<nettime> No Space like Cyberspace

[brian carroll <human@architexturez.com>]

 regarding: no space III post sent by Pit on Tue, 13 Mar 2001

 i've been contemplating Pit's presentation of ideas regarding
 cyberspace as - much more than i can simplify in one word or
 two; dead metaphor- american intellectual property- triumpal
 content- mal_cultural zeitgeist, whatnot-- none of which i
 can honestly disagree with and it is very stimulating to hear
 this perspective, as it penetrates a ubiquitous conceptual meme
 and breaks it apart at its seams|seems...

 and, i have learned a lot from Pit's perspective(s) and it has
 take some time to realize the battling of truths, and to try to
 find out why this is such an enigmatic exchange for me, in that
 i am conflicted by the paradox of dual truths without resolution;
 as it seems Pit recognized long before i that these ideas are
 probably for others to figure out someday hence...

 there have been a few simple concepts, the old ones, that have
 arisen when contemplating this no space/cyberspace dialogue...

 first, i think about the inside & outside, internal & external
 vantages on the topics of spatiality. take, for example, the
 concept of 'the land', and one can find that landscape has a
 story, as Pit presents, in mythical and mystical gardens meant
 to conjure surreal worlds, which also could represent a state
 of mind for the makers and inhabitants of these, such as the
 garden of archaeological follies with artificial naturalness,
 by creating rolling hills and hidden ponds, in the UK. just
 as there is landscape, today mindscape, brainscape, netscape
 are all referents to the landing of space, in time.


 second, this duality seems to be easily transferred to an even
 more basic anthropocentric view of spatial issues, in Western
 terminology at least. that is, the recurring basic theme of
 the mind and the body. the mind existing in an internal landscape
 and the body existing within an external landscape. context, and,
 territory, where 'the land' crosses boundaries, made separate
 more by philosophy than direct experience. enlightenment and
 reasons weaknesses enabling the triumph of rationalizations
 that are separated from the first order event, and becoming
 themselves the primary basis for truth, the form moreso than
 the content, else, the facade more than the structure. it may
 not be this, but appears to be in some cases, especially with
 hindsight, beyond the rearview mirroring of worlds.

 
 thus, a paradox between    internal and external
 and the     mind and body.  old standards. pretty
 ancient stuff, this-that.

 please note, this is not a proposition for separating
 or unifying these culturally conflicting dualities that
 play heavily within a word-concept such as 'cyberspace'.

 thirdly, which Pit brought up and i am now beginning to under-
 stand is the proprietary aspect of 'cyberspace', in that it is
 not a neutral term, but has an origin, an ideology, and it can
 be a belief system propagated in its negative aspects even if
 it is not an intention of the ghost-writing author of cultural
 hegemony and the false-construct of cyberspace as cyberspace,
 and not cyberspace as space. this put into perspective for me
 the relation to property rights, intellectual property, the
 legal aspects of space, building/zoning/planning codes, and
 the development of 'space'. while there is this proprietary
 aspect in 'Gibsonian Cyberspace' as i think many have called
 it, including Michael Benedikt, architect-author of Seeing
 Cyberspace: First Steps; there are also other conceptions of
 cyberspace as a word that are beyond the coining/commodification
 of the word, which are generic enough to encompass what a word-
 concept without the same etymological and past narrative context
 cannot compare to. while i know little of Esperanto, what i've
 heard is seems comparable, if it is true it was created as a
 universalizing language, and has its disciples, yet never 'took
 off' on its intended course. in a similar way, if it can be
 said, cyberspace does what a language like British English
 did for American English, as space has also done for cyberspace.
 just contemplating this has now made me very worried, in that
 i find it rich with maddening parallels about many other key-
 word and concepts. if cyberspace could be considered like
 American English, as it represents what is seen as American
 cult/ure, then it could be contemplated that American English
 may have become a certain type of Esperanto or universal language,
 although it may not have been so desired, and it may not be a very
 good one at that, given all the other choices that could have been
 made, if they could have been made or decided upon and had their
 intentions ratified by that which does not yet exist but which
 seems to be forming just for this very same desire for universality.
 
 as an attempt at a closer analysis regarding the above, American
 culture could be seen as a proprietary export. which is truthful.
 yet, as a language, American English is the opposite of this, it
 is inclusive and borrows much from many different languages, as
 far as Edward Hall indicates with regard to language while also
 demonstrating how space is so very different beyond American
 culture, language and space, inside and outside, mind and body
 again... from an American perspective, if mine could be called
 that, which i think it is not in the terms i am writing, the
 word-concept that is cyberspace is generic and not proprietary,
 in the context which i have previously evaluated its spatial
 aspects. yet, i can now see that cyberspace, when used, could
 also be considered in terms of being an American 'export' of
 its cultural control of space, and its expansionism of the
 American worldview as the universal worldview aspect of using
 such a word as cyberspace, if denying these aspects, trying
 to falsely negate the truths that contradict a simple accept-
 ance of the word-concept, and more. so too, though, it seems
 reciprocally problematic to see a term like cyberspace only
 in terms of its proprietary aspects. why? it may be that just
 because it is being pragmatized via commercialization and the
 exploitation of internetworked space by the corporation that is
 the American Enterprise, that global cult/ure, that cyberspace
 can also be realized as a generic term, counter to its popular
 notions, and its pragmatic use less about second order re-
 presentations of other ideas, such as space, and instead a
 general approximation of an idea, without proprietary specificity,
 that describes well-enough that first-order experience of the
 real, not in ideal terms, but enough to become a shared word-
 concept used to converse about something that is different,
 a new world import, that everyone is grappling to understand.

 one aspect of Pit's writing keys in on a difference which to
 me clarifies a shared intention, but it is so hard to try to
 explain for me, like trying to resolve all the issues in the
 purging of words from the internal and external landscapes while
 also trying to find some resolution in putting out more and more
 texts, without adding more and more noise, or overloading the
 circuits with meaning... or its total lack from some vantages...

 when writing of `the heroic age of cyberspace', as Pit did in
 a recent post, it reminds me of how opposite to my experience
 of cyberspace is, as space, not as cyberspace as a word-unto-
 itself. the idea of a relationship may be that which bridges
 concepts of space and cyber-space. a type of extension. yes,
 but... 

 there seems to be a value associated with cyberspace in Pit's
 view that i do not share, at least initially. after i can see
 and appreciate cyberspace from its proprietary view and all
 of the wonderful data and cult/ural analysis Pit has tacitly
 compiled on the no-space of cyberspace, then i can agree with
 the proposition being made. but it seems a parallelism of ideas
 and not a canceling of dueling truthes, but a building of a
 type of empiricism in the multiplicity that is the thinking,
 feeling, believing, acting, and reacting internetwork today.

 to me 'cyberspace' as a generic word cannot be bad or wrong.
 it could be true or false though, as it is more of technical
 word when applied to traditional spatial analysis of geography,
 architectural, and archaeology, all disciplines dealing with
 the body in the landscape, at the same time as making a bridge
 to that great internal landscape of the mind, in the development
 of the studies, researches, and the disciples that follow this
 system of belief. if the intangibility of space could be held
 aside for a moment, and the technical analyses of space consider-
 ed by the above routes of exploration, the mathematical or the
 quantitative aspects of 'space' could help provide a route to
 seeing how 'cyberspace' can also be understood from a technical
 dimension which cannot be disposed of even though other aspects
 of the concept may be inaccurate or misguided or even stupid.

 for example, in architecture, a column of marble from classical
 Western architecture is considered symbolically to re-present
 the idea of connecting heaven and earth, or in today's context,
 mind and body, potentially. that's the poetry of architecture.
 the technical aspect of the column, say when several are put
 together in a row and march down a street in a line, achieve
 a sense of a spatial order. and this order can be quantified
 as has been via mathematical and musical proportioning systems
 as a type of rationale for the technical truth of this defining
 of space with architectural artifacts. ratios become important,
 width, size, and number. now while today's psychologists can
 say with some evidence that, like a cat's eyes have upward
 slits as that is how they evolved as tree occupying ambassadors,
 so too, humans may identify with the column, as a tree, as an
 earlier habitat, or even as that verticality which goes from
 the ground to the sky, as a basic truth. that the sky, or
 upward, is heaven is debatable, but the verticality of the
 column is self-evidently making a connection, or bridge
 between realms, which can transit from the technical to the
 metaphysical.

 if one can suspend judgment a little further, cyberspace can
 be looked at in a similar regard, to its simple truth-factor
 in a one-to-one comparison with the above example, which is
 representative of the ancient western architectural worldview,
 which is that of modernist and postmodernist and avant-garde
 architecture today, even.

 ...

 the column today, connecting sky/mind with earth/body, can
 so too be seen in the electrical distribution poles which often
 populate the external landscape as wooden columns, created from
 local forests, else they are of concrete, metal, or fiberglass.
 the old classical verticality of the pole remains, and the
 ground is connected with the sky. and traditional spatial
 concepts can be seen as continuous. yet, the string of wires
 that are rung upon these poles, for billions of miles around
 the earth, are like the classical lintel which creates a
 horizontal structure which these traditional columns support.
 in the past, this lintel was made of stone (stonehenge) or
 wood, as is basic construction. today, this lintel consists
 of wires for electrical power, and electronic communications.
 that is, if one were to 'section' the cables and wires that
 hang on the distribution poles, one would be able to visualize
 (conceptually at least, unless one has a good electron micro-
 scope) the matter-energy-information transiting the wires,
 coursing through them, that is, the electronic space that
 the traditional space of wooden poles is supporting, just
 as space supports cyberspace, and British-English does
 American-English as a language. architecturally, space
 cannot describe what electronic landscape is inhabiting
 these wires, as is defined externally by these wooden poles,
 without a generic word-concept like cyberspace. digital
 space, electromagnetic space, net space, they just do not
 have the default association that cyberspace has around
 it as a cultural meme for this new-old space, which we
 are rediscovering, or discovering anew. or so i propose.

 by examining cyberspace from a technical perspective firstly,
 there is an ability to 'ground' the internal virtuality of
 'computer and electronic communications space' in a brief
 word like cyberspace, which takes the virtual and puts it
 back into the realm of the body of tradition, in the poles
 while also acknowledging their relationship to the wires,
 which itself is ancient as can be. there is no value-
 judgement here. it is an issue of counting thing, seeing
 the height of things, seeing how things relate to one
 another, in basic and simple truths. how does 'the Internet',
 (if ever there was a proprietary word, i would think this
 is much moreso than cyberspace, as a proper/specific/
 proprietary noun) find tangibility in the world, if not
 through its existence in common physical artifacts around
 the world, if not by seeing how it is put together, what
 makes it run, how it was created, evolved, and how its
 system fits together in the larger assemblage of space
 that supports it... the grounding of the virtual, of
 the intangible, of the immaterial, is in the material,
 in the tangible, and in the actuality of the everyday
 first order experience of an individual in the world.
 when such first person observation is considered bad,
 firstly, it seems that there is a dogmatic assumption
 at work, some heresy underway, like that challenging
 of spatial notions between the heaven of the Church
 and the sun of Galileo. yet today, it is the space
 of tradition and its uncomfortable and hard-to-grasp
 relationship to what could generically be considered
 cyberspace, a technical extension of space in the
 electromagnetic infrastructure of power plants, media
 outlets, and the other sub- and supra- networks that
 rely upon it for existence in the 21st century and
 beyond, much as did the 19th century begin to emerge
 from the space of tradition by opening up this mystery,
 its exponential embrace today encompassed only in the
 abstraction of speed, as everything is lit so bright
 as to blind any long-term observation, thins are
 moving so very fast, words, thoughts, ideas, people,
 time, so much so that things standing still may even
 seem to be second-order representations of old ideas
 that are no longer relevant, but which could instead
 be seen as vital to stopping this speed-trap and
 taking a deep breath and stomping the feet down in
 place, and hanging on as the discursive tornado
 passes, the trees are uprooted and fall, and we
 are left to rebuild with a shared experience of
 what nature is, how powerful it is, and how very
 fragile is our understanding of what is, in relation
 to what really is. we know by now, war won't do this.

 so, cyberspace, from a technical point of view, is
 an issue of truth and not-exactly-true or not-true
 or falsity, or half-truthes and paradoxical logics,
 at the very least degree of observing space today.

 if, to be brief about it, it had to be keyworded,
 this technical cyberspace, as a type of space, can
 be seen in terms of its quantity, not quality alone,
 and in its mathematical relation to experience (can
 you have the electrical infrastructure of today with-
 out the equations of mathematicians, for example). it
 is like comparing cyberspace in two categories, one
 as dull and profane as an objective mathematical
 construct, and another as a qualitative construct
 evaluated on its language-value, and as a commodity
 in terms of its theoretical use-value and authenticity.

 thus, from one view, the pivot point in this sounding,
 is that the truth and falsehood of cyberspace as a
 word-concept are butting up against the right and
 wrongness of cyberspace as a word-concept.

 from the technical cyberspace first-person, yet also
 potentially universal, empiricism, one can go further
 in briding the virtuality of online space with that
 of the ancient concept of mind. where imaginations
 and dreams are also this other electromagnetic cyber-
 space, as is the online experience, a virtuality
 that is a phase change of difference from the realm
 of the body and its external landscape. and yet, the
 mind is outside, it is on hard disks, and on network
 servers and webpages, as a place in space. and, to
 continue the technical analysis, to find this 'space'
 one will arrive at an archaeology of the infrastructure
 which supports the internetworked landscape, that thing
 consisting of artifacts of those mundane wooden poles,
 sadly lacking prestige, in the everyday environment.
 these structural columns not only carry the powerlines,
 and the communications lines of the online landscape,
 the internal life of mind, but also mediate the land
 of traditional space, as they occupy it as artifacts.
 this is not an issue of good nor bad, but truth or..?

 so what it seems to have occurred in our discussions
 Pit is that i approach the subject from the land, from
 the external, which may come to equal and opposite
 conclusions about the word-concept, such that it is
 generic and not specific, that it is open, not closed,
 that it is authentic, not a false-construct or a dead-
 metaphor, because of this particular approach to the
 same idea from a different vantage. yet, i can too
 now realize the truth of your position, and largely
 agree with it, regarding your intent, which i think
 is to find something authentic and actual and not
 borrowed and adopted or adapted to a situation which
 it does not describe and may cloud up the truth in
 terms of a words language-value in describing this
 event as realistically as is possible, if possible,
 at this point (or vector) in time.

 from my vectorial vantage, this all relates to the
 basic concept of the mirror. when one stands outside
 of an experience, yet sees within it, and can think
 and be within it, yet it is both a reflection and
 also a projection of the self into a realm beyond,
 that 'through the looking glass' which the body so
 far cannot penetrate but conceptually. and thus, it
 is conceptually we must understand where we are, and
 our word-concepts need to be useful and accurate if
 we are to discuss shared experiences. i still think
 and feel cyberspace is a term of value, in terms of
 truth and falsehood, about space in the realm of
 the electromagnetic infrastructure of power, media,
 and technology. yet, this does not at all negate,
 nor does it seems to need to, the cultural detritus
 that is the export of cyberspace as a thing unto
 itself. which is like another commodification of
 ideas into ideologies, and the capitalization of
 intellectual property as a type of homogenizing
 force against an individual's perception of events,
 versus an established world view.
 
 what has been great for me in all of this is learning
 from your perspective while in total disagreement
 upon the basic tenet of 'either cyberspace or no space'.
 to me this is not the question we face. it is not so
 much about the word, as the perception of the word,
 about its interpretation and presentation of it as
 a word-concept, from a perspective. in my sense of
 things, it seems i have worked my way inward with
 the concept, to come to the ideas. whereas you are
 much more in the ideas, and able to decipher all of
 the spatial metaphors which are very rich with regards
 to space, as a technical concept, while at the same
 time the cultural constructs may be deprived of any
 real authentic uniqueness, and more like an online
 McDonalds for all, cyberspace as American cult/ural
 export. this is all a guess, but it has not left me
 since our first discussions, and it is time we crack
 this enigmatic code-word and come to some resolution
 of the relations between our differing views. there
 must be some bridge where both a technical cyberspace
 and a no space cyberspace can co-exist and actually
 relate to one another, in some type of harmonic field
 of what is and what ifs...

 i have not been able to read the text regarding the
 law of space you sent but am interested in it and
 find it an intriguing place to go with this idea...
 making a site now and contemplated making a call-
 for-projects for exploring 'electromagnetic space
 and time', in an effort to see if a multiplicity of
 views of cyberspace as a generic word-concept could
 be elicited from researchers online. and yet the word
 specificity and its 'branding', so to speak, limit it
 by making it technical, whereas if one were to do a
 call-for-projects for cyberspace, every rote pundit
 would enter the contest to out-'smart' the others
 with their command of the cultural ideology, which i
 think you are referring to. it seems the paradox is
 within language itself. instead, i would like to try
 to make a bigger net and try to establish an online
 collaborative project which compiles peoples' ideas
 on electromagnetic civilization, and if in spatial
 terms, all the better. if you, Pit, or anyone else
 are interested in consulting on this idea, i would
 appreciate any advice or suggestions you may have
 on how to proceed. to me such an online project, non-
 commercial and preferably, in the realm of research,
 non-proprietary and generic, could clarify where we
 meet in our word-concepts and where we diverge, and
 where we can find bridges between our experiences,
 places to ground the shared landscapes we now inhabit.

 bc

 for a short analysis on the columns and e-poles in relation
 to space and cyberspace, please see the essay: AE Parti
 http://www.architexturez.com/ae/overview/towards/comp/parti/ltop.htm

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