Immediacy

Immediacy is a technology of mediation whose purpose is to disappear. The intent is described thus “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. Instead the user will move through the space interacting with the objects “naturally,” i.e., as she does in the physical world” (pp5) The aim is avoidance of a conscious medium of conveyance “a transparent interface is one that erases itself, so that the user would no longer be aware of confronting a medium, but instead would stand in an immediate relationship to the contents of the medium”(pp5).  Intriguingly the act of the designer or artist towards immediacy in the world of painting and photography means erasing their presence and thus marking their skill.  Those who are th ebest draw attention to themselves as their skill is celebrated, thus their presence is notable if not overtly there.

Bolter and Grusin contemplate computer generated images (CGI) which can now be virtual matches to photographs and there is experimental evidence that, for certain sorts of scenes, observers cannot distinguish these images from photographs. “even if we cannot always tell synthesized images from photographs, we can distinguish the somewhat different strategies that painting and photography have adopted in striving for immediacy, and we can explore how digital graphics borrows and adapts each of these strategies” (pp8).  They cite (pp9) the traditional methods of making photographs (film based and thus about the hand and eye of the photographer) verses the CGI methodology (programming and the use of algorithms which flow to create once set in motion my the hand on the mouse) when writing in 1996.  Yet diminishing CGI and  digital photography (and its ability to manipulate in cameras and during post production) to the pixel begins to merge the technology and thus the inputs and outputs.