Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation Response

I thought the discussion in this reading on artists attempts at "erasing" themselves or their methods from their work was very compelling. It seemed to me that the author was somewhat critical of this practice, I tend to feel the same way, for the most part, completely removing all evidence of a human element from a painting or photograph for example does not necessarily make it a better work of art. However I do think with regard to software developers that it is usually better for them to remove or erase themselves from their work in order to create a more user friendly experience. Conversely, artists who practice hypermediacy relish in making the medium obvious to the viewer. When I read this the first thing I thought was, "which method is better?", or, more appropriately, which is better for me, because I think the answer depends on what you are trying to convey to your audience. In my opinion, hypermediacy of some form is always more appealing than complete transparency, when I look at a Van Gogh painting, I immediately know that I am looking at a painting. The brush strokes are clearly visible and through this I can feel the presence of the artist, whereas some artists might try to hide this and make the painting as seamless to real life as possible, which causes me to lose that connection. In the end I don't think either method is 'better' than the other, but rather a choice an artist has to make on how to utilize their medium.

Comments

  1. GenicisSeptember 7, 2018 at 9:27 PM

    I liked your response and I as well liked the idea of hypermediacy than transparency because it acknowledges multiple acts of representation and makes them visible. Hypermediacy makes us aware of the medium or media reminding us of our desire for immediacy. I agree with you and grasped the idea that artists try to erase themselves to fit the real life as much as possible.

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