Anthropic Cyberspace Defining Electronic… 

Anthropic Cyberspace Defining Electronic Space from First Principles

EXCERPT:
“1. Space is a mental construct that conditions our relationship with the world. We use space to manage sensory and cog- nitive phenomena (Fig. 1). The emulation of space-cyberspace-is the spatial refer- ence evoked in electronic media. These media extend us beyond our bodies and locality, and so affect our model of the world and our relationship to it” (Anders, 410).

“The electronic extension of our senses grafts new perceptions onto a prior con- struct, the mental map of our spatial context. The higher the dimensional quality of such extensions, the easier it is to assimi- late them into our conventional under- standing of space. We notice this in our engagement with high-resolution graphics versus text or other low-resolution images”

“Ease of assimilation gives the concept of cyberspace its popular appeal. Popular media images of cyberspace show it to be a deep, multidimensional environment, devoid of gravity and material conse- quence. It is the space accessed through computer media, the modern counterpart of Alice’s looking glass”.

This is not true. Space has gravity. It looks like neural networks.

“But cyberspace predates computer graphics. The telephone gives its users the illusion of being in the same room, momentarily collapsing the space between them. Hanging up the receiver restores the space to its normal dimensions”.

Ah, my favorite analogy of the cell phone. The time space compressor. I wrote my thesis about this – the cell phone as a worm home, compressing time and space. When I wrote it, I didn’t realize that it had been written about many times before. Shows the lameness of my research capabilities at that time. I think that everyone looks back on their thesis and feel similarly. At the end of the thesis, I think

“Whether space is evoked passively-as on the phone-or deliberately, through constructed environments, users’ interac- tions in space have important social and psychological consequences. Social spaces, the traditional realm of architecture, affect the behaviors of their occupants [3].”

“We see this in the reciprocal relation- ship between architecture and the activity it houses. Behavior appropriate in a bar, for instance, is unacceptable in a church. Environments temper the actions of their occupants. For this reason, cyberspace not only extends our personal space but also our social environment. This has already begun to affect cultural and social relationships in fundamental ways.”

…

“2. The body both senses and measures the world, forming its subjective center and the foundation of thought. The body is the bridge between ourselves and the world. Our worldview relies as much on the body’s senses as it does upon the environment itself” (Anders, 410).

…

“Bodily sensation is our measure of things-it gives us our sense of scale and propriety. We come so much to expect some sensations that they become transparent to us: the pressure on our feet as we walk, sunlight overhead, the horizon uniting earth with sky. Denying these expectations causes discomfort and anxiety, for they assure us that the world is right” (Anders, 410).

In the digital world, our sensations have been replaced by bouncing dock icons on the Mac, E-mail notifications and pings. These notices help us feel alive in the digital environment. The digital environment is living. It provides users with stimulus and that stimulus is social interaction. Socialization, in its digital form, comes in buzzes, bursts, short songs in the form of ringtones, and numerical messages (5 missed calls, 2 text messages, 2 new Facebook messages, 2943 new E-mails). Commenting on a Facebook wall replaces a comment in real life, but unlike a short quip in conversation.

“We use tools to extend these gestures beyond the bounds of our bodies” (Anders, 411).

And hence the foundation of cyborg anthropology. The hammer as the extension of the fist, and the knife the extension of the tooth. Instead of evolving these features internally, which would take millions of years to evolve as a part of the body, can simply be evolved outside of the body and be attached to the body at will. One’s hand does not always have to be a hammer. The hammer can be exchanged for a multiplicity of external objects—a multiplicity of appendages. And the computer is the extension of the mind. The eye and ear. Increasingly, the body. The outer appearance. The history of the self. The online photo album.

Source:
Anthropic Cyberspace: Defining Electronic Space from First Principles
Author(s): Peter Anders
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 34, No. 5, Ninth New York Digital Salon (2001), pp. 409-416
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1577233
Accessed: 03/09/2009 02:46