Week 5 - Reality- actual, potential and virtual

The nature of mixed realities arises from the relationship that we as individuals and collectives have between our experiences and reality. Through this, media that is used to extend memories while also preserving them through archives highlights the 'medium' role that media technologies have in being in the middle of everything people do. The use of these technologies and their affects to reality refer to individuals as technical animals (Murphie 2011: 29 Mar) through the exploitation and intervening nature of these technologies in restructuring the reality of our lives by prolonging them through the use of the virtual.

A significant emphasis is placed on the idea of the network as an inescapable social event and as a concept - calls for a substantial reworking of the concept of ecology (Murphie 2004: 88) Here, the mixing of ecologies is evident as a process of restructuring networks that through all our interconnectedness assist in constructing a new reality through media technologies. Think particularly about online multi player role playing games such as World of Warcraft that create a virtual environment for individuals by transforming the nature of reality as a device that connects players worldwide that frames their experience through an online platform of connection. Media technologies intervene in our realities but getting in the middle of how we choose to connect with things in the world. Similarly this is evident in the mobile phone that interjects and makes us a part of different networks while transforming our experience.

The way in which an individual or collective constructs different realities is made possible through the use of media technologies. These technologies; through their different functions, produce possibilities for realities to take place that affect habit, perception and memory through their intervening nature. They offer a variety of different sensations to how peoples experiences can be affected by the use of these technologies that through media bring together our different realities and how they can be transformed from our perceptions over time.

References

Murphie, A. (2011) Advanced Media Issues Lecture. 28 March.

Murphie, A. (2004) 'The World's Clock: The Network Society and Experimental ecologies', Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 11, Spring