As I began to read this week’s text, I quickly realized I could not fully understand and grasp the essay without first understanding the title. The definition of the word Synthesia is:
- A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
- A sensation felt in one part of the body because of stimulus applied to another, as in referred pain.
- The description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another.
This helped to clear things up for me and open my mind before digging into the text. The essay begins by talking about another essay entitled: Cybertext Theory: “What an English Professor Should Know Before Trying.” Punday, the author of this week’s text tries to break down the essence of the Cybertext essay by saying that “According to this description, cybertexts (such as video games) are like some new species recently discovered; any attempt to impose traditional textual categories from other media (literature primarily, but also film) is by definition a misinterpretation of the form.” This opens the question; how do we discuss and define cybertexts and new media? This becomes difficult because when viewing and dissecting cybertexts and new media we can see that traditional and new media can share a lot in common.
The mention of the above essay in Punday’s text sets the tone for the rest of the paper. Punday then goes into the word multimedia and two advantages the word proposes. The 1st advantage is that it combines all media and the second is that it acknowledges that there are multiple media present even if only one is in use.
One of the next paragraphs discusses paintings as the paradigmatic ‘mirror of reality.’ For my presentation, I have used a movie clip and two iconic pieces of art to show reflections of reality. The clip in question is from the biographical film Straight Out of Compton which tells the story of the famous rap group the N.W.A. The clip is a press conference where they are being questioned on their explicit and violent lyrics, and they respond by saying that their art reflects their reality. The paintings I used were Guernica by Picasso and The Problem We All Live With by Norman Rockwell. Both paintings have strong messages about current events at that time and are each a reflection of those times.
The text also discusses the word multimedia in many different ways. Some multimedia works combine many forms of already-existing media. To illustrate that concept in my powerpoint I use a Marvel Movie Collectors set which features, movies, still image art, and textual media as well.
The essay mentions Star Wars films and games and the media elements shared between the two. The media elements include the film score and the sounds of lightsaber and blasters. In my presentation, I have included clips of the film, the movie based game, and the LEGO franchise.
One thing that stuck out to me was the discourse of remediation. At one point, it says all mediation is remediation. I think there is a very thin line between evolution/expansion and plagiarism/copying. For a visual example, I took a gif of comic book characters transforming into their film counterpart to show how the MCU films are remediation of Marvel’s comic books.
Intermedia is discussed as well and I also found that to be interesting. During the Renaissance, certain art had to stand alone. Paintings were just painted on canvas while a sculpture would never be painted. Today’s art falls between a lot of media. I think of a music CD. When you go out and buy a CD you get the audio files, there is album artwork, and many times a lyric booklet is included.
All in all, this essay opens a lot of room to discuss multimedia and narrative, and it is very interesting to explore all those doors. I hope that my presentation is successful and that the rest of the class can help me understand the concepts I may have not grasped.
Here's What I Think 