Black
Thinking about nested spaces and the networked individual made me go back to Bauman's observations about mobiles (in Liquid Love): cell phones signal materially and symbolically, the ultimate liberation from place....the advent of virtual proximity renders human connections simultaneously more frequent and more shallow....telling someone what station they had just left and what station would be next. ..Bauman uses the ideas of being always connected and virtual proximity to argue for the loss of intimacy. I reckon he misses the point. The networked individual has a more fluid sense of location and maybe this is why the communicative space requires updates on geolocation. So participants can imagine where they are. We often see the same behaviour in conversations across time zones. Having already calculated when the best time to call is we'll invariably catch ourselves saying: What time is it there?
Hey Guy! Very timely topic for me, as I've been dabbling in this myself, since the theme has come up in my dissertation - Ito & Okabe write about "new technosocial spaces" as another way of thinking about the inbetweens. But I love the idea of nested spaces - is that your term? Do you have a top-three reading list on the topic you'd consider sharing?
ReplyDelete(Sarah L = Sarah from Columbia/NYC btw :))
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah! Good to hear from you - is the Ito and Okabe ref, Personal Portable Pedestrian? If so I'd forgotten that bit. Top 3 is a good challenge, I'll think on and post later!
ReplyDeleteHey - it's from a different edited volume, The Inside Text. You can download a copy: http://www.itofisher.com/mito/publications/intimate_connec.html
ReplyDeleteGlad to have set forth a worthy challenge :) looking forward to hear your thoughts!
Oops, looks like the URL got cut off. The last bit was meant to be
ReplyDeleteintimate_connec.html
I think I found it anyway, that's the link on your blog, right?
ReplyDeleteyeppers
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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