+
From: Stephen Perrella <sp43@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
+
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 1995 00:46:28 -0400
On Fri, 30 Jun 1995, livengoo wrote:
> >>that, many old and outdated standards (humanist ideals) are utterly
> >>obsolete. It is mind boggling to hear planners and others still talking
> >>about "public space." How deeply can heads be buried?
Sucher:>
> >Cyberspace exists IN ADDITION TO the physical reality...it enriches it,
> >etc. etc...the two co-exist...(in fact let's not forget that cyberspace
> >actually exists in a physical realm and is very dependent upon
> >hydro-electric dams, roads, factories, pens and pencils, etc. etc.)
Jylene:
> I'd like to venture that the existence of cyberspace makes public space
> more important than ever. We need the physical contact for psychological
> health. We are biological entities, not purely rational. Cyberspace is
> excellent for established connections on one level and, in my case, has
> created more desire to meet the people I correspond with in espace, an act
> which requires, *tah daah!* public space! And you just cannot do a Greek
> or Lithuanian festival in cyberspace. Sorry, but ignoring the animal just
> breeds pathology. Let's learn to appreciate all levels of interconnection
> instead of valuing only the latest and trendiest.
spN: First, that cyberspace is something in addition to real space is a
total gloss. Cyberspace is an epistemological redundancy that in its
reified (most commonly used) form serves to severe the real from the
irreal. In cyberspace we recreate what we know (redundancy) with some
hopes of being able to manipulate things with even more control, remember
it grew out of the military. (or read Arthur Kroker's _Data Trash_ or
Paul Virilio's new and fantastic work _The Vision Machine_.) The
recreation of a past which cannot exist in the present (nostalic
historicism) is very similar to mostly what happens in cyberspace (the
desire to be free of our bodies). Sorry David, no simple addition there.
I can begin to agree with Jylene at the outset of his argument, yes there
can and should be a thorough intermingling of real/irreal. But the idea
of cultural festivals (at least the way they occur here in the US) is
more akin to fast food franchises and the genre of the Disney attraction.
We have to go radically further. Dig deeper into our assumptions to ditch
the kind of thinking that severs these clearly dichotomized realms.
Sucher, read the intro to Mike Benidict's _Cyberspace: First Steps_
you will see how he argues to set up not two worlds, but four.