[Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space)

[Ren Reynolds]

Sorry if I missed this in the volume of fascinating debate - but I
wonder about the space-time relationship of the internet-based
interactions factors into the construction of the special metaphors we
so easily use. 

That is, while email is an asynchronous form of communication and IM is
a synchronous one - one can have conversations using either in which
case the time between messages stands in some relation to the physical
distance (if known) between the individuals / group. Similarly does one
'feel' closer (possibly turning the received metaphor into sensational
expression) to a web site or interface that is more responsive? 

To have a go at casting this in ANT terms, the temporal characteristics
of the software artefacts we are using must contribute some how to the
way that these metaphors are constructed and maintained. 

Ren
www.renreyolds.com
terranova.blogs.com

...still trying to work out how all this stands in relation to Kant's
ideas of the necessary nature space(ness) in his Epistemology and would
welcome more posts following up Charles's fascinating thoughts on the
matter - if you have the urge you have a reader :)



-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-admin at aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin at aoir.org] On Behalf Of
Charles Ess
Sent: 04 February 2004 14:27
To: air-l at aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space)

What fun!
As Michele knows, I'm a great admirer of her work, and I'm delighted
that
she has shared some of her best insights with us - both on the ethics
committee (where she deserves specific credit for helping us work
through
some of the important differences between the methodologies and thus
ethical
obligations of social sciences vis-a-vis the humanities) and on this
list
(where, as on the ethics committee, she is raising critical challenges
to
the predominance of the spatial metaphors).

For me, at least all of this discussion - especially Ulla's question to
Michele - is helping sort out some things that until now, had remained
fairly fuzzy in my mind.  Let me try this out.

At an epistemological level, the Kantian point regarding space and time
as
frameworks of our intuition - i.e., as _necessary_ conditions of our
knowing
something empirically - can certainly be challenged. But as Ulla makes
the
point - the issue is not simply to say that the spatial framework is
limited
(Kant himself makes this point - indeed, it's central to his
epistemological
and ethical programs): in addition, if one wants to argue at an
epistemological level that alternative frameworks are available - then
these
frameworks need to be articulated.

But it seems to me that most of the discussion - including Michele's
points,
which I think are extremely important and valuable - turn on different
issues at a different level.  That is - and perhaps I'm missing
something -
I don't see a direct challenge here to the necessity of spatial
frameworks
to empirical knowledge of things (the Kantian / epistemological point).
I
don't see an alternative epistemological framework being offered.
Rather, what I see instead - and please correct me if I'm wrong - is a
challenge to the ways we ordinarily "populate" our spatial frameworks.
That is: part of Michele's very great contribution, in my view, is just
that
she challenges more specific - but still spatial - metaphors that
predominate.  For example, while I greatly appreciate the difference
"setting" makes in how we might think about all of this - as far as I
can
tell, it remains a spatial metaphor - at least in the sense that Kant
would
have us understand spatiality - even if it's a different kind of spatial
metaphor than "space" more obviously is.
By the same token, the other claims that have been brought forward for
discussion - most of which I agree with, FWIW - do not directly
challenge
the notion of space at an epistemological level: rather, they challenge
specific ways of understanding spatiality - e.g., whether our mapping of
spaces is a somehow neutral exercise in knowing an objective reality,
and/or
an exercise in power, colonization, etc.  This debate is _between_
conceptions of spatiality: both presume it at an epistemological level,
so
far as I can see. However important such a debate may be in political,
social, ethical, and other terms - either way, I again don't see a basic
challenge to the Kantian epistemological claim, much less an alternative
framework.

Please understand that I'm not saying this in a triumphalistic tone of
"aha!
the old Chinese of Königsberg was right!"  It's much rather intended in
a
more empirical tone - one including a bit of disappointment: I (and a
_lot_
of other philosophers!) would be very interested and excited indeed to
see
empirically-oriented ways in which the Kantian epistemology might be
criticized, challenged, etc.  (First of all, such results would
contribute
critically to this debate as it plays out in both epistemology and
philosophy of science, e.g., as to whether Einstein and QM mount such a
challenge.  Such results would be especially valuable because the
debate, to
my knowledge, is otherwise unresolved, with good arguments on both
sides.)

Again, I may be missing something here, but if I'm correct on this, then
perhaps it would be useful to distinguish between these two levels of
discussion - so as to clarify that the challenge is not to spatiality
per se
(i.e., at a fundamental epistemological level - one that appears to be
much
harder to undertake and achieve), but rather to specific instantiations
and
metaphors of spatiality, and, to return to Michele's point, the ways in
which they may subtly or grossly prevent us from "seeing" other critical
aspects of the phenomena we seek to study and understand.

Hope this helps - and cheers!

Charles Ess
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.                          Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435

Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23

> From: "Michele White" <mwhite at wellesley.edu>
> Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
> Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 08:40:23 -0500
> To: air-l at aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space)
> 
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> Thanks for the interesting posts on space. One of my concerns is the
ways
> that the concept of Internet space often leads to the idea that there
are
> people on the screen or inside the interface. While there are
certainly
> people engaging through varied technologies and they are very invested
in
> their connections, the mediated aspects of engagement and the deeply
> constructed interfaces and identity representations are sometimes not
> addressed. This mediation significantly shapes what we see and
experience.
> With increasing computer processing speed and connectivity, ubiquitous
> computing, and more detailed simulations it becomes easier and we are
> often encouraged to forget the technologies and representations. My
hope
> is that we can address both user interests and the ways that
traditional
> ideas of age, class, gender, race, and sexuality (which are conveyed
> through visual and textual representations) are reinscribed through
> technologies, practices, and depictions. I know that Ulla has asked me
> about alternative terminology and I often try to model this in my
writing.
> I employ such terms as "setting" instead of space. Admittedly,
sometimes
> thinking through our ways of speaking the Internet removes further
words
> from my vocabulary and leads to a spluttering or form of unspeaking.
> 
> As I researcher, I believe that one of my responsibilities is to
consider
> the ways that individuals view and speak about Internet settings,
> contemporary technologies, and other social experiences and to suggest
the
> problems, promises, and (as Ulla prompts) the other ways that
individuals
> and societies can represent and produce these technologies and
cultural
> practices.  I sometimes rework a vocabulary from the
> humanities—particularly film and media studies, photography theory,
> literary studies, and art history to write about such depictions as
the
> rectangular or body-shaped images of synchronous graphical settings or
the
> photo-like images of webcams.
> 
> We might also look to writings about past technologies to understand
our
> representations of the Internet. Television and other media have been
> understood as live, alive, and a space. Thomas Hutchinson indicated,
that
> with television "the outside world can be brought into the home" (ix)
and
> Charles Siepmann argued that television was a way of "'going places'
> without even the expenditure of movement" (340). More recently, Rhona
J.
> Berenstein has noted that television also had the reputation of "being
a
> medium of immediacy: an apparatus that, more than film, offers its
viewers
> live access to the world around them and hence it was assumed, to
reality
> " and that television resonates "in spatial terms, suggesting a
physical
> proximity between the viewer and the performance rendered" (26).
> 
> In any case, it seems to me that each vocabulary and way of
understanding
> the Internet produces a set of cultural perceptions that shape our
> understanding of these technologies and social practices, what they
are,
> and what they can be.
> 
> All my best,
> Michele
> 
> Rhona J. Berenstein, "Acting Live: TV Performance, Intimacy, and
> Immediacy," Reality Squared: Televisual Discourse on the Real, ed.
James
> Friedman. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
> 
> Thomas H Hutchinson, Here Is Television, Your Window on the World. New
> York: Hastings House, 1948.
> 
> Charles Siepmann, Radio, Television, and Society. New York: Oxford
> University Press, 1950.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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