The Digital Image and the Pleasure Principle: The Consumption of Realism in the Age of Simulation, By Van Koten
FINALLY!!!, A chapter in this book that both held my interest all the way through AND I could understand what the author was actually talking about. Basically this article hypothesis about the ramifications of modern media, from a sociological and philosophical perspective, in regards to it's increased dominance in both the workforce and the mass entertainment industry.
Koten discusses the difference between "hot" and "Cool" media, from the famous theorist Mcluhan's perspective. Hot media being low in viewer participation, such as: Photographs, Prose, Cinema, and the printed word. Cool media being high in viewer participation, such as: Television, Poetry, Hieroglyphs, and classical music. I agree with the author that this form of classification is no longer appropriate in the modern age. In the modern day of mass media, everything has become so overlapped and interactive that it is really hard to draw the line between the two.
The theorist McLuhan postulates that the content of each new medium is another previous medium. The examples given are TV from Cinema, Cinema from the printed word, Print from writing, writing from speech, speech from thought, and thought from experience. An interesting question is; "Does each new form of media bring us closer to, or further away from the origin of experience?"
The author then goes on to discuss psychological and sociological ramifications of video and interactive games. The increasingly popular question these days is whether or not video games cause violence and whether or not interactive gaming is causing people to become socially retarded. This question is far less interesting, to me, than it seems to be to most modern political and cultural theorists. There is no definitive answer to these questions. I believe it goes back to Andy Warhol's question, "Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?" Personally, I believe it is a symbiotic relationship.
No comments:
Post a Comment