are becoming more and more comfortable with the electronic medium and she expresses excitement at the implications that this knowledge will have on the future of electronic writing. She writes that “every year [her] students arrive feeling more at home with electronic environments and are more prepared to elicit something with the tone of a human voice out of the silent circuitry of the machine” (Murray 9). For Murray, the increase in electronic advancements is thrilling in that it allows one to test the boundaries of creativity. Hypertexts, video, audio, images are all available to a writer working in the electronic medium.
If Google is making us stupid, at least the rest of the internet is making up for it. Although yes, our memories are not what they used to be, and yes we are more easily distracted, these are inevitable byproducts of the changing times. We keep using the internet because it is useful. The internet is a powerful tool for the writer and provides a medium for creative expression that would not be possible with mere pen and paper. Learning to tune out the distractions of the internet seems to me to be a more realist and useful objective than unplugging oneself completely. Stop using Google. Grab a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a novel. Turn off the computer and focus. It will not be easy. The internet has a lot to offer for the writer, but just like any tool, he must learn how to use it productively.