Roy Ascott, “The Architecture of Cyberception,” in M. Toy, ed., Architects in Cyberspace (London: Architectural Design, 1995), 38-41.
“…The sense of the individual is giving way to the sense of the interface…we are all interface. We are becoming actively involved in our own transformation” (Ascott, 1).
The dramatic delivery of this statement, I’m sure, sounds like the apocalypse. Individuality isn’t threatened in any way. It won’t be lost. It’s only going through some changes. Evolution might call it “growing pains” perhaps, seeing as how many of us may treat it like bypass surgery or a trip to the dentist. If Identity is changed, then the value system we place on judging that identity will also change. “Cyborgs wired into a collective” is reminiscent of the Borg, a militant species seen on Star Trek, one hellbent on assimilating everything in its path. This expression could be a clear indication of our fear of losing our identities, of being sucked into some transe by the lull of machines, the seduction of technology. Again, dramatic. By observing Ascott’s text (although delivered specifically to architects concerning the revival of the industry, and thus the art — or vice versa — ) we can propose a viable alternative to identity, one that fits a fastly approaching social landscape.
Cyberception is likened to a new type of perception. This gives cyberspatial writing technologies an organic application within the human consciousness. “It is cyberception which enables us to preceive the appartitions of cyberspace, the coming-into-being of their virutal presence” (Ascott, 2).
Literary journals showcase art and are therefore expressions of that art. According to Ascott, “Art is now less concerned with appearance and surface, and more concerned with apparition, with the coming-into-being of identity and meaning. Art embraces systems of transformation, and seeks to maximize interaction with its environment. So too with the human body. We are making the body a site of transformation — to transgress the genetic limitations. And we seek to maximize interaction with our environment, both the visible and the invisible, by maximizing the environment’s capacity for intelligent, anticipatory behaviour. The artist inhabits cyberspace while others simply see it as a tool” (IBID).
The focus of the organic is not the surface or appearance of texts, but with apparition — identity and meaning. This makes sense when analyzing DIAGRAM. This focus clearly demonstrates our ability to make new associations due to our liberation from certain linearities in language. By reaching through the medium and simultaneously placing it in two or more places, by giving it numerous possible trajectories through massive swells of information and over vast distances, its appearance ceases to be the terminal site of “excavation,” if you will. While appearance may still be the cause of our initial impression and perhaps criticism to a large degree (we may never cease to be “visual” creatures), our longterm focus now shifts to how those appearances are affected by the materiality of the medium, as well as how they invariably change the way we view both the world and our individual and collective potential.
“So what differentiates cyberception from perception and conception?” Ascott asks. “The answer lies in our new understanding of pattern, of seeing the whole, of flowing with the rhythms of process and system” (2). This supports the extensive complexes of mood atmospheres beyond organic capacity Ulmer speaks of (see electracy).
According to Hayles, “Barthes was among those who initiated semiotic and performative approaches to discourse, arguably one of the most important developments in literary studies in the last century. But this shift has entailed loss as well as gain…It is time to turn again to a careful consideration of what difference the materiality of the medium makes” (Writing Machines, 30). Barthes saw everything from fashion to fascism as a semiotic system. My question is, what exactly does the “materiality” Hayles speaks of, consist of? Is it merely the physical parts of the apparatus (the “inscription device“) or is it the materiality (the “inscription text“) that is made by the medium? This shift is indicative of our less “literal” approach to analysis and associaton.
Both cyberception and a return to considering differences made by the medium’s materiality can be applied to Diagram, in that a consistent presence of schemata obsesses readers with structure — with “process and system,” to make new associations based on those systems. So what does this say, if anything, about the organic?
“The originating of a life, biological conception, should now also be called post-biological cyberception since the decision to initiate and process the birth of children is shifting from the so-called imperatives and constraints of ‘nature’ to the will and desire of individuals, regardless of their age or sexual performance” (Ascott, 3). Ascott goes on to say that “there is love in the telematic embrace” (IBID).
According to Ascott, “when there are no more geographical boundaries, territorial aggression is as irrelevant as polarised politics. The only imperative is to connect. Nowadays even the self is permeable” (Ascott, Glossary, “Telematic Imperative”).
“As networked virtual reality transports our telepresence, and gives us the tools to ‘reconfigure’ our own identities, social life is becoming not only more complex, but more imaginative” (IBID). So can it be that our identities are experiencing a type of remediation? Or perhaps society/social behavior is experiencing it? Individual components make up systems, affect processes — molecules, cells.
So, let’s return to the issue of identity. The multiplication of identity, or the tranforming of “self” into “selves,” is the interface Ascott proposes. And the breakdown of linear communication (and subsequently thought) can open us up to new associations based on that multiplication. If interface is the new “individual” then what is to be said of organic processes within a wired world?
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