brian carroll on 15 Feb 2001 11:27:55 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: 'Spatial Discursions' - (space and no space) |
fascinating Pit, in many ways, some of which i view as including personal assessments of my belief in my own work in regards to this subject. i think it is a major flaw in your position, and will get to that later. but also that, again, your perspective enlarges the question to the full-scope it reaches. to me space is engimatic in many ways, and maybe it is because of language and naming, but i think not, given your multiple arguments for the end of cyberspace. it seems the best way to sum it up is: cyberspace is tired. a very west coast thing, if you ask me. and an unhealthy trait of nettimers as producers and consumers of throwaway ideas, in one end and out the other. how 'space' can be simply thrown away, to me, is baffling. if not insane. there are so many interesting things you bring up, and yet on most, when it comes to conclusions based on the evidence you present, i find richness in the garbage, rather than waste. i find meaning, rather than worn metaphors. i find ideas 5 years old still worth thinking about, not simply to be discarded and new ones 'purchased' by an insider on the net.thought crowd. and thought, in many cases, it is, but philosophy it is not. for philosophy is debated and questioned, not authoritatively dismissed as being beyond the pale. nettime consumes thought as a type of division of labor. there are thinkers, there are non-thinkers. there are net.intellectuals, the net.avant-garde, and others. in this division, a concept like 'space' and all of its complexity as a subject of thousands of years of study by people whom know it in more than a thinking dimension, whom can draw it, think it, act it, smell it, feel it, dream it. and then there are those that can think it, or so it seems. this is a myth of course, the division of labor of ideas, of space. but it is the construct that ideas of space currently are exchanged within, where space is in some cross-disciplinary mix, between art, architecture, geography, & science and technology. to have a 'san francisco programmer' defeat the idea of space from the perspective of a programmer looking out from his keyboard at the 'billboards' (banner-ads) of the web browser and say 'space does not exist' as it ends at my screen is, to say the least, idiotic. at its most basic level it is untrue. now, if one states why this is so, the defense mechanism for the theoretical absence of space is only reinforced by intellectualist arguments. intellectualist in the sense that, yes it is thinking, but it is not necessarily logical thinking, and not all thinking is equally valuable. it is value- laden, but who decides value. you, Pit, have stated a large position, but it in no way negates my position. it is based on very large assumptions promoted by an intellectual division of labor. and instead of breaking down the issue to get at the core, more and more issues are added in. cybernetics, biotechnology, aliens, and Stalinist drives for power. all of which may have their place in this discussion, but only make the water more muddy and hard to see what is being debated, and what the issue we disagree about indeed is. instead of a divisive approach of divide and conquer (of new modes of `spatial discursions', that very issue that seems to be the problem with the concept of cyberspace), i suggest we simply and break this nut apart and see what kind of meat is on the inside... first, to divest context of the division of labor on the thinking of space online. Virilio, in my reading, does not negate space in his arguments, as much as presents the idea that space becomes intangible in its new speed. i believe one of his examples was to relate measurements, a meter or foot, a mile, etc, and ultimately works to the idea of these now being standardized based on the vibrations of atoms, i.e., the atomic clock as standard bearer. there is time, the clock of the middle ages made of molecules, and there is the atomic clock, sub-atomic. one can be seen and directly perceived, and the other requires some type of equipment to view, such as a electron microscope. there are two orders of time, which are most visible in the analog clock (round dial with 2 watch hands, one for minute and one for hour) and the digital, with LCD output. at least there once was. the one design, the analog watch, is based on some kind of planetary time, and the cycle of the day has some dual meanings, in that time is broken down into twelve hour cycles and the continuity is seen. the digital watch is all numbers. and a small a.m. or p.m. symbol designates which section of the 12 hour cycle one is in. the point being that there is a difference in the watches keeping of time, in appearance. now, if we take this concept, post-1970 whereabouts the first digital watches were made, and look at an 'analog' watch today, we can see what may appear to be the 'mechanical' analogue watch of the many centuries of prior timepiece development, but if we open the shell we will find an electric battery. the digital watch is obviously electric, the other is not. both are using the same power source to keep time. but one presents itself in traditional guise, and the other in a new aesthetic. this is an example of how two orders coexist, both electric. one identified as such, the other sublimated, with traditional aspects presented as the primary interface, but a simulation. i will now try to relate these two orders to the idea of space and cyberspace.... (please substitute any other word other than cyberspace that you would use to define the following comparision)... two orders of space likewise exist. one is traditional, the other is new, someday to become its own tradition. the cave painting, or better yet, a fire pit outside a cave with hunters with wooden spears and bone tools, try to communicate with each other about the animals nearby, which they need to kill to survive. they must have grunted a lot, banged on things, probably pushed each other over, and ran inside and outside of the cave a lot. such is the problem with communicating without a shared language. at some point, they externalized their perceptions in the manipulation of symbols. paintings of animals, for example. if such graphics were recognized as a type of language, so too it is likely that in the dirt outside the fire pit, they may have at one time drawn a map of where the animal-monsters were to be killed. maybe the tip of a spear was used to draw a diagram, and the dirt was used as a type of medium to communicate spatial and other information. so, at some point, some kind of map or diagram was used to show 'place.' (if this is too in- accurate, i know there are the first maps of civilization at another time, but wanted to try for a smaller scale, for the following comparison...) eventually maps began to be made, see Odden's Bookmarks for a slew of all the varieties, and become a way to represent the prevailing reality of spatial belief and understanding, part art, science, and myth. for the most part, these maps could be related to the analog watch. in that they corresponded with the prevailing realities of either the map makers, or those individuals, states, and civilizations they were commissioned by in ink and pencil, watercolors, oil paints, and paper. cut to year 2001. an individual flys into a large American city and has a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with them as their digital information device. in the USA, one can get a laminated maps at the tourist shops for a few dollars which show all of the tourist hotspots and places for sight-seeing. in a sense, these maps continue the old traditional map-making procedure of defining place, but most likely in the 'conquering of space' by coding it and making it hierarchical and differentiating it and giving it value (rich cultural places) and no value (no hotspots on the map). but let's say the person/traveller also has a Global Positioning System (GPS) plug-in for their PDA... when they turn on their GPS module, an electric device, a new paradigmatic event occurs, unlike that of traditional notions of space- and, likely many stander-by's have no idea that this GPS is a different paradigm of space. for instead of seeing and interacting in traditional space of the body and its senses, at whatever the sense of perception is for seeing (eyesight can only see so many hundreds of feet/meters ahead) and sound (can only hear within a certain range)... the GPS is using electronic satellites in orbit, around the entire Earth, to calculated via a triangulation of 3 different satellites, the semi-exact position of the GPS device, and thus the user of the map, via digital, electronic signals interacting between the GPS module, the satellites, and the ground-tracking stations. the satellites are, i think, 33 miles up in orbit- beyond sight. now, on the GPS, one can get a real- time update of where they are- on the planet Earth, via longitude and latitude, and also have a digital compass to give directions, via digital satellites. if lucky, the GPS will have software for the PDA which will have some street-map software. and the user of the GPS can utilize pre-made maps, with hotspots made by travel companies, or download custom maps from the internet, or make their own via marking space and giving it meaning. the GPS user becomes a mapmaker, if they so want, and can load their information back onto the internet and others can add to the map and create whole new maps. it is at least now becoming a possibility. in this example, the GPS device is the digital watch, a new order, which still has the old map in its representation, but in a different paradigm and with different qualities. (those whom find the word 'representation' too out of date, i'd be glad to debate the issue, to find out more about the basis for this popular belief). basically, the 'Spatial Discursions' author's argument can be compared to the traditional map and the GPS map: 'Robert Nirre' states that the traditional 'map' is spatial, conceptually and functionally. 'Robert Nirre' states that the GPS map is non- spatial, from the argument that 'the traditoinal map' inside of the GPS, in this case the software, which he is perceiving, has no spatial connection as there is nothing extending outside of itself. in my view Pit's argument goes further down this road, by talking about the layers of the technology, which i would compare with the latitude and the longitude aspects of GPS, or, on the hardware side, the way the packets are being sent. Pit presumes there is no 'meaning' in this 'materiality'. this argument, while popular and populist, disregards many important facts. for the GPS system, as a spatial system, to work requires more than the computer/PDA, and the software. it requires a global infrastructure. literally, dozens of satellites. hundreds of ground stations. repeater stations. and lots of data exchange and power to run the works. without this infrastructure, the GPS map would not work. now, can the GPS map, as a spatial device, be separated from this infrastructure as Pit appears to be saying, and Robert Nirre has most definitely stated? absolutely not. how can a global mapping system work without the global infrastructure to map the space? there is no meaning in a satellite in regards to the GPS map? no meaning to a ground station? that is like positing the Internet without hubs and routers (at least this incarnation thereof). there is great hubris in 'thinking' that there is an intellectual division between the thought of the GPS map, or the new electromagnetic space that it represents (cyberspace could be one of many variant and imperfect words to describe it). the division-of-labor thinker, aka "Theorist", intellectual, official/legitimate philosopher [need a Ph.D. for that these days, it seems...] makes the false claim that because the 'inside' of the experience, as experienced by the thinker, is perceived and interpreted in 'his' (as in Mr. Robert Nirre's) viewpoint, somehow this is a universal truth about the experience, as it is theoretical, has big words, has some interesting conceptual breadth and insight, and yet rests on a totally deficient understanding of space and of the larger technological structure, and its vital relationship to space-making, and instead, denies this, or better, negates it as is popular in theoretical circles, in order to 'think space.' talking with a young child, one could likely be able to explain how GPS works and ask a simple question like: could GPS work without Satellites? but with Robert Nirre, no such question is possible. nor with Pit. as there are tons of pre-established positions on these issues. and discourse becomes 'talking-points', a type of brain sampling, but caught in the discursive practice, every loop is creating archives, but also digging ditches, until we can agree we need to make a ladder and get out of this competitive grave, agree on some basic truths, and start working together instead of against one another. cooperation, then competition. no, it is not possible for GPS to work without the satellite networks. nor without electromagnetic digital information, nor without electricity, nor without Einstein's and others' physics. how these are simply disregarded as outside the playing field of thinking about space is truly beyond comprehension. because of the division of labor in thinking, it is hard to discuss any possibility, _any possibility_, of universal and common truths, however fleeting and with whatever degree of uncertainty they inherently convey. sure, gnostic beliefs and mystic adventures await for all the cult-theorists, or cult-pols, on the internet, to scoop up brains and train them to think straight in a prioritized and private rationale for 'how things work'. but truth, as truth, and thinking as thinking, cannot simply negate universals with this position, and deem it not credible because of heresy. there are a million messiahs and a million churches being built online. that's not what this is about, in case it needs to be said. it seems like a battle of egos. one truth has to conquer another truth. truth, while it can be empirical, can also be paradoxical. but- computer processors today do not process information that way just yet, nor do our brains, as it is not part of our common logic. it seems that it comes down to whether or not Robert Nirre, Pit, or myself win this debate. rather than that there are issues involved, that surround beliefs and perceptions of what is true, and that finding out that truth is what is important. i do not dismiss whole eras of 'history' because they are unfashionable. not many have had to question their sanity, but when you do, truth becomes very important, as it is an issue of life and death. so too, is reason and rationality more than its negative effects. more than its relativistic failures. more than its utopian dreams and dystopic nightmares, and our Earthly dragons. thinking goes beyond discourse, beyond opinion, beyond interpretation, beyond debate. even great unanswerable questions must be asked, and attempts made at answering them, even though the futility is known well in advance. it is a way of testing ideas, testing thought, reality. do we exist in the same reality, you and i, Pit? i know for one thing, i certainly do not with Robert Nirre. he is hallucinating. he's nuts. he has no grounding for his ideas. he is dreaming, and is probably quite well-enough established to not to have to worry about it affecting his life. it is status quo 'See, I'm Theorizing!' that pre-supposes shared meaning where there is none, and assumes his empirical experience to be universal, when it is sadly narrow-minded in terms of `spatial discursive practice'. there is good to it, but the thesis is an insult to anyone who thinks differently, based on facts in the material world that can be counted and observed and reviewed and replicated by others. it is just another example of the role of theory as another institutional mechanism for the ideologues, in this case a good ol' technocrat in disguise, in the guise of an intellectual, whatever that means to people. anti-intellectual is a bad thing to some, i don't think so myself. part of the problem is all of the intellectualizing. it divorces the reality of the experience from its perception, and perception becomes the issue, and not the reality. with ultimately some god (or goddess) coming along to stand on the heads of everyone else, in pure Nietzschian fashion to declare themselves the new theorist, the super-wo|man, the semantic-wo|man whom determines meaning for the masses based on superior knowledge, uncontestable, and not unlike the philosophy that bred totalitarians. but in this case they are leading, but anonymous or untouchable, net.thinkers. the scarcity of these net.thinkers is found with any challenge to their ideas. what sets nettimers apart, in my experience, is they will debate enough so that the ideas can be exposed and their bones picked at in this 'death of nettime' space, in the most basic existentialist sense. the above quote is a reversal of the 'death of cyberspace' nettime that is now going on. i see nettime as no more legitimate an idea than that of cyberspace. the simplest but most painful way of conveying what this boils down to is that the philosophy which overrides net.thought and the prevailing logic that exists online, to date, is one that is established on traditional grounds, and in the division of labor, net.intellectuals, knowingly or not, are exploiting these relations in much the same way as the causes they stand against. paradox, contradiction, and hypocrisy- myself included. net.thought is much like a discourse about digital watches, all the while using logic of the analog watch, which is itself run by the same power structure that powers the digital. but the power structure, the energy-matter is separated from the information, in a division of intellectual labor. the result is that, so as to not contradict the Either- Or position, one has to choose reality, choose truth. what is being chosen is not these, but instead the perception of truth and reality, based on a flawed logic and reason and rationale. to declare no space in cyberspace is equivalent to declaring no battery in the present-day analog watch, as it would ruin the illusion that things are already figured out and the empiricism that has been used up to this day for interpretation is not any different from that of today's direct experience, and no significant reframing of the issues or questions is needed. we only need to process the present and theorize it and figure it out, so we can continue the long march into surity, which if anything is the biggest myth of all. apostasy is so. whether it is cyber- virtual- electronic- electromagnetic- digital- or new- space, there is space. there will always be space. it is not dividing because it is between the different disciplines of the University, between the different depart-mentalized understandings of it as a phenom. there must be a way to break out of constructs and see them anew, seeing them without the baggage of interpretation- at times with their stories, at times without. how can net.thought be so absolute. so assured of its certainty that 'no space exists'. it is nothing but messianic bread and fish, multiplied by being multi- plexed by the internetwork of co-processors. it becomes pure Dogma, which it has become in Robert Nirre's essay. there is no logic to stand on, nothing to debate. unless it is sanity. how material objects of non-thinkers (say an electrical lineworker or telecom worker whose trade is to maintain the data and power lines on the wooden distribution poles) are irrelevant to this 'dis-course' and its practice as a type of thinking is unclear. there is some type of cultural noise happening here. there are loaded words from all perspectives. buttons are being pushed at the same times hands are being shaken. this is not bad. this is life. this is thinking. this is discourse. but what about action? how are we going to get beyond talking. beyond debating. beyond disagreement without constructive solutions to these recursive loops inherent in language? to me this is an issue as central to nettime as anything in the current .sig, as it is what seems can only be called the No Exit condition of nettime as discursive (theory and) practice. theory is bullshit. what more is there to say? thoughts and ideas are what is important. theory is a package for them. but instead it has become its own value, as a type of high-art for thinking, the 'new' philosophy, unbounded by the limits of the past, but in total obedience to its structure while denying any connection. it is not about individuals as much as it is about systems. it is not about people being untruthful, as much as ideas being not exactly true or altogether inaccurate, from the grounds and assumptions used to establish them. there is a trade wind online and off, and it is blowing conservatism all over the place. even in the most open of forums. there is a bad feeling, something in the gut that growls and does not go away. there is a probabilistic inevitability that Bad Things are bound to happen, given the state of the world. given the state of discourse. given the state of incompatible ideas and specialized, divided modes of operation. cooperation on any scale as a whole is impossible. no change is in site. ideas are eating ideas. often the lesser ideas prevail in the Universities. in the Schools of Thought. in the Expert Knowledge. in the Philosophers and Theorists of Today. spectacle does not start with the eyes, it starts with the mind. with my utmost respect to both Pit and the nettime crew, i dissent this system as it exists. i both love it and hate it. i need it and yet cannot stand my need for it. for some, it is like a last hope of any significant action. if it cannot happen with those on nettime, it cannot happen online. and many are here because ideas already cannot happen offline. if there is any space that does not exist, it is for ideas which contradict the prevailing paradigm, on the largest scale. my assumption was always that nettime was established with a paradigmatically different vantage of events. but to my surprise, everything is based in traditional modes of understanding. stuck in time, is nettime. analog mind, speculating about digital time, while ignoring the batteries running the works. the cosmology of the big bang to life is not divided at the cellular level. information is not separated from matter and energy. information is matter and energy. if a koan is needed, McLuhan's will do: the Electric Light is Pure Information. the cell and molecules of DNA are supported by the electromagnetic structure of atoms and molecules. mutations have been attributed to high-energy particles knocking electrons out of orbit and causing reconfigurations of matter/ energy/information and life to evolve. the human spine is a data and power infrastructure connecting the signal systems of the body so as to experience or sense reality, interpreted by the electro-chemical brain. the human brain thinks, i exist. it externalizes itself in maps infront of fires, trying to communicate with symbols and signs. ultimately, tools are developed, and things are experimented with. 2500 years ago a fellow named Thales finds amber and notices a spark. the connection between the lighting and gods and in the sky is brought to the ground in this magical stone. research & development begins. lighting, communications, power. basic industries (those smokestack industrial things that power this electronic box that enables us to communicate) are born centuries ago in basic experiments and discoveries. systems are created and evolve, enabling electrification. all of the analog industries slowly start to adapt/adopt the new electromagnetic order. buildings change. people change. tools change. language changes. watches have batteries. guitars go electric and becomes rock n roll. satellites are launched. atomic bombs explode. the Earth is melts. pollution from power plants and 2/3rds energy inefficiency devastate the planet. the USA uses 1/4 of the world's energy, with a fraction of the world's population. the internet is born, apparently to many, out of thin air, no infrastructure, no context, besides the immediate. people are inside the space it creates, all those poles and towers which have been around for often 100 years in some form in the built environment- and since they are not visible online, they do not exist, as they are not on a webpage. they are not in this internal self-referential turing-machine, where whatever is outside a person's 'reality' is someone else's (division of labor) perspective. there is no whole. there is nothing in common. there is nothing in this 13+ billion year evolution of electromagnetism. lighting, Thor, Zeus, electric eels, light bulbs, consciousness, computer processors, radios, knowledge of the electromagnetic force, the speed of light, microwave ovens, PDAs, electric ignitions, piezo- electric lighters, and whatnot- none of these are related- difference/differance prevails. why? there can be no absolute order. there can be no universal order. there can be nothing true on the whole, as everything is ultimately subjective, and of private language, private visioning. an electromagnetic cosmology is not a private question. it is surely debatable. but to put it off as a private illusion is the worst of the current realm of thinkers. if facts do not matter, if truths do not matter, if pre-built structures and interpretations prevail, what is this type of thinking, but that of tradition? it is the analog watch using a battery denying the existence of the battery, its motive force. it is a new order, a new space, a new time. Virilio writes of it, in my opinion, too religiously, and others do, in my opinion, too mystically. what about a secular understanding of this phenomenon? what about its common thread throughout reality, from thought to action, from matter to energy to information. this is not plastic we're discussing. it is life. if for some it is vitalistic, that's fine. but it does not have to be that for everyone. if for others it is purely technical, that too is fine. but to deny it on subjective grounds as personal interpretation is an example of everything that is wrong with the current attitude, and aptitude of net.thinking. it is as much about posture as it is about position. it is more about the aesthetics of ideas in terms of their beauty, than about the design of ideas and their truth. the egos must be lost. the hierarchies flattened. the institutional channels opened up for new interpretations which challenge their own foundations of understanding. this is a radical time, it has huge potential for people to organize and work together in the best and most open sense, to enact the change we can agree that we need. the problem is that we cannot agree. and there is no 'we' under the current system of net.thought. there exists no net.action. when, where, how will we come together, in this space (your non-space) and work on shared goals? is it even possible? i have been optimistic up to this point, but a thunderstorm runs through my mind as i contemplate the fallout from furthering this discussion. writing is abrasive. getting together and talking about this need not be so. but that is not always a possibility. we have to mediate ourselves in language, through communication networks. we can talk, as if we are in the same room, space, that we are offline, which we are not. that is not the argument. the argument is whether this space can be understood and 'seen' and also whether the rules of language can be deciphered so we can re-code our communications so as to get beyond the current barriers of language and into a constructive and active relationship by understanding this space (not by denying it) and export or port this action into the external world, much like the first hunters looking for the game for dinner, to keep the tribe alive. well, some have a tribe. many do not, in the larger sense, in an undivided sense. barriers and divisions prevail, and withstand any breach from traditional means and methods. it is time, net.time, to break with tradition and look at these problems, and understand them from our first person perspective, and build our new empiricism based upon what we, as a common group of people, see and experience. but not as private individuals, but as a group. what do we have in common. war, poverty, death, inequality, pollution, etc. well, if we understand networked.space-time as as it is materially manifested in the electromagnetic infrastructure, both natural, artificial, and virtual, we are connected, by default to all of these issues. and to deny this is to do so only on intellectualistic grounds, not on common sense of intersubjective facts/truths common to most all. this is the great silence, the great denial, the great intellectual division of labor, and the thinkers are responsible for their ignorance, and should be first to recognize the truth as that is what they seek most. this response melds a personal message with ideas that are far from personal. it is up to the reader to determine what they think this means, not the writer. i can only hope that other humans reading this, if any do, recognize this trap we exist within, the condition of the networked space and time we inhabit with our selves, and the need to work together on finding better alternatives for the present, and ways to implement these. if one calls this madness, they are the ones who are mad. and madness is not at all that bad, if one realizes one is indeed insane. at that point, things get pretty clear, that nothing is real, unless you make it real. and i hope others see the reality of the larger issues this topic of space holds for our ability to work in this realm to make things happen for the public good. everything is privatized. even democratic thought. it is by default. it is a trap. a psychological-philosophical conundrum. no need for doctors and patients. no need for consumers and survivors. it is time to Howl and break out of this place. -human being the electromagnetic internetwork is matter, energy, and in-formation http://www.electronetwork.org/ research in summer 2001: electromagnetic space & time: tools will include: electromagnetic field (EMF) meter radio scanner GPS module/pending geographical traceroute program _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold