Video Vortex Reader II "screen"

Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

WEB VIDEO AND THE SCREEN AS A MEDIATOR AND GENERATOR OF REALITY ROBRECHT VANDERBEEKEN

In this article Robrecht believe that “a screen is not a neutral display of fact and fiction in addition to what a person can experience on their own behalf. Rather, it has a massive effect on the consitutive relation between a viewer and the world she or he lives in.” At the beginning of the eassy Robrecht chaimed that Audiovisual screen as a virtual invader in our daily lives. The screens mediates our perception of reality, and it generates another reality in a new, mediated environment. At the frist part of the eassy “The Screen as Mediator”. Robrecht raise three terms refering the reslut of mediated reality. eclipsing, interpassivity and truth-procedures

1. A first illustration of how the screen acts as a mediator can be termed eclipsing: phenomenon of eclipsing, which is an effect of the multitude of media that shape and filter the original event so that we can no longer experience it in an unmediated fashion.

pre-experience with audiovisual media put we into a position which confronted with double vision: the information we detect immediately with our senses versus the conceptualization we recall from audiovisual media. We already pre-seem almost every thing through Audiovisual screen. So the preception of the object in real world become mediated.and our sense faceing the term eclipsing. 2. second result of mediation termed “interpassivity” Robrecht believe the viewer, having delegated their agency to the media remains completely passive. Citizen become passive spectator locked into the screen. The screen Shows the viewer what to fantasize about and how to think. 3. truth procedure Citizen addresses heir trust of the screen as an authority. Which allows the new media creating their own Photoshop reality. Something big happed we often wonder it that true why is not on the screen of newe media yet? Robrecht believe web video which also a audiovisual screen related meida function as a Catalyst of the Virtual also brings impact on the three phenomena disussed above. Web video and eclipsing Because web video easily accessible, abundant and largely free to charge. It produced and spread of enormous number of images, enhances the representation of the multiple aspects of our daily lives in a recorded version, increases the reach of the shadow the virtual casts over the real. Web video also provided the opportunity to “broadcast yourself” which generates a multitude of personal recordings on similar topics. Each topic, places and events all with a diverse database of information that clashes with stereotypical media icon. The real physical tourist attraction becomes a place for sightseeing and nothing else: a three-dimensional picture, totally absorbed into our public culture of spectatorship. Web video and interpassivity Web video increasing the level of interpassivity because they lead the virtual event to become the main goal, while the real life situation is reduced to an alibi. The virtual event gains independence from life: it turns into an artificial, yet psychologically necessary, structure that creates its own reward. while Web 2.0 invites us to ‘immigrate’ to virtual worlds, first via funky avatars and later with our Facebook ego-profile, real-life interaction is delegated to a virtual substitute. editing, uploading, sharing, poking, connecting, replying and updating, our digital presence entails a vast amount of interpassivity: first-order experience is postponed, or even replaced by virtual activity. web video not only stimulate the processes of interpassivity, but generate a whole new realm. The opportunity to “broadcast yourself” also creates and enhance the urge to be seen; the thrill of being part of ‘the media’; the wish to be in touch with a virtual community; the need to complain to or argue with the anonymous. webcam serves both as social substitution and as therapy. Web video and truth-procedure For the most part, our browsing attitude seems to prevent us from putting clues together: we gather bits and pieces of information, but forget to come to a conclusion. In a way, the surfer’s experience often mimics CCTV. We are constantly observing everything, everywhere, but the incentive to reflect properly and respond accurately to what we are seeing remains absent. The critical viewer developed a healthy suspicion of television networks – because we were dependent on their authority, mistrust became an important strategy. In the case of the web. we indulge in the spurring movement of the web: we keep on clicking, investigating, searching for new information, until we forget what it was that we discovered. We tend to ignore the uncomfortable truth. Or we resign ourselves to it, as one of the many dissonances of life. In sum, as a democratized medium, web video takes part in a process of the virtualization of truth. Ultimately, this leads to a situation of schizophrenia: a lot of hard facts circulate freely, but on an individual basis it is hard to accept them as such. The mediation of truth seems to have shifted from manipulation, to fragmentation, and finally to castration.

The Screen as Generator From Document to Simulacra The radical shift from seeing the image as a document to seeing the image as simulacrum. In the early days of cinema, a film image was often conceived as a document of reality, it contained a “true piece of reality”.

However, In the last decades, the omnipresence of the television image in particular has given rise to a common belief that film footage is not, and cannot really represent reality, since it is too self-referential. Rather than reality, the image refers only to other images and interpretations. Gilles Deleuze has foregrounded the positive dimension of the simulacra, as a vehicle of ‘becoming’ that is able to create new extensions of reality. Nicolas Bourriaud’s essay ‘Postproduction’ discusses a tendency arising within the fine arts in the 1990s. According to Bourriaud, in this decade artists became ‘prosumers’: they consume in order to produce. From Hyperreality to Emulation Respond to the theroy that the screen as generator which generates another reality also influence off-screen reality. Robrecht quotes Jean Baudrillard’s restricted and negative articulation of the concept in ‘Simulacra and Simulations’. “the world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, a generic Disneyland, where we seek simulated stimuli.” according to Baudrillard, the term hyperreality denotes the difficulty of distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Robrecht use Baudrillard’s example of Disneyland to point out They are attempts to create a reality that is more familiar, more ‘real’ than real, in the sense that it more closely resembles the reality we know from the screen. So, whereas Baudrillard argues that simulations such as Disneyland demonstrate that reality is becoming a fiction, the exact opposite is taking place: fiction is becoming real. Stated differ- ently, the virtual produces a surplus of reality. the simulations of virtual objects and become emulations, which compete with reality instead of copying it. Emulations can therefore be understood as offering resist- ance to imitation, instead pursuing the creation of something radically new. In this respect, they embody an alternative reality situated between the virtual and the real. Whereas simulations, as an authentic expression in a fake setting, result in a truth without reality, an emulation produces a new reality, a reality without truth. That is, it is not truly there. Or rather, it is there only as a diversion of the virtual in physical space.

From Virtual Reality to AR/MR Thanks for the new media developments. the screen may also be transformed into new modes.the audiovisual image can be resurrected in our surroundings by means of spatial holograms or interactive projections, hence creating a post-virtual reality. Robrecht claim that there are three ways of invasion of images escaped from the monitor screen manifests. 1. web 3.0 the web 3.0 cover the functions of web 2.0 and develops new digital utilities like iPhones, domotics, search engines, smart cctv, wear-cams, and lifecasting. Due to these applications, the web will seem to colonize ever expanding territory of our daily world by means of wander- ing screens. At the same time, the traditional screen has become scattered and duplicated, as have its images.

2. AR so-called augmented reality. As a combination of the physical world and computer generated data, AR is a layered reality in which the screen disappears into the environment and vice versa. with AR both public and private space becomes a 3D blue screen for a plethora of virtual features. AR brings the web and computer virtual setting into real world.

3. MR So-called mixed reality, could be described as a new, synthetic environment with mixed objects and subjects, partly physical and digital. MR can be omnipresent, which makes it difficult to distinguish from un-plugged reality. The virtual and the real become as one, generating 3D visibility in which digital features interact with audiovisual recordings.

AR/MR agents eventually become one with robot vision and take part in the crea- tion of a mediated and mixed world. “In conclusion, not only is the screen poised to disappear into the environment, we will also tend to become absorbed into the new pictorial environment generated by the expanded screen. A notion such as the passion for the virtual clearly connotes something different in this newer context. The laid-back enjoyment of escapism in a clean virtuality, containing no kernel of the real, now seems to be counterbalanced by the excitement and anxiety of the inescapable fusion of the real and virtual. This enigmatic amalgamate is invading our environ- ment, and we are about to be locked into it.”

Web Video as a Response, and an In-between Finally, web video is also a significant in-between in the overall evolution towards a mixed reality. The ability to ‘Broadcast Yourself’ is not only blurring the distinction between private and public, it connects people together in a public and virtual realm. And it does so in an incessantly increasing manner, constantly breaking down the limitations of time and space. If it turns out that the technical devices at our disposal really are so ‘compact’, ‘portable’ and ‘easy-to-use’? In short, sooner or later, every user will become socially and psychologically confined within a complex mixed reality.