What do you think?
Rate this book
Reality Media: Augmented and Virtual Reality
How augmented reality and virtual reality are taking their places in contemporary media culture alongside film and television.
T
This book positions augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) firmly in contemporary media culture. The authors view AR and VR not as the latest hyped technologies but as media—the latest in a series of what they term “reality media,” taking their places alongside film and television. Reality media inserts a layer of media between us and our perception of the world; AR and VR do not replace reality but refashion a reality for us. Each reality medium mediates and remediates; each offers a new representation that we implicitly compare to our experience of the world in itself but also through other media.
The authors show that as forms of reality media emerge, they not only chart a future path for media culture, but also redefine media past. With AR and VR in mind, then, we can recognize their precursors in eighteenth-century panoramas and the Broadway lights of the 1930s. A digital version of Reality Media , available through the book’s website, invites readers to visit a series of virtual rooms featuring interactivity, 3-D models, videos, images, and texts that explore the themes of the book.
T
This book positions augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) firmly in contemporary media culture. The authors view AR and VR not as the latest hyped technologies but as media—the latest in a series of what they term “reality media,” taking their places alongside film and television. Reality media inserts a layer of media between us and our perception of the world; AR and VR do not replace reality but refashion a reality for us. Each reality medium mediates and remediates; each offers a new representation that we implicitly compare to our experience of the world in itself but also through other media.
The authors show that as forms of reality media emerge, they not only chart a future path for media culture, but also redefine media past. With AR and VR in mind, then, we can recognize their precursors in eighteenth-century panoramas and the Broadway lights of the 1930s. A digital version of Reality Media , available through the book’s website, invites readers to visit a series of virtual rooms featuring interactivity, 3-D models, videos, images, and texts that explore the themes of the book.
- GenresTechnology
248 pages, Hardcover
Published November 16, 2021
3 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
Jay David Bolter
14 books7 followersJay David Bolter is Wesley Chair of New Media and Codirector of the Augmented Media Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of Remediation: Understanding New Media (with Richard Grusin), Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art and the Myth of Transparency (with Diane Gromala), both published by the MIT Press, and other books.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 6, 2024
According to the authors, all media represent some aspects of reality, but some represent reality only symbolically; e.g., a novel is *not* a reality medium. Reality media on the other hand appeal to our senses - cinema is a form of reality media, and a painting is the earliest form of reality media, because a painting compels us to momentarily ignore what is beyond the frame. The central thesis is that AR and VR are properly understood as the latest in a long line of reality media. (Sidenote: I don't know where that leaves sound? When I listen to a Janet Cardiff audio-walk, I am listening to what she is saying, but also the sensuous quality of her voice...).
One is reminded of Manovich's new media as illusion, but the supposed theoretical innovation here is that newer reality media are understood as remediation of existing ones, so that an unbroken lineage from Brunelleschian perspective to VR may be established. But that's sort of obvious isn't it. Of course you'd trace VR and AR back to the Renaissance. The fun question is, why not further back? Also, the authors are sort of making the claim that nobody really looks at VR and AR and think "illusions!", but more as "astonishment" of the senses. The early chapters that traced this history of remediation were pretty useful, the later chapters that surveyed current developments and made predictions, less so. I did like the comparison of VR to cinema and AR to TV, which highlighted the adjustable level of distraction that may be built into the experience, which, is sort of useful to think about isn't it.
This is useful for college-level teaching, though, the technology is moving so quickly that some of the examples cited already register as dated.
One is reminded of Manovich's new media as illusion, but the supposed theoretical innovation here is that newer reality media are understood as remediation of existing ones, so that an unbroken lineage from Brunelleschian perspective to VR may be established. But that's sort of obvious isn't it. Of course you'd trace VR and AR back to the Renaissance. The fun question is, why not further back? Also, the authors are sort of making the claim that nobody really looks at VR and AR and think "illusions!", but more as "astonishment" of the senses. The early chapters that traced this history of remediation were pretty useful, the later chapters that surveyed current developments and made predictions, less so. I did like the comparison of VR to cinema and AR to TV, which highlighted the adjustable level of distraction that may be built into the experience, which, is sort of useful to think about isn't it.
This is useful for college-level teaching, though, the technology is moving so quickly that some of the examples cited already register as dated.
September 29, 2022
A highly interesting and original take on the past, present and possible future of XR technologies - as seen both from the practical and the 'history of visual arts' perspectives.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews