Hayles Question

If Hayles’ model of textual interpretation becomes the standard, how does this unmask Bolter’s and Grusin’s Remediation as a fiction? If we can’t just say that a text is words and punctuation, but rather the entire range of physical properties and experiences of the text, how might we usefully talk about things like genre and fiction vs. nonfiction?

Hayles proposes that the transformation of a print document to an electronic text is a form of translation (98). Like other forms of translation, Hayles argues that something is gained and lost from a translation. This varies drastically from Bolter’s and Grusin’s idea of remediation which sees each “translation” as Hayles puts it as one step closer to the ideal, erasing the medium and making the unreal real. Bolter and Grusin seem to be arguing a similar point to the point Walter Benjamin made in his essay, “The Task of the Translator” which Hayles discusses beginning on page 112. Benjamin refers to the Tower of Babel and a point when “media would cease to matter, for language would have escaped from historical specificity, cultural perspective, and material instantiation to become the pure and perfect Word, impervious to the operations of reference and signification” (114). Hayles does not see this as an accurate description of how language really works and how it is instantiated and performed in media (114). Instead, she believes that “the resources of print are different than the resources of electronic textuality, and that each medium interacts with and influences the others” (115). In some ways, each medium’s interaction and influence on others sounds like remediation. However, Hayles notes that the materiality of a text will always be up for interpretation and debate so the differences between readers’ beliefs about medium makes remediation a fiction.

As far as genre goes, it must be decided what conventions genre entails. These conventions seem to vary even for print sources. Some genres like rhetorical analyses are characterized by the information contained in them while other genres like letters are characterized by appearance and layout but not so much in content (in general…specific types of letters like application letters, thank you letters, etc. do have content characteristics). Blogs by there vary nature will be categorized as an online genre while other media like books and newspapers have print and online components. As Hayles notes, these “translations” into electronic media result in losses and gains. For example, newspapers in some ways lose their mobility (although greater access to the internet is disproving this loss) and ability to share sections around the table etc. However, online versions are less cumbersome and in some ways easier to read and handle, they also have more features like comment forums which may influence peoples’ experiences with the news, but do not greatly change the actual content of the articles. I think in order to usefully talk about genre, we need to reconceptualize what genre is not just in terms of content but also form.