[Air-l] An Internet Without Space

[andrew.herman at comcast.net]

Friends-

I think this is a great idea--but why not do a panel or two at the conference on this issue (not that I don't think the pre-conference workshop is a bad idea).  I'd be willingto organize one.  Would you be interested Michelle?

AH



--
Visiting Professor and Research 
Fellow in Digital Communications 
and Cultural Policy
Joint Graduate Program in 
Communication and Culture
York University
4700 Keele St.TEL 3007
Toronto, Ontario
M3J 1P3
(416)736-2100 x 30157
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> I want to thank all of you for an interesting set of questions. I am
> particularly touched by Charles' kind words and challenging remarks. I
> like Charles' larger call for new methods and alternative languages for
> viewing and experiencing. My project may attempt this in a very small way
> but not, as Charles suggests, at the level of a total epistemology shift. 
> 
> Wouldn't it be interesting to do an AoIR pre-conference workshop or
> journal issue that interrogates the ways that different disciplines and
> academic practices read a specific Internet setting? What fun to talk
> through how we come to understand sites and the implications of these
> readings. Such a project might allow us to articulate, change, and rework
> methodologies and question the implications of our academic practices.
> 
> I think that one of the ways that Charles' and my reading diverge is at
> the level of understanding the term "space." While I certainly relate what

> is understood as "three-dimensional space" to the expression of relational
> arrangements between colors, forms, or other patterns, I also think there
> may be a number of differences between saying "I enter the screen" and
> "the 'enter' message in the middle of the web image suggests that the body
> can enter the screen."
> 
> Charles' model might encourage us to question the term "middle" or such
> art history designations as "lower quadrant" and "upper right corner." I
> believe that these terms rely on a certain understanding of centered and
> singular embodiment and yes arrangements and have interestingly remained
> largely uninterrogated even with feminist and postmodern scholars. 
> 
> In writing about the web, such relational phrases as "middle" and "right
> side" also suggest a stability and regularity of the image that is not
> always reliable or present. We may be able to find some form of
> alternative reading and system of knowledge in the work of net artists

> like Mark Napier (http://potatoland.org/ see especially
> http://www.potatoland.org/shredder/shredder.html) and Lisa Jevbratt
> (http://www.whitney.org/artport/exhibitions/biennial2002/jevbratt.shtml).
> Their works provide us with ways to look at web and other Internet content
> differently. Napier's browsers indicate that images, texts, and viewing
> are structured by software. They also provide a kind of shock to the
> viewer. Is there a reason to think about chat without word spacing and
> linewrap or a web sites without a translation of html tags and images into
> a more "easily" readable arrangement?
> 
> I would agree with Nancy that the spatial metaphor is employed more often
> in some Internet settings than others and is also more easily deployed
> when critically writing about some settings. It seems to me that there may
> also be an ever present convention that is conveyed by windows, browser
> directional arrows and other menus, and is made present even when the user

> chooses software that has rejected such conventions. 
> 
> I am not suggesting that we ignore the ways that users design, write, and
> represent such settings with spatial terms. Instead, I would like to pay
> more attention to the ways that the term "space" and an accompanying set
> of ideas function. For instance, I would like to ask why varied gaming
> settings render certain kinds of spaces and embodied experiences and to
> consider the ways that these renderings affect the user's engagement with
> the game, other sites, and society.
> 
> All my best,
> Michele
> 
> 
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