We each wrote out our plans and spent a while talking about them one at a time. The general comment that arose was 'slippage' - where a single word can be used in a variety of confusing contexts.
More appropriately, one word can mean several things, with each being radically different from each other. Take Ed's use of space and place. For he and Jason, the two terms mean the same thing, but for me, each term means the exact opposite of what the boys think.
This lines up neatly with my issue from yesterday. I explained my idea of Remediation (past/historical) and Remediating (current/active). Jason thought the 'active' was a nice - useful - touch, and we each tried to insert this idea (slippage) into each of our plans just to see if they held up.
Results:
Essay Outline
Chapter One
Remediation - introducing the historical idea of remediation, which itself opens the door to immediacy and hypermediacy
Immediacy - transparent immediacy, the ideal of realism and the focus of each new development always searching to outdo the last
Hypermediacy - non-realism, mechanics and the inevitable by-product of progess
Remediating - active, in-work remediation, where the 'twin logics' function simultaneously.
Chapter Two
The Fourth-Wall - introducing the idea of an interface in a physically co-present medium.
Immediate Theatre - the fourth-wall's alignment to realism and by association, immediacy, from it's inception until the early 20th Century
Hypermediate Theatre - breaking the fourth-wall and the introduction of theatre's general trend towards hypermediacy as a genre
Remediating Theatre - current theatrical trends, and how in all guises theatre presents more hypermediate trends than any other genre
Chapter Three
Case Studies - most likely Gob Squad and Punchdrunk, with the possibility of a more 'common' (normalised) format (Musicals or Contemporary Opera) to balance the equation.
The gist is to show that theatre is unique, but not because of theatre's general claim to immediacy. Rather, theatre is separate because of hypermediacy - and it has always been this way. By showing this, theatre stands apart from every other visual media addressed by Bolter and Grusin, which may been seen as an attack on them if addressed in terms of Remediating, but not in lieu of Remediation.
Viewed in this way, theatre can been remediated to create film/tv, especially in terms of the time period film/tv emerged, when the general theatrical consensus was that of realism, but theatre's current usage is extremely hypermediate, perhaps in opposition to film/tv but also perhaps as a general trend of the theatrical genre.
The thesis does not address WHY, only that it IS.
All in the quest to avoid Slippage.
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