Metaphors in Information Space
Essay by Stacey Spiegel, on "Crossings," 1995.
installation view; photo: Jan Sprij
The last ten years have shown the rapid emergence of a new information space which we call the electronic space and which has gained most notoriety by the fast rise of the World Wide Web, part of the Internet. It is a space where the digital character of information is paramount. The fast rise of digital cities and the first World Fair on the Internet in 1996 are examples of this. Electronic space develops parallel to the well-known physical space where we live and work and both spaces dramatically influence each other. The city and the landscape are physically accessible to man, but electronic space only consists of digital data where, through the use of soft- and hardware interfaces, we conjure up the illusion that it is physically accessible. In fact it is the world of electronic machines.
Referring to two spaces, the everyday one and the electronically networked one, gives rise to the notion that there are two comparable spaces. But in the case of electronic networks we can hardly speak of a geometric, measurable space. The fact that we keep referring to a real and geometric space when we talk about electronic space obviously results from an attempt at making this space, and the activities we deploy there, tangible. We want to anchor them and have them refer to a familiar environment. Yet, electronic space is of a completely different caliber than physical space, though one can be modelled after the other. We see this happening in digital cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The WWW's city metaphor gives rise to the notion that it points to the same thing in both spaces. Sometimes, this results in misunderstandings and indistinctions pertaining to finding one's way in the electronic space where other relationships and codes would be much more effective and desirable. Both spaces differ too much to allow for a simple translation of concepts and structures from one to the other. Thus, the concept 'society' means a different thing in both worlds. In one it is determined by geographical factors, in the other by people's shared interests.
Vision in Motion
Some would believe that the history of visualization is not relevant in the evolution of cyberspace. From a modernist perspective this may seem to be a logical assertion. Yet these same modernist ideals have indisputably contributed to our post-industrial malaise of dislocation and disorientation. Marshall McLuhan however has noted that every new technology builds on the content of the old technology. Accepting this proposition confronts the issue that virtuality faces a crisis of meaning, precipitated by the lack of aesthetic content.
The work Crossings presented on the Rotterdam harbour simulator is an exploration of cyberspace as a perceptual and cognitive vehicle. In this collaborative environment we are extending the range of potential interactivity to achieve a clearer intersection of media (technology) and content. Art is a transformative process, and Crossings a proof that the model of artistic transcription of nature is a relevant method to evoke in cyberspace. There are clear ethical implications resulting from how we will perceive virtuality. The aspirations in visualizing Crossings as an aesthetically transcribed environment are to connect the experience of nature to information space, and by extension reconnect individuals with a sense of location and orientation.
The new artist is deeply concerned with moral obligations towards the entire society of which he feels himself a part. In this sense Lessing's statement that 'the theater is a moral institution' can be applied to all creative activities irrespective of their initial stimuli and peculiar media. Thus any art work is the result of the forces manifest in the social and economic structure and mirrored by man. Art may often appear bare of ideological clarity in the sense of a social program. However the artist is not a propagandist but more than any other person, a seismograph of his time and its direction, who consciously or unconsciously expresses its substance. Apart from this limitation of predetermined social and ethical existence, the creative artist is free as to this formulation.
Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
Decoding nature has intrigued humanity through the ages. Whether expressed as a Biblical vision or as a micro-biological scan, the temptation great to define social meaning and organisation by observing nature remains. In the 17th century, Vermeer used Camera Obscura-techniques to translate the three-dimensional landscape into a compressed two-dimensional experience. His intention was partly to penetrate the real meaning of nature by mechanising it and making it seem more than just a simple representation. Crossings is an investigation into methods of expression guided by a similar conviction. From an analog world with one-dimensional information we construct a simulated three-dimensional landscape. Crossings is the result of the yearning for interactivity in a three-dimensional environment on the World Wide Web.
The basic concept of Crossings was formulated around a metaphorical landscape where a track for a high speed train was laid. The track refers to the changes in communication technology. European culture, just like its American counterpart, is in a state of transition. The notion of local, regional and national identities is being compressed and redefined by the dynamisation of time and space.
Those who have access to the project through the World Wide Web can interact with the environment or can contribute to the project by giving conceptual, historical, geological or metaphysical reactions to context and environment. By navigating through both the World Wide Web's and the simulator's VR environment, the participant researches the next generation of interactivity which is up till now only being written about. Every object the user encounters in the project's virtual world has the potential to connect him to another reality. These hypermedia links give the user access to sounds, images and text available on the World Wide Web. In this way, Crossings extends its navigational possibilities in a virtual reality environment via layered information and the Internet. The project is more than a technological parlor trick or another overview of the possibilities of virtual reality. It rather wants to offer the possibility to gain experience in the electronic information space by initiating a dialogue about the dynamic potential of a three-dimensional interactive environment on the World Wide Web.
The Crossings project as it can be seen in the Rotterdam harbour simulator, was developed by a group of architects and artists. The simulator is a unique space which serves as a naval training centre and which can recreate a 360°ree; virtual environment (harbour, landscape or any other design). A sort of computer generated cyclorama with the difference that this is an interactive environment which means that one can walk through the landscape and interact with objects in the landscape. The simulator does not use a VR data helmet, but can give twenty people at a time a Virtual Reality experience.
A project by Stacey Spiegel and Rodney Hoinkes
in cooperation with the University of Toronto, Department
of Landscape Architecture Research (CDN),
Marcos Novak of
the University of Texas, School of Architecture (US),
Attila
(K. Oosterhuis, I. Lénárd, M. Rubbens) (NL),
Thomas van Putten (NL),
and V2_Organisatie
