Post 1: Hamlet Chapter 3 (From Additive to Expressive Form: Beyond “Multimedia”)

Murray defines additive formulations, or “multimedia” in contemporary terms, a medium which use and application is highly dependent on the nature of the derived mediums. For instance, she gives the example of the “photo-play”, what we call “film” now. During the initial stages of development, film was merely seen as a combination of photo and play, limiting the creative scope of film. Murray describes, the only way in which a medium can progress from an additive form to that of an expressive one is through bold exploration and exploitation from the creator’s part, respecting the medium as one of its own. As such, whether a technology is additive or expressive depends partly on how the technology is applied and the number of bold attempts made by creators since the introduction of the technology. Using Murray’s definitions of the two terms, it is possible to attempt to deduce whether Virtual Reality, one of the many new emerging technologies defining the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is at a stage of being an additive or expressive form. VR combines extends the visual experience one can encounter through a flat screen. Its primary focus is to give users a sense of being in another “reality”. The current application of VR is wide, ranging from military use, entertainment, education, etc. However, it is not yet a complete immersive experience as there still exists physical gadgets – mostly those that require the user to have a heavy head set or carry a remote etc. There has been cave systems (uses projections on walls for immersive experience) to eliminate the need for headsets, but it is still limiting due to the two dimensional nature of the projection. As such, despite the advancements that have been made, there have yet to be a definite technology created specially dedicated to VR. Hence, I personally believe VR is still at a stage of being an additive form – heavily reliant on simulated false reality through pre-existing forms of media.

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