Mediation can be understood in a double sense. It can have a broad meaning encompassing all forms of representation, that is, all forms of translation from the material world to the discursive whether textual, visual, or aural. Or it can be taken in a smaller, more focused sense; one we suggest should be understood as manesfesting quailities of materiality in a fundamentally different way from how one might conventionally conceive of this transformation with respect to the symiotycally-limited notion of representation. With the latter sense of the term mediation one may begin to contemplate ways of transforming aspects of the material past while at the same time preserving something of the locality, multiplicity, and materiality left behind with conventional forms of representation. Mediation is mode of engagement, which takes us beyond narrative, for narrative obfuscates any notion of multiplicity. Mediation is a means of translating things that we talk about but can't adequately sum up. We argue, following Shanks, that it is a way of rescuing the ineffable (see Shanks 1997 for a discussion of photowork and the ineffable). Moreover, mediation is a process that allows us to attain richer and fuller translations of lived experience that are located, multi-textured, sensory, and polysemous. (after Witmore 2004(in press)

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