nonlocated online
co-realities
Knowbotic
Research
> territories, incorporation and the
matrix
Labels such as cyberspace, information
highway, teleorganism, plasma, net world or virtual communities illustrate the
yet unregulated potential of information and communication technologies. They
suggest an expanded and expendable cultural environment and are symptoms of the
so-called digital (r)evolution. The innumerable computers linked into global
networks, with their memory capacities and computing potential, form a digital
fieldsof interlinked data-territories. The shapes and incorporations prevailing
in this space are still being developed and expanded. The requisite
infrastructure is provided by the Internet, the world´s largest data network
(originally designed by the American military to be decentrally reconstructible
after a potential nuclear strike, hence its non-hierarchic structure). So far,
the system has evolved as a link between universities and 'super computer'
centers, remaining more or less in the shadow of political and economic
interests. But if we want to prevent this data space (consistently growing in
size and complexity due to the incipient commerzialization of the network) from
becoming just a failed duplicate of reality, then we must not view data
landscape and networked communities as a mere program engineering and marketing
problem within a self-regulating technocracy. The possibility of constructing
reality (or several realities!), and the opportunities inherent in the networked
worlds which can be derived from them, has given rise to a general sense of
insecurity and disconcertion for the public spheres. It becomes interesting,
when the resulting public tensions crave to be solved, in the face of an
obviously self-organizing system, by a set of equally entitled protagonists
(crisis managers, chaos physicists, media theoreticians, artists, cognition
researchers, architects, sociologists, cybernetics scientists, ecologists,
context designers, etc.) and require to be unfolded into processual fields of
distributed information and creativity (Tim Druckrey).
Territories:
It is this elated atmosphere preceding our
departure toward a new identity of the public and cultural space in which the
present publication, "Non located online" situates itself. It is an open
compilation of material dealing with the design and implementation of potential
"real" realities.
There is much current talk about the cyberspace;
everybody is emphasizing the Utopian innuendo of the "virtual" and rejoicing in
the conclusiveness of the term "reality" (safer reality). But flight simulators,
video games and medical inside views of our brain are nothing more than mimetic
representations supporting the everyday world with their complex convenience .
The interesting part are certain emerging phenomena, e.g., the incomprehensible
dimensions, the numerous constellations (layers) of events, and the still
enigmatic co-ordinates of spatial movements which grow on this
technology-supported culture medium. They will require us to part with our
two-dimensional imagination and three-dimensional reconstruction habits,
challenging us to develop an abstract multidimensional imagination instead. The
underlying spatial dimensions, for instance, such as the condensing
non-hierarchical node system of the Internet, are plainly impossible to
conceive. Yet, thesephenomena do not embody structures of isolated effects but
formalize real entities impacting our everyday life.
Incorporations:
The approach taken by "Non located
online" will therefore take us beyond the communicative aspects of data networks
(talk channels) which are of such topical interest today. As "virtual
communities", they have been extensively described by Howard Rheingold in the
traditional American pioneering spirit, but he too, like most commentators,
tends to view the network merely as an expanded reality (i.e., an extension of
the one, everyday, reality). Common metaphors such as "digital city", "global
village", "virtual city", "telepolis" refer to the single concept of a megacity
with its main street, post office, shopping line and financial district, and
reflect the wish for the network to become more densely colonized. The
traditional humanistic world view is thus re- conceptualized in the sense of
being re-duplicated. In such outlines uninhabited outer regions are negated,
sub- or cybversive forms of existence are ignored (i.e., ghettoized),
micristructures are overlooked, chaotic behaviour and uncertainty are curbed,
etc. These defects reflect a lingering continuation of an economic and
ideological 'missionary' approach, as well as elements of a colonial attitude.
This type of virtual culture draws its reality-constituting factors from the
"use" of prefabricated structures; the user elements are algorithmized
components of our city culture.
In response to this approach, the
material compiled below describes views of open processes, development
strategies, and dynamic processes in artificial territories which, in the
interests of consistency, can be based on the cognitive principles of science
and the abstracting methods employed in the arts.
The English biologist
and philosopher Richard Dawkins, for instance, proposed the concept of the memes
(cf. the text by O. Dyens) as self-replicable information sets which settle in
our cultural awareness, like a set of 'idea viruses' using DNA-generated life as
an ideal carrier substance in the manner of parasites. The dynamics and synergy
of an organism can only be ensured if it is activated by "individuals". In the
present case, these are data and infor-mation carriers, i.e., mobile units
performing functions as man's representativeagents. No matter whether we call
them knowbots, meme or digital organisms - they all act as incorporations inside
the network a n d, within the meaning of the 'idea virus' concept, definitely
operate outside the electronic spaces. Their energy potential fascinates
artificial life researchers and political scientists alike, regardless of
whether these entities "live out" paradox or teleological dynamics. They
determine events, acting as the cause of the generative and processual elements
which characterize this data space approach. This productive aspect, which
evokes creative impulses not only among its supporters (cf. Gert Döben-Henisch),
will induce "design" activity in its widest and most artistic sense. We are
faced with the following questions: How can we describe the non-locatable
(multi-present) data-space if the traditional laws of nature are not applicable
in this case? What kind of infrastructure may support such artificial, digital
territories? Which objects and signifiers do these infrastructures use and how
can we experience and peceive this hybrid mesh of interrelated effects, which is
to a certain extent self-organizing? Which are the functions of the
developer/user/observer of such digital space/time configigurations in which the
importance does not rest with the storage and time-delayed call-up and
transformation of information, but in the interaction with pre-existing entities
continuously re-constituting themselves? How can we render this imaginary matrix
of persistently self-generating and simultaneous speech conceptions perceivable
(e.g., through three-dimensional visualization), with its rules being
continuously violated and re-invented by thousands of unpaid Internet
developers?
We are obviously witnessing the emergence of a cultural
process entailing a conquest of network territory that gives rise to new concept
definitions and perception qualities. The present publication can only sensitize
the reader to the fact that the latter (and their symptoms) need to be
identified. We still lack the conventions to embark on any target-oriented
cognitive approach towards the phenomena, energetic forces, dynamic
compressions, stratifications, and traces involved; the process is still not
sufficiently self-referential, but it is full of poetic opportunities to
establish an event space for these undiscovered data habitats, one that may
function as the "language of the absent".
The matrix:
The self-referential approach, proceeding
according to McLuhan' s principle that "the medium is the message" (i.e.,
abstracting from social and political effects) will certainly prevail for yet a
while due to the elite-restricted propagation of the medium. But if the rapid
proliferation of the network continues and freedom of access remains ensured
(although every open system is at risk these days), the "matrix" concept will
have to be expanded. The idealistic goal envisaged by many network developers
and users is the democratization of knowledge presentation and generating
systems, as exemplified by the WorldWideWeb, a flat-hierarchy hypertext system
publishing private and institutional knowledge on an equal-rights basis, a type
of vision which once accompanied the advent of television or portable VCRs. What
matters are not the complex network structures within the data space but the
superimpositions between the various concepts of reality (in addition to all the
gaps, holes and cracks), and hence, the corridors to the so-called "first
reality" (refer to the "specific" projects by Ingo Günther and Gottfried
Meyer-Kress).
Thus we are called upon to counteract the above mentioned
disconcertion of the public space by engaging in a disarmament of world views,
and to keep the (network) doors open in the manner described by Peter Sloterdijk
as the "Copernican mobilization" effort.
KR+cF thanks all authors for
their commitment and support. Except for the contributions by Jordan Crandall,
Ingo Günther, H.P.-Sandkühler (thanks again to Meiner Publishing Co. for their
permission to reprint this material) and VNS-Matrix, the texts appearing below
were prepared specifically for this publication.