Where am I with technology?
The space I find myself....
Is it between?
Is it in?
Is it out?
Is it on?
Where am I?
I know when I sit next to you
Where I am is here....
Or there...
But always somewhere
in relation to you.
Where are you and
where am I when we "talk"
on the computer?
Where is my relation to you?
Somewhere?
Anywhere?
Words floating in a space between....
No where?
Is there a you?
What is the role of space in relationships? The term, "a?virtual space," has been coined to describe spatial relationships in computer communications.
The word "virtual" is derived from the Medieval Latin virtualis, itself derived from virtus, meaning strength or power. In scholastic philosophy, the virtual is that which has potential rather than actual existence. The virtual tends toward actualization, without undergoing any form of effective or formal concretization. The tree is virtually present in the seed. Strictly speaking, the virtual should not be compared with the real but the actual, for virtuality and actuality are merely different ways of being. (Levy, 1998, p. 23)In the Oxford English Dictionary (1989), virtual is described as an essence or effect that is not "formally or actually; admitting of being called by the name so far as the effect or result is concerned" (p. 674). Virtual is something that has reality through observed effects. I know someone by the effect that person has on an environment. The interaction or spatial-physical connection is removed. The word suggests distance, remoteness, disconnectedness. How can I communicate with someone else’s shadow? The person "virtually present" is only suggested by essences and effects. Can I know someone by the effects of their actions? When I act, it is within a context of relationship; the effects of my actions are determined by this context. Is there something consistent in the effects of actions that can portray who I am--the essence of me? Do the effects of my actions form a matrix of familiarity? What can effects say about me to another?
The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) defines virtual as it relates to computers to mean, “Not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so from the point of view of the programmer or user” (p. 674). The only existence or reality is in its appearance guided by a particular view. What I see is not reality, but an appearance that provides me with a means to interact with it. According to Heidegger, equipment that has a level of familiarity and utility can be operated seamlessly. There is no sense of subject-object separation. How does this seamlessness relate to a virtual space? If it becomes seamless, does it lose its sense of appearance? Would it become more or less alien? Is it possible for me to design instruction in a virtual space that is seamless? Is it possible to remove the alienation and disconnectedness of knowing a person as an effect? How can I get closer to a person in a space that only has the appearance of existing? Is it possible for someone to make this space “real?"
Imagined Space
Is there an elephant in the room
if blindfolded…
I feel a trunk or a leg or a tail?
Or….is it a trunk or a leg or a tail?
Or…is it like my imaginings linked to past images?
Is there something in the room?
Is there an elephant in the room
if “elephant” can not be imagined?
if the word has never been formed?
if the symbol is not “like”???
What if I see the elephant, but the “one” does not?
if “I” is not separate is all possibility resident in the “one”?
Is it possible for me to see something the “one” can
not?
Can there be an illusion or delusion?
Is there an elephant in the room?
I was talking to my daughter about virtual space. She navigates within a virtual space through her imagination:
Until I could visualize myself in a place--in different rooms on Annex [a computer chat bulletin board], I was confused.... It is like when I am talking on the phone to someone who is in a place I have never been, I automatically imagine a room they are in. (Kimberly)Sometimes her imagination seamlessly becomes part of her communication. In the case of the computer matrix, why didn't the environment readily engage her imagination? What is needed for the imagination to build a spatial environment? Does the imagination provide familiar spatial cues in a computer matrix? Does the imagination give body and depth to appearance and make it real? What is necessary for something to appear to be "real" enough for communication to occur?
Eugene Walter is an urban planner who explores the nature of place and its connection to the imagination:
I believe the deepest source of conflict emerged from the imagination of the place. There was no way to grasp the sense of both entry ways [in two housing units] I was convinced without exploring the local imagination. Even basic facts about the housing projects, such as the number of people in a household, were shaped by imagination (p. 8). A place has no feelings apart from human experience there. But a place is a location of experience. It evokes and organizes memories, images, feelings, sentiments, meanings, and the work of the imagination. The feelings of a place are indeed the mental projections of individuals, but they come from collective experience and they do not happen anywhere else. They belong to that place. (Walter, 1988, p. 21)The imagination seems to be tied to a sense of familiarity?a well-honed story of meaning that acts as a framework to hook images. The imagination is tied to a social or group sense-making process. If I expect or interpret a place to “have meaning,” then in that place my imaginings are evoked. If there is not a social sense-making that has evolved, can I imagine a world I can not see? If one person weaves meaning from an experience can they also imagine it?
Dreyfus (1991) discusses Heidegger’s social aspect of Dasein. The norming quality of the “I” is formed. The social relationships of the whole are a totality, a “one.” When an “I-ness” emerges for me, my attention is the moment; my attention is drawn, and invisibility disappears. In a technological matrix, the cues are unfamiliar and the norm is not necessarily apparent. Is this why I am more separate and "I?" If there is a separate “I,” is my discomfort and fear because I am less “real” than when the social structure and cues are familiar and seamless? Dreyfus also discusses how Heidegger understood changes in social norms. The social relationships, “one,” are resistant to the unfamiliar. If “one” is incapable of perceiving a question, is it possible to ask? How close to the familiar must my question be before it can be posed? How do new questions arise in the "one?"