When Ritchin explains the fluidity of the digital, I believe that they explain the vast opportunities that a digital interface can express. It is symbolic of how you can manipulate digital media in so many ways in order to create such varying visuals. Nowadays, digital media can be used in ways to enhance or disrupt the image of reality. For example, images of war always tend to have a lower exposure as the dark visuals connote hardship, conflict and thus strays away from the actual color of the photograph. These images are manipulated to enhance the emotions of the picture even if it was edited and not an actual depiction of reality.
I don’t think that photography will ever be able to fully capture the essence of reality since the process and result of a photograph are static. There is no depth in the capturing of an image. I believe that it can be used as a foundation of reality but still only visually. Reality itself consists of many different factors. The most common ones would include eyesight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. A photograph only allows for eyesight or the visual aspect of reality to be experienced. In virtual reality, like the usage of VR glasses. In order to produce a scene of a jungle, they would need to take an immense amount of photos and compile them to replicate a moving scene. However, unlike a video, we are able to physically move our heads around and “explore” the surrounding. This replicates the movement and vision that we experience in our day-to-day lives and thus better resembles reality. However, even the complied photographs as well as the ability to look around may create a more realistic scene. The VR experience is still based on photographs. Photographs often lack the ability to capture depth to the point our eyes can. The VR may be better than a photograph but senses like touch and hearing are still essential in creating reality.
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