cyberspace

2004-05-10T14:49:00.001-07:00

The Word Spy - pareidolia

2004-05-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Word Spy - pareidolia

2004-04-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

Werner Aisslinger - Loftcube

2004-04-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

meow

2004-04-05T12:34:00.000-07:00

Google Search: morel

i am testing the google tool bar. it seems that i can blog search result here.

2003-07-03T02:50:00.000-07:00

irina said yeah to it all, and it feels like an encouragement to resume our writing.

talking about cyberspace and physical public space, i am now in bologna, my italian hometown, trying to bridge a sudden digital divide in my life (from broadband in my seattle bedroom to a browser too old to navigate my favorite sites and check my email in my family's apartment) in the public library. this is an old building that used to be something like the local wall street in the first half of the 19th century. it has frescoes and a glass ceiling. in the central hall there is also a glass floor, showing us the archaeological excavations that are underneath...lots of roman ruins.

i cannot use the internet for more than three hours a week here, in no less and more than three sessions. each session must start at the very beginning of each hour if you want to have the full 60 minutes available to you. kind of rigid, eh? but it's free and i get to see a lot of people, although most of them are keeping their eyes on me to grab my computer as soon as i leave.

ciao

2003-07-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

irina says yeah to it all.

2003-06-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

2003-06-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

we did it!! it is done...for now. take a look at the site and feel free to add your comments. we have used this blog to document our process of creating the site and content. feel free to contribute to this project. it will be ongoing.

2003-06-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

I and G,

On the references, we can copy (not cut) and paste them and I think that will work fine without screwing up the endnote coding.

On the ideas on the conclusion. I like your suggestions. Today, after I turn in my noon paper, I'll go to the grad lab and start putting it together. If you two can make it, I'll see you there. If I don't see you, I'll email you the conclusion.

Ciao! T

2003-06-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

just emailed this to you with all of our edited sections. Posting it here for process recording sake.

Hi, women:

Great work! Just enjoyed reading your stuff. Just finished editing, and formatting all for continuity. Below is the list of what is done and the little stuff that remains to be done by you.

I listed references at the end of each section (please fill in info for those you have info for that I did not -- I listed the names of those I didn't have). I think the references should stay at the end of each section (one reason is that mine are inserted with end note and if the references move, the cites will disappear from the text.)

INTRO: Nice changes on the introduction. I've tweaked it slightly and done some little additions and edits. TO DO: There is still one part that needs to be added on Lefevre (i don't know his work) and we need a cite for Gramsci. Fill in references next to listed names at end.

TEXTURE: this looked good. I edited this but didn’t add anything. TO DO: Fill in references next to listed names at end.

HYBRID: this looked good, too. edited and added a little. TO DO: Nada.

TEXT: this looked good, too. Edited and added a little. Changed metal plates for buskers to painted musical notes as that’s what I’ve seen. I may be wrong here, please change back if I am. TO DO: there if a funky white highlighted area in the sentence on lefevre near the beginning and I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. Fill in references next to listed names at end that I did not find. Please read this one carefully one more time as I was not clear on the meaning of some of the sentences (e.g. the start of the firewall section) and in the process of clarifying I may have changed something inadvertently making it incorrect.

AGORA: this also looked good. Edited and added a little. I cut the space is a sensory experience bit from this as I had already used it in those exact words in the body section and had plugged it back into the intro (in the final cut, it only remains in the body section though references remain in the intro and in this section). TO DO: Fill in references next to listed names at end that I did not find. Address the highlighted comments.

BODY: OK, this was mine, so I’m not going to comment on its quality. TO DO: I used some of the stuff that you sent me, Giorgia, so I need you to fill in the info for the Barthe reference highlighted at the end. Also, can you two make sure it flows. I feel like something is missing with making connections but I can't figure out what as I can no longer read it after looking at it for too long. It may be OK in that each section refers to the other and, hence, rounds each section out.

OK, somewhat burned out and exhausted now. This is my feeling on the conclusion we were talking about. I feel that (not only because I am exhausted) we may want to not include a conclusion. One clear reason is that this project is very much an opening of a wide ranging and varied discussion. We purposefully avoid a traditional graduate paper format because we want to establish a place for dialogue not a place that we can show how we can wrap this all up with several well put paragraphs. A conclusion might appear to site/blog visitors as if we are providing the answers, whereas we really want to hear what answers and questions others have to contribute to the discussion that we work hard here to ignite. Hence, I think the intro and the sections with the photos do well to meet our goal.

If you don’t buy this argument, I am still up for putting something together, though I want time after I put it together for you two to have quality input. However, I can’t think about doing this until I turn in the project I have due at noon tomorrow (which I’ll of course be working on until the very moment it is due). Hence, if we decide we must have a conclusion, let’s email and go from there (I’ll check my email tomorrow morning to hear what you think). While my vote at this point is no, I’m open for debate, and if we decide yay, I can put something together in the final hours before this is due and email it to you to post. Sorry I am bringing this up last minute but as I looked at the project as a whole just now it seems to make sense just as it is (also, I'm delirious with fatigue).

Good work, everyone! I dig what we have here and love the emergent nature of the space we are creating!

We rock the walls of hegemonic cyberspace!
T

2003-06-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

Hi, women --
OK, got all your stuff. I'll go through it all now and edit. All of our sections are quite different from each other. My body section is about twice as long as your largest section on text. I might cut the body down a little, in that case. I'll read them all and then try to tie it all together in the conclusion. Gulp.
As for the photos on pike place market: i include some discussion on pike place -- i was thinking a couple of the photos would be good in the body section (women with fish in mexico, fruit in pike place, bodies in mexican and pike place market), but I also think no big deal if we add them later and make sure to tell David we'll be adding them.
OK, I'm off then to immerse myself and will be back with you.
Will also copy this to blurb in the blog...
T

2003-06-07T23:03:00.000-07:00

hi, checkout the website. the images are all up. tema, there are images on the "body"page for analysis. take a look. if you have any others in mind we can add them or replace the ones there.

2003-06-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, I am studying our blobby introduction and I have edited it a little bit with Irina's contribution. I will send it to you, Tema (the Jewess) for further refinement. So far, it looks like we have the following research questions (in order of appearance in the draft I am working on):

Does the conception of the Internet as space instead of a network of text allow for the Internet’s governance?
Does the metaphor further allow for a colonialist approach to the Internet or for a neo-liberal capitalist appropriation?

If physical space may vary across cultures, we also ask what implications might these cultural differences have on the conceptualization of cyberspace as a space. How do these cultural physical spaces relate to (audio)visual space on the Internet?

Our central question is how does discourse and uses of space vary across cultures and how does that affect discourse and experience of cyberspace?

Also, from our draft, it looks like this is what we are up to:

In order to examine the concept of cyberspace as it relates to culture and space we will look at two main dimensions: the use of spatial metaphors and narrative in textual forms and the organization/conceptualization of space in visual forms. We will also look at these dimensions’ relationships with the use and conception of physical public space in real life (iRL) and the physical/spatial modalities of the user’s cyberspace experience (e.g. cybercafes vs. personal workstation).

Let's all more or less stick to this or let's subvert, but let's decide fast!

Finally, this seems to be the ultimate goal of our paper (I say it seems, because I am open to change, I am just reporting here...):

In completing this project, our goal is to denaturalize the spatial assumptions of cyberspace and to examine their cultural and ideological implications.

2003-06-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I am blogging as Irina is blogging and I am reading what she is typing before it is actually published (this is hallucinogenic...).

I think we should make a point in slipping in each category some transition from the "previous" one (e.g. bodies should mark the transition to text) and a number of hints to every other one. I like the twofold hierarchical/sequential structure, I still think sequences can be fascinating and powerful in a nonlinear environment, not as a logical rule, but as an evocative device...by which the discourse on bodies in cyberspace is also the entrance into the one on text, so that there is no apparent compartmentalization between different nonlinear chunks of the same hypertext. Something like, you know, bodies in cyberspace are inscribed in text, both in constructive/performative ways (e.g. role-playing, presentation of self) and in constraining manners (forms and categories defining who you are in terms of gender, race and so on and so on).

Also, I just wanted to announce that I am not seeing an end yet to this quarter's labor...hope to survive until next friday!

2003-06-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

cool, i mean hot. i think that the crossover of all the categories is great because it shows that these are not isolated but intertwined. i propose that we point out the crossover as much as possible. to me it seems perfect that they are turning out somehow related to one another. maybe because it makes them more real? we can even talk abut the photographs in other categories to make transitions and connections between all the separate parts.

yes, i agree, the web is a much more convenient medium for our web-like project than a linear paper would be.

maybe being drawn to images is a natural gestalt-like escape in the overload of information that we get?

2003-06-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

Blurb three out of three:
Cyberspace is also very conducive to our project. We are going in multiple directions that could not be dealt with in the physical space of a page or a stack of pages. The linking and separation of the pages of our Web site and the ongoing discussion of our blog not only allow for our style and desires with this project, but, in many ways, encourage it to go in its current exploratory and creative direction.

Wait. Have our minds already been shaped by cyberspace?

2003-06-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

One more thing. As I review the photos we will use for this project, I see that each of them has crossover with each of our topics (e.g. agora, body, text).
Here cyberspace does give us limitations: We must categorize our pages and our labelings. Or must we?

2003-06-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

Love your blurbs. And I also like that together we are blobbing and not merely blabbing. Blobbing implies that our ideas and our typings on these separate keyboards out here in the physical world come together and form a whole. Like individual water drops gaining mass until they lose their individual integrity and pop their drop boundaries to form one large blob of water. The blog then is almost like what happens to the blob of water when it ages within the larger environment. Parts of it evaporate, parts spread out, parts may spawn new life.

And speaking of environment and physical space and cyberspace, what about the heat? and what about the way the heat makes people cranky? and what about finding out that we are to live in a small cave/office/womb indefinitely while dealing with this heat? Does it make it more unbearable? Does this relate to cyberspace? your blurbs on escapism from physical space limitations through the lack of limitations in cyberspace are real. I also think, however, that my heart, mind, and physical body cannot fully escape via a computer and the world of ideas within it.

One more thing, are we drawn to the (audio)visual more and more and less to the physical (with all its sensations)? I look at the first picture you post, Irina, and I see my eyes being drawn to the visual representation of a person before I am drawn to the sky, the buildings, the trees, the shadows, all of which have much more promise for sensation, as they only go through the single mediation of the photograph (well, and the posting on the blog). Hmmm...

2003-06-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

and the body in public space can also be text based as in cyberspace. the textures are altered to hide the blemishes, the images are projected into physial space as they are in cyberspace. Wherever we go, as we walk through the agora, we see in the ads, the body, the text abd the texture.

...and the body, the text and the texture in the text of resistance. less visible, in an alley. most often illegal. the body, the texture and text are different in this less visited space...much like in cyberspace.

ok and one more thing. here is an image created by an artist from Belgrade. i got this image from the memefest website. the subtitle brings out the current tensions between textures and physical body.

it is possible to remove or cover the mole from the body to make it look the way that a doll's body can look. The artist, Natalija Savic writes about the title "The title of our project also corresponds with an idea of people becoming “covered” with a non-transparent layer that masks natural and more personal characteristics of a human being. Artists protesting against uniformity and non-consciousness. " I think that this is a very cyber way to talk about what she thinks is happening in the real physical world to real physical bodies.

this takes us into the hybrid mode. the real and the layers of plastic and the masking of moles, perhaps with "Healing Brush" in photoshop. here visual digital imagery is used to blend the virtuality and the physical body. or to comment of the blending of the two.

however, look at this wall, the texture, the text and the man in this photo on the center of town in Oaxaca, Mexico. The texture of the building and the face and the placement of the text and the content of the text. more later.

2003-06-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

Tema, here is a thought about your discussion of the body in space. I was writing about texture and thinking that the two can be very related.
(but first let me tell you that Giorgia came up with three main terms for our writing discussion: blurb, blob and blog. first one of us blurbs, then we blob and finally a blog results.) so here is a blurb--

back to textures and bodies. this link will take you to the tutorial in Photoshop that takes you through the process of taking "blemishes" out of a photograph.

"The Healing Brush is a wildly souped up version of the Clone Stamp tool." this is a quote from the above page. two things are telling here, the use of digital photography and photoshop to allow for mass editing of the body representation. although we know that this is common in the magazine industry, it is now available and easy to use on a mass scale. the other thing is the "clone" tool in photoshop which allows you to take textures from other parts of an image and apply them to blemishes, etc. the idea of cloning texture to alter an appearance and the chioce of words is interesting..."healing tool" and "clone," both seem to relate to concepts of cyberbody.

2003-06-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

i think that i will just get a job delivering wonderbread and buy a nice office with windows in Everquest. i think they go for about $500 on ebay. i can eat sandwiches that never go stale and frolick through the sunlit meadows of virtual reality without needing to go outside for log periods of time.

2003-06-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, we just found out that our new office will have no windows. I want to start a serious discussion on the effects of material conditions of our physical space (absence of light) on our imagined community of scholars as well as on our individual psyches. As Iole once said, what sense does it make to use computer and multimedia technology (and thus also cyberspace) in a bunker that could be anywhere? I might as well have stayed in Bologna, believing to be a scholar in my own basement...well, maybe not quite.

Sorry about this meta-rant, but I am suffering and I cannot help to think of this as I speculate on the relationship between the material conditions and the symbolic organization of our space...I'll get into Everquest, so I can run through a forest right from my office-cave.

Ciao, sigh.

2003-06-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am trying to write about text in (physical & cyber) space. We intend text as the combination of verbal and visual communication that is available in space, as a way to communicate a function or an appropriate use of the space, sell a product or indicate a business and, finally, demonstrate an act of self-expression or resistance (e.g. graffiti). I guess this is a rough and convenient summary of what we want to include in our discussion, but I am still brainstorming.

Also, I would like to talk about how human bodies in cyberspace are entirely inscribed in text (words and graphics) and how
they move in a space created by text in a highly structured and structuring way (e.g. MUDS) or in a more negotiable and flexible one (e.g. lesbian café).

Feedback on this? Please...

2003-06-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

Oh, just so you know and we know that we actually did do some thing productive tonight: we did actually write an introduction, we divided our aspects of public space into tasks for each of us according to her interest, we also divided tech and editing tasks according to our respective expertise. we've also decided on some of the readings we will use from class, including the lesbian cafe article, mitra's article on Indian diaspora, and Bell's chapter on bodies in cyberculture. We're debating using Schaap's piece on MUDs.

2003-06-04T23:23:00.000-07:00

This is actually the three of us. Late one night the week before this project is due. We've decided we want to blog our process as we go about building this discussion and the blog and web site that accompany this discussion. We were putting together our introduction, which feels like a blob -- maybe it's because of the wine. Irina feels like there is a missing link between our discussion of physical public space and culture specific examples of experiences of cyberspace. We are no longer lucid. We'll talk about this tomorrow. And we will come up with enlightening ideas for humanity then. Good night and ciao.

2003-06-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just changed the template to include a comment form. The discussion can officially start, although I would wait until the 9th of this month at least :-).

2003-06-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

Right on, we made it...here you are the first two sample pages of our website on the different uses and functions of public space. The text is still nonsense, but the pics are cool. Click here.

2003-05-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is our invitation to join in a conversation about the relation of lived physical space and cyberspace. We are specifically looking at public space metaphors used to describe the cyberspace of the Internet, which we term (audio)visual space. One metaphor we focus on is that of the marketplace of ideas. We look at how culture (with its historical, political, and economic contexts) shapes public space in the physical world, specifically looking at open air markets in Mexico and an example of an open air market in the United States, Seattle's Pike Place Market. We compare these spaces with the virtual (or [audio]visual) spaces found on the Internet. We visit the role of resistance in these spaces, looking specifically at the role of graffiti in the physical markets of Mexico and Seattle and the parallel role of the hacker in cyberspace. In more general terms, we examine the role of culture in creating cyberspace in its current image. We also visit how physical spaces (such as cybercafes) are used differently among cultures to access the (audio)visual spaces of the Internet.

Below are some of our beginning discussions on these topics, particular images we use to illustrate cultural physical public spaces (Mexican and Seattle markets), and a proposal we have written that will be answered with our final project, to be posted here on June 9, 2003.

We invite all those who are interested to take part in this discussion and to add to the current metaphor of the marketplace with images and words. In addition, we are interested in gathering more metaphors of public space used to describe cyberspace and images of those space. Please join us in this exploration!

Resistance within spaces: With graffiti and hacking, people are appropriating contested space. This unsanctioned editing of public space, or adding of ideas to the marketplace of ideas, are forms of resistance. In (audio)visual space and physical space these spaces may be publicly or privately owned, and this ownership of space may influence the forms and levels of resistance. We visit instances of resistance in Mexican Markets and Pike Place Market. We also visit the Situationists' movement to describe some possible space freeing aspects of the resistance.

In addition, the commerciality of space will range both in physical space and in (audio)visual space from publicly owned to wholly corporate owned. In physical space, a Mexican open air market in Chiapas may be publicly owned and privately shared by local merchants (with merchants moving their wares to various spots each day, often with highly political graffiti covering the walls they lean their backs on). Seattle's Pike Place Market is publicly (?) owned and privately shared by local merchants (but with official mobility constrictions on vendors and buskers and graffiti limited to an officially designated wall set aside for such activity). A western (and now global) shopping mall will be privately owned and lease space to corporate merchants (with structural walls dividing corporate ventures, no graffiti allowed). In addition, even the space itself and the activity within can be a form of resistance. Pike Place Market was formed by local farmers and fishers as a way to resist the monopolization of their wares by supermarkets. Ironically, the merchants then commercialized their independence becoming a draw for tourists and locals, controlling buskers, and disciplining graffiti.

Also, non-commercial public space may include surveillance and control. For instance, public beaches and parks in the United States have curfews and those who violate those curfews are subject to fines and arrest. In (audio)visual space, these controls and surveillance also exist. For instance, in this blog, we, as administrators of the space, have the power to edit your posts (if we choose) and even edit each other's posts.

How do these cultural physical spaces relate to (audio)visual space on the Internet?
The following is our proposal. Stay tuned for our discussion.

Culture, Physical Space, and Cyberspace
Final Project Proposal
Giorgia, Irina, Tema
May 11, 2003

Culture, Physical Space, and Cyberspace

Sterne has suggested that cyber scholars should study the Internet as a cultural form, much as Williams approached the study of television in his seminal work, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974). In addressing television, Williams explored technology and specific modes of representation as socially constructed. In answering Sterne’s call, we will investigate the organization of cyberspace in its symbolic dimension. As the organization of signifying materials does not stem from the technical characteristics of a medium, but from specific needs or tendencies of the social system in which the medium is embedded, it follows that the choice of a certain symbolic organization corresponds to the choice of a certain experience. For example, Nakamura points out that discourse on race in cyberspace is culturally constructed and reinforced according to historical, social, and political contexts, as well as the absence or perceived absence of certain types of experience. Thus, discourse, as well as design, of cyberspace create an experience that is potentially exclusive for those who are regarded as culturally other.
We are particularly interested in the discourse of space and culture in regard to the socially constructed nature of cyberspace. Our central question is how does discourse and uses of space vary across cultures and how does that affect discourse and experience of cyberspace?
The Internet is a technology and thus also “enframes” what it represents in its own terms and within its own limits. In other words, technology is not a neutral means of representation, because it functions within a set of social, historical and cultural constraints. Technology is informed by and informs, at the same time, a certain, limited understanding of the world. For this reason, discourse in cyberspace only reveals particular portions of a certain world, while inevitably excluding others (Heidegger: 1955/1977).
In order to examine the concept of cyberspace as it relates to culture and space we will look at two main dimensions: The use of spatial metaphors and narrative in textual forms and the organization/conceptualization of space in visual forms. We will also look at these dimensions’ relationships with the use and conception of physical public space iRL and the physical/spatial modalities of the user’s cyberspace experience (e.g. cybercafes vs. personal workstation).
In addition, we will consider how certain discourse around public space may vary among cultures. Specifically we will consider text as a medium of communication in public space. In the physical realm, as well as the virtual realm text exists as a form of communication. Physical space is used to convey messages of control, resistance, and information. Similarly, this is done in cyberspace. We will look at how textual communication within public and cyber spaces varies across cultures. Specifically, we will focus on some examples of use of American and Mexican public space for communication.
Culture and space
When discussing space and culture, we will discuss the concept of physical space iRL as comprising multiple senses in the creation of the communication and community experience. Space is a sensory experience. Whereas a market in Mexico may contain the smells of tortillas steaming from a nearby mini factory, of fish warming in the sun, and of the decay of yesterday’s market produce, the western parallel, such as Pike Place Market in Seattle, involves very few offending or tantalizing smells. In cyberspace, there are no smells at all. There is also no touch or taste. This leads us to posit that cyberspace is in reality a (audio)visual reality, as opposed to a virtual one.
In addition many often culturally specific elements lead to one’s conception and use of public space. These include:
 proxemics (the intimate/personal/public space one is comfortable with between one’s self and others)
 Touch (the amount and type of touch and/or sensation one desires or avoids)
 Nonverbal (the substantial percentage of communication that is not composed of spoken words)
 Perspective of space (e.g. round vs. square, cities vs. open “natural” spaces)
 View of the body (e.g. meat/wetware or sacred vessel for the spirit)
 Cultural worldviews – (e.g. Egalitarian vs. hierarchical, collectivist vs. individualist, view of nature as adaptive with vs. mastery of, ascription vs. achievement with no honor for the teacher and a just go and get info, chronemics as polychronic vs. monochronic, communication as social lubricant vs. information, human’s basic nature at birth as good vs. evil – which can inform a dystopic vs. utopic views.)
Cyberspace as culture
When thinking of culture in relation to cyberspace one of the first issues we must visit is community. Bell (2001) points out, “We can make productive use of Anderson’s insight at scales other than the nation, to consider the extent to which all communities are imagined and held together by shared cultural practice (rather than just face-to-face interaction). When we come to explore online communities in detail, this will be an important thing to remember” (p. 95). We need to be cautious in pursuing this line of thought because when we think of a community as a group of people who share symbols we tend to relegate those symbols to the members’ psyches without considering material contexts. When we apply imagined communities to cyberspace we tend to leave out material and lived aspects of culture. In addition, we need to be reflexive as scholars when we research culture in cyberspace as we bring to the study our own cultural lenses and limitations. A dialectic exists between the material/physical and symbolic/ideological manifestations of culture. There is an interplay between ideological constructions and material/physical capacities: they inform one another.
A working concept that can be applied to a study of culture in cyberspace is Barthes’ discourse of absence (1978). In cyberspace, shared experiences are often experienced in the physical absence of others and often with others who do not share the same material conditions, especially in terms of culture and space. Others in cyberspace are inscribed in text, often with the absence of shared cultural cues and circumstances.
In addition, another working concept that will help us consider and compare the experiences of physical public space and cyberspace is the notion of the third place as a space that is public, that provides an opportunity to be a flaneur, to see and be seen in public without directly engaging with others. In this sense, space can be used for the mere experience of being in that space without a direct intention of production, communication, or consumption. This is another element of public space that we will use to explore whether this use of public space is different among cultural physical spaces and cyberspaces.
Since the use of cyberspace involves the human user, we also consider human physical relationships to cyberspace. In particular, we consider cultural differences in the relationships of body to space and how these might affect the conceptualization of self, experience, and discourse in cyberspace. In his chapter on bodies in cyberculture, Bell (2001) talks about what he calls “the question of embodiment.” If the physical body is to be discarded, as the punk fiction suggests, the physical space becomes irrelevant to the experience of the new virtual or cyborg body. As Bell discusses posthumanism and Haraway’s cyborg, he suggests the line between life and cyberspace blurs our understanding of life and death. We argue that how we conceive and experience our bodies in physical space directly affects our understanding and experience of cyberspace as a space. Conversely, we look at the extent to which our culturally informed relationship with physical and cyberspace affects our experience of life and death iRL.
Cyberspace as space and not a network of text
Although a textual and audiovisual narrative, cyberspace discourse is filled with space metaphors. Scholars have provided a proliferation of space metaphors when discussing the experience of the Internet. We question the use of this metaphor and the side effects of such use. For example, does the conception of the Internet as space instead of a network of text allow for the Internet’s governance? Does the metaphor further allow for a colonialist approach to the Internet or for a neo-liberal capitalist appropriation?
Here we will argue against Mitra’s (1997) assertion that Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is not applicable. In addition, we will address Hall’s (1982) application of the concept of hegemony to the mass media. We will examine if the space metaphor discourse is dominated by hegemonic concepts of space and therefore is not cross-culturally representative.
Metaphors of space
We will use the work of Mitchell (1995) to inform our comparisons of physical and cyber space metaphors. We will look at how these space metaphors culturally frame the Internet. We will also look at how various cultures use and interpret physical space iRL and how these uses and interpretations might shape people’s experiences of cyberspace. The cyber metaphors include the electronic agora, the forum, and the café – these are also spaces Habermas described as a platform for the public sphere. We will compare these cyberspaces with their iRL counterparts, the marketplace, the plaza, and the cybercafe.
In addition, we’ll compare and discuss cultural difference in textual forms of communication in both physical and cyberspace. For example, we will look at signs and graffiti as indicators of textual communication in physical space and compare them to similar uses of text in cyberspace, such as advertisements and hacking.
We also want to look at whether cyberspace lends itself to the presence of hegemonic conceptualizations and uses of space to which physical space is perhaps more resistant. While we imply in our study that cyberspace is ultimately constructed following our knowledge of physical space, we wonder how experiences and discourses of each type of space shape one another and perpetuate hegemonic ideologies.
Where is this going?
While scholarly writings have presented cyberspace as something of a universal cultural space, a question that arises is whether certain cultures see the Internet as public space, but other cultures, who have different cultural cues and material experiences, interpret the spatial connotations of cyberspace differently. These different experiences might include resistance or syncretism. Both resistance and syncretism can include supplementing the experience of cyberspace with physical surroundings. For instance, cybercafes, which are necessary for access in many countries, may supplement the physicality of interaction missing in the “public space” of the Internet.
In writing this paper, our goal is to denaturalize the spatial assumptions of cyberspace and to examine their cultural and ideological implications. We also want to start a cross-cultural academic conversation on this topic. To begin this conversation, as part of our project, we will post our final paper as a blog. In doing so, we would like to set up a virtual agora/forum/café (hee hee) in an ultra-textual form for other scholars to engage in our discussion, post visual and textual representations of cyberspace, physical space, and cultural approaches to each. In addition, the site will act as a receptacle for resources and insights offered by others and us.
References and Book List for Project (plus a lot more to come!)
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Barthes, R. (1977). The Rhetoric of the Image. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1964)
Barthes, R. (1978). A Lover’s Discourse. New York: Hill and Wang.
Bell, D. (2001). An Introduction to Cybercultures. London and New York: Routledge.
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Hall, S. (1982). The rediscovery of ‘ideology:’ Return of the repressed in media studies. In Gurevitch, Bennett, Curran & Woollacott (eds.), Culture, Society, and the Media. London: Methuen.
Haraway, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. Routledge, London, 2000.
Heidegger, M. (1955/1977). The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row.
Mitchell, W. (1995). City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge: MIT.
Mitra, A. (1997). Virtual commonality: Looking for India on the Internet. In Jones, S., (ed) Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in CyberSociety. London: Sage.
Nakamura, L. (2002). Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge.
Sterne, J. (1998). Thinking the Internet: Cultural Studies vs. the Millennium. Doing Internet Research (Ed. Jones, S.). 257-288. Sage
Williams, R. (1974). Television: Technology and Cultural form. London: Fontana.

2003-05-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

test test

2003-05-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

Now, perhaps a step beyond the mere test. can i edit tema's stuff?

2003-05-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

hi, this is the first time that i am posting to this blog. it is a test to see if i can do it. can i edit too?

2003-05-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

test test