Difference between revisions of "The service of stitching back together reality"

Revision as of 19:31, 27 March 2011

Work in Progress

Intro

This piece covers the subscription to connectivity. This is a companion piece to subscribing to identity - identity providers and the creation of self - ownership of self, maslow's hierarchy of needs, etc.

1. What is a place? In an introduction to supermodernity, Marc auge defines a place as something in which one has three things

• realation
• identity
• history

He then goes on to examine spaces, exclusively modern spaces, that do not embody these things.

For instance, a trip to Paris as a tourist is trip to a place. When in Paris one has identity (as a tourist), relation (to the place itself through reading about the place prior to travel, or having some idea of what the place is like before embarking on their travels). And there is one's relation to the history of the builings and objects once there).

Between those destinations are what auge calls "non places". They're not here or there. They're between point a and point b. A highway, for instance, is a non place in that it cannot actually be stood upon. Instead, one must use a vehicle in order to traverse the road. It cannot be used unless ones wears an external appendage.

As humans we are not solitary animals. People seek to connect. In his study on suicide Emile Durhkeim looked at how Protestant populations were slightly more likely to take those lives than catholic populations . Those in catholic families were more likely to be connected with others. Because of this, suicide rates of those families and those with family groups were less frequent.

When one connects digitally in an area of isolation, the physiologcal effects of that connectivity are similar to those of being conneected to a family group.

What isn't a place?

airport traffic jam liminality and ritual but separated

Development of modern society

streching time and space decentering village connections fragmented family connections person as stranger modern solitude en masse

Reconfiguring social relations

stitching back together space and time with service technology subscribing to the village annihilating geography

iPod culture

headsets and music transcending limits of geographical and isolated modern space

Getting relation where there is none getting identity in respect to something else having history in a place where there is none

Is a phone a place?

village in your pocket ambient intimacy

Escaping the repetitive non place of reality that forces most of us to stand in lines, wait in queues, wait in lookalike holding areas for planes and other objects. Increasingly life is filled with these spaces, which are inherently unhuman. Having the ability to connect to a space out of a non-space by means of technology means that technology humanizes us.

Curious effects? fragmentation of the analog landscape - of social landscape punctuation of everyday life

Benefits. Because of the added connectivity, subscribing to connectivity can educe anomie and is thus a healthy and unalienating process to be a part of.

Conclusions