Measuring the Beauty of Design, Measuring Immediacy

With no pun intended, I admit that when I began reading Bolter and Grusin for this week I immediately felt "resonances" of the work of Bruno Latour and Jean-Francois Lyotard. Their separate theories, respectively, have argued for some time now that we have never been in an all-consuming "modern" period but only that we are at times historically situated into moments where we (as a culture or a particular group or as individuals) might view a particular technological medium (as well as its accompanying narratives) as transparently and naturally providing immediacy and presentation rather than representation, to use B & G's terminology. So, of course, when B & G referenced Latour's work by the end of Chapter Two it seemed only too appropriate. 

For this post, I admit that I am not feeling a specific argument resonating from my being, so to speak, so I will just discuss some of the interesting points of this week's readings. I will present a quote or idea from the reading and riff off of it.

From B & G: 

The double logic of remediation (or "the representation of one medium in another" (45)): "Our culture wants both to multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation: ideally, it wants to erase its media in the very act of multiplying them" (5). 

This quote is partly B & G's thesis and partly their premise. It is perhaps the most fascinating claim they make because they actually argue against it to some degree. This does not take away from their work, but makes it smarter. I will explain: The double logic of remediation is, of course, comprised of two things, one, the logic of immediacy, "that the medium itself should disappear and leave us in the presence of the thing represented" (5-6); and two, the logic of hypermediacy, the awareness of the "new medium as a medium" (19). I would argue that this double logic is actually just a rhetoric that resonates from notions of modernity (Remember, modernity never occurred, at least not as a distinct time period or era. Perhaps it is more of a genre.) In other words, I'm not sure the desire to erase all traces of the mediation is really there. We just think it must always be addressed because of cultural traditions and societal assumptions. The actual logic is, in fact, the logic of hypermediacy. It sublates immediacy, though it is also comprised of it. It is not alone or self-sustaining, as it depends on the logic of immediacy for its existence ("the new is still justified in terms of the old" (46)), but it is actually privileged over the logic of immediacy. B & G provide plenty of evidence for this. Think of their examples of CNN or music production:

"Whenever one medium seems to have convinced viewers of its immediacy, other media try to appropriate that conviction . . . televised newscasts are coming to resemble web pages in their hypermediacy" (9). Have you watched CNN lately? If you haven't, try watching AC360 or something just once and count how many times they reference Twitter. Also, notice how they use touch screens, physically clicking on things as if they are the viewer's mouse.

"What designers often say they want is an 'interfaceless' interface, in which there will be no recognizable electronic tools--no buttons, windows, scroll bars, or even icons as such" (23 my emphasis). Again, that the logic of immediacy is just a verbal rhetoric. We keep saying that we want interfaceless interfaces, but isn't the very act of saying this an act of hypermediacy? And even in the conversations of this 'interfaceless' interface it seems that we find great joy in talking about these mediums. Which leads to the next quote.

A quote from Erkki Huhtamo in B & G: "Technology is gradually becoming second nature, a territory both external and internalized, and an object of desire. There is no need to make it transparent any longer, simply because it is not felt to be a contradiction to the 'authenticity' of the experience" (qtd. in B & G 42). So ironically, the naturalization of the technological medium isn't its immediacy or authentic origin, but the desire to experience its externality and be able to talk about it. It is in this particular section that B & G seem to take off from where Mark Poster took us in The Mode of Information. At that particular time Poster was still concerned (or at least interested in) notions of authenticity (representations of immediacy) being questioned in the production of music and other modes of information. He used the persona of the audiophile as an example of someone who yearns to "recreate" or "re-present" a particular authentic origin. B & G also talk about music, but are aware that instead of a crisis of authenticity taking place with the implementation of the digital into music, instead "the evolution of recording techniques [have] changed the nature of live performance. (see one of my past posts for my comments on this)

Now to make a jump. B & G's other thesis: "new media are doing exactly what their predecessors have done: presenting themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media . . . no medium today, and certainly no single media even, seems to do its cultural work in isolation from other media, any more than it works in isolation from other social and economic forces" (14-15).  

There is a lot to unpack in this passage, and I won't do it here. But I want to draw attention to the concept of a "cultural work" and perhaps depart with a question for further discussion. Might we consider the construction of beauty a cultural work? I ask this because Bill Buxton, in his Sketching User Experiences, where he effectively incorporates many of Denning's storytelling techniques, btw, demonstrates B & G's above thesis with narratives about the production of Apple's IMac and IPod. In doing so he pays particular attention to one aspect of the products' improvements and refashionings, so to speak: aesthetic design. Though he is interested in all aspects of design and the success of the products (user experience, luck and timing involved, etc.) Buxton really makes a strong argument that the beauty of the products was a dominant factor to their success. 

Without getting stuck on philosophical questions of beauty, which are fascinating, my questions for Buxton and for the class are the following: Must we measure great design only through the accumulation of capital? Might something be a great design (art for art's sake, anyone?) and not appeal to the masses? Or is that beyond the realm of 'design'? In other words, is the reason we believe Apple's products to be beautiful based upon their sales, or is it the other way around? Perhaps both? Thoughts?