Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin (2000), in Remediation: Understanding New Media, explored the simultaneity of interface presence and absence, describing this digital tension in terms of the double logic of remediation. (Here, Bolter and Grusin’s use of remediation does not signal any sort of remedial work but rather works in the new media sense of the word, defined as reconstituting or translating one medium into another.)
Thus, we might apply Bolter and Grusin’s double logic of remediation to translating f2f tutorials and/or e-tutorials into AVT tutorials, and, as we engage in this translation, we should ask ourselves what elements are gained in this transformation, and what elements are lost. In f2f sessions, one could argue that there exists no interface in the technological sense of the word; with asynchronous e-tutoring, the interface seems, at best, intrusive, its hypermediate textual components obviating the possibilities for users to feel as though they are currently “in” a situation.
| For example, when a student reads comments about her thesis statement, comments that may have been written two hours or two days ago, she will probably find great difficulty in situating herself in that tutor's moment, that tutor’s physical space. |
Unlike strictly textual interfaces, AVT interfaces are among those that provide users with an ability to, as Bolter and Grusin asserted, “lose themselves” in the content represented by the interface (p. 33). In this sense, users find themselves surrounded by two strands of logic: the logic of immediacy or transparency (where the interface is invisible) and the logic of hypermediacy/opacity (where the interface is visible).