Summary of Hein, Bolter, and Grusin

Michael Heim begins his essay, “VR 101,” by explaining that virtual reality, also known as VR, is a technology and not just an idea. This is a different way of portraying and perceiving the world. There are three characteristics that make up virtual reality. They are known as the 3 I’s, which are immersion, interactivity, and information intensity. Immersion makes the audience believe they are actually there. Interactivity hides the audience from knowing when the scenery or time is changing. They never know who they are interacting with. Information intensity shows the different techniques and qualities that are used to make the experience perfect. The term telepresence is often associated with information intensity. The idea behind telepresence is a control by a remote and knowing that technology is more in depth than we think. Heim continues on to discuss the different levels of immersion. He gives the example of helmets, which are head mounted displays and the CAVE, which is a surround screen and sound, projection based system. By understanding the three components of virtual reality, immersion, interactivity, and information intensity, you can see how virtual reality is real.

Bolter and Grusin write in the article, “Introduction: The Double Logic of Remediation,” about multiplying media and erasing all traces of mediation. By this, they are simply saying they want to “outdo” the previous technology set forth before it. They focus on the idea of immediacy, the feeling as if you are there, and hypermediacy, which is a whole bunch of media. Bolter and Grusin say that “Immediacy depends on hypermediacy.” By this, they are saying a lot of technology and media is behind everything in the world, especially what we see on television, for example on the news, and computers. Everything moves from one medium to another. We learn that a medium is a system for representing reality. Overall, Bolter and Grusin are writing on how there are lots of media out in the world, but they don’t want the audience to be conscious that they are there. The world is filled with people feeling immediacy, and little know the great technological advances that are behind it.