My friend Daniel and I met one night to discuss the evolution of his new “public space” column for UM. We got talking about how virtuality fits in (mainly how it really shouldn’t fit in, because his endeavor surrounds public space as “material artifact”). But virtuality really does come into play, no matter how you look at it.
We started with “urbanism.”
‘What is it?’ he asked (in the context of our conversation). We agreed that it would refer to the cultivation (or lack thereof) between man and the urban environments he inhabits.
He wasn’t sure what angle to take with the column, concerned there might not be enough material to maintain it. I suggested he begin with a few recent reactions. He discussed a pride party, a naked party and an upper west side party. The dynamics of all three were different. For instance, at the naked party, if you approached someone and were interested and had an erection, your intentions would be clear, as opposed to another space, like a café (or similarly the pride party) where the implied intention was perhaps to “hook up” but the social setting didn’t allow for it. You would constantly question motives and as a result, talk about “bullshit” (i.e. all subjects devoid of substance).
He thought it interesting how he was blown off in real life, but could make a meeting (and follow through) online so much more easily. He wondered why he was “running back” to his apartment to log on; there was a natural yearning to engage socially in that virtual space. Then he observed how in material settings, perhaps people were disinterested in others because they looked the same. There was no uniqueness to their clothes, their style. Their haircuts were identical. But when he engaged online, he perceived the uniqueness of others by their word choice and individual presentation. Because people are more likely to express themselves online, whether or not that representation is “real.”
Then I suggested that this “normative” behavior observed in the bar scene was synonymous with gentrification, in that it stifled individuality and therefore produced this desire for active participants to go elsewhere for their social needs (i.e. online?). Gentrification, in my opinion, stifles individuality on the urban level, therefore forcing active participants to seek public spaces elsewhere (i.e. online?).
So he didn’t think there were effective “private” spaces online, noting that virtual spaces were all “public.” I disagreed, citing individual email as an example of “private” virtual space. I noted that technology was still in its infancy, but described social networks (web2.0) as private spaces – spaces controlled by passwords and dashboards and “invitations,” as in Facebook or MySpace – spaces that might resemble “homes” in which hosts “entertain” others by allowing them to post comments, animations, and other “material” artifacts, thus reproducing a type of communication akin to the letters, verbal dialogue — the “knocks on doors” present in corporeality.
Because the conversation was becoming online-centric, I shifted gears by suggesting we point the compass back to the corporeal. If there was a void in corporeality that made active participants seek a solution in virtuality, what was it about the virtual landscape that could make it all work? And how could that solution be translated back into corporeality to solve the problem?
Dan answered, “don’t you think we are interacting less in reality?” “Yes,” I answered, “but we will always interact in the material world. There will always be materiality. We will never be fully virtual, communicating from cubes, etc.” “But compared to a century ago,” he answered, “we are living in cubes, shut off from everyone else, with our cell phones and our cars…”
“But we are always flesh,” I replied, “and will always seek to feel the flesh of others. After all, what we represent online is not flesh, but a facsimile of flesh. You might see me on your computer, but that is not really me. It’s only a representation of me.”
I wonder if this conversation can be continued in scholarship surrounding computer-mediated communication (i.e. my thesis)? How do online communities differ from offline communities. How are they similar? How does online communication differ from offline communication? How is it similar? How does one facilitate/negate the other? What is to be gained from online communication that was not possible offline? How does our new sense of self/selves online affect what we can or cannot do offline?
Last month I picked up Paul Virilio’s Open Sky, a book that is described as “a passionate critique of information technology and the global media by one of the foremost thinkers of social transformation.” First published in 1995 (a hotbed year of CMC scholarship), I figured this was a good springboard to get back into my thesis. Little did I know it would prompt a drastic change. On page 10, he mentions “teletopia” and “telepresence” and later describes “the witness’s own body becoming the last urban frontier.” What exactly does this mean? It is, for sure, resonant given the aforementioned discussion. How is our body the last urban frontier? Behavior? Social dynamism? Technological evolution and how it relates to social trends? Or does it refer to the material.
Next was the discovery of “intelligent cities”:
“ICs are defined as intelligent environments with embedded information and communication technologies creating interactive spaces that bring computation into the physical world. From this perspective, intelligent cities (or intelligent spaces more generally) refer to physical environments in which information and communication technologies and sensor systems disappear as they become embedded into physical objects and the surroundings in which we live, travel, and work” (Steventon and Wright, 2006).
[there's more to intelligent cities here 09/29/08]
The body as the last urban frontier, coupled with advances in Artificial Life and genomic discovery, suggests a new potential for the species. A new understanding of self. A new understanding of construction.
A springboard, indeed.
NOTE: I’ll be coming back to this post to insert links.
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