In Our Own Image Blog by Ken Wu

By “fluidity of the digital”, I think that Ritchin means the evolving state of digital media and the manipulation of the digital vortex where he mentions the virtual reality (Ritchin xii). Nowadays, media can be distorted from presenting authenticity of the state of affairs through digital manipulation through digital software such as Adobe Photoshop among others. An example of this is the OJ Simpson cover that’s been manipulated to be darker to create the aura of a criminal. This causes the “fluidity of the digital”, a state where the authenticity of the content is indeterminant due to the potential of having been amended. In this sense the fluidity of the digital refers to the surface level of truth and objectivity that can be received by the audience.

 

Photography’s ability to capture reality is limited to a static nature, hence the reality captured is also static. The moment of reality may be captured, but the psychological impact on humans becomes restricted, hence the reality it provides to the viewer is restricted to only being visual. Contrasting this with virtual reality, the ability to capture reality is vastly different. Virtual reality simulates a three-dimensional experience including sound to experience a reality. As multiple senses are used to experience the digital reality, it provides a higher level of authenticity rather than a static photo. Thus, if a choice of medium was to be chosen for capturing reality more accurately, virtual reality may provide more experience of life than photography. To relate this to Ritchin’s “fluidity of the digital”, I believe that the authenticity in photography may be more realistic if unedited to capture a moment, however, the experience of life and of reality could be experienced to a higher degree through virtual reality. While virtual reality is the very essence of creating artificial life experience digitally, the fluid nature of virtual reality may also cause a loss of authenticity in capturing actual reality.

 

Works Cited

Ritchin, Fred. In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography. Aperture.