The Waste Land App and Remediation

I felt quite inspired by our classes on e-books and particularly, the Waste Land App by Touchpress Limited. In my opinion, this app allows the poem to be experienced in an entirely innovative way. To summarize (or in case you weren't present) not only can one read the extensive notes simultaneously with the poem, they can actually watch video clips from expert critic interviews, or specially filmed dramatizations of the entire poem. A reader can also choose from 8 different voices (including Eliot’s) to recite the poem to them. Finally, there is the option to view digitized images of the original manuscript with hand written notes and changes made by Eliot. 

I will be looking at this app as a new medium of textual representation and applying Bolter and Grusin's theory of remediation. The concept of remediation is explained by the process of immediacy and hypermediacy. On the one hand, Immediacy is the ways in which the user forgets the medium in favor of the content or task, such as watching a movie that totally engrosses the person in the story telling that they ignore all editing and special effect processes. On the other hand, hypermediacy is the representation of multiple or concurrent mediums on a single digital plane. A couple of iconic examples are Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel that depicts stories from the bible and the Windows environment that allows the user to open multiple tabs and pages with differing content. Media is constantly absorbed and repurposed into a different media formats, however, there is a constant motivation to erase traces of mediation. For example, web pages are hypermediated with illustrious photos and video streams. While the media facilitates a relationship between the viewer and the meaningful content, the viewer actually does not want to associate with it, and instead wants to achieve total immediacy. 

 I want to argue that The Waste Land App is hypermediated source demanding immediacy (Bolter and Grusin). It is not easy to forget that one is encountering this version of The Waste Land on a digital platform such as a touch screen phone, iPad, or tablet through a download application. The constant tapping and swiping motions make the hypermediated reality of the medium difficult to neglect, nevertheless, the immediacy present within the app allows what McLuhan describes (in Medium is the Massage) as the medium transforming into extension of our human senses.

I will use McLuhan’s, The Medium is the Massage, alongside the original print version T.S. Eliot’s, The Waste Land and will uncover the ways these texts have become modern and progressive by engaging in remediation. Together, the digital texts will demonstrate how the concept of digital literature and the condition of authorship of digital texts have created a paradigm where digital texts have succeeded in replacing the print-narrative form. In the case of Eliot's The Waste Land, the digital re-imagination has created an advantageous way of both following, understanding and experiencing the poem. The essay will prove that this digital text do not support the argument that remediated literature destroys user experience by overwhelming the reader’s senses. Instead, the app offer a more fruitful experience because the content and historical context is entirely accessible and existing within one space (as compared to reading a print version and pausing to research a definition or translation, flipping to end notes, constantly glaring down at the mini foot notes, missing critical author intended long pauses). 

Take a look for yourself: http://thewasteland.touchpress.com/

Madiha Zahra