CRD701: History and Theory of Communication Technology

Last week, we read Hayles?s working strategic definition of virtuality: ?Virtuality is not about living in an immaterial realm of information, but about the cultural perception that material objects are interpenetrated by informational patterns? (p. 94). And last week, that seemed to make sense to me. After this week?s readings, I think that still makes sense, but suddenly virtuality seems more complicated than that.

I apologize in advance for any incoherence and in-cohesiveness.

A trend in the readings:  

Lupton (last week): The dream of cyberculture is to leave 'the meat' behind and to become distilled in a clean, pure, uncontaminated relationship with computer technology. (p.100)

Dr. Silva defining virtuality according to the Aristotelian/Deleuzian model: When reality can be viewed as a fold within the virtual domain, virtual becomes potential, and a force of creation. (p. 49)

And again: This perspective [Ari/Leuz?s] does not oppose virtual and physical, for physical becomes a fold within virtual. If the real can be unfolded in different possible reality, the virtual and the real are actually synonymous and the reality, or physicality, becomes one of the faces of the virtual. (p. 68)

Dr. Silva summarizing VR: Virtual reality [was considered] a representation of reality, but also as something that could be better than reality. (p. 51)

Dr. Silva referring to Eco: Hyperreality, in this sense, means to go beyond reality, to transcend it: getting closer to reality, and finally, overcoming it. (p. 55)

Deleuze: If this world exists, it is not because it is the best, but because it is rather the inverse; it is the best because it is, because it is the one that is. (p. 68)

In each instance (and I could cite more, I think), the virtual is favored over the real. But why is the virtual always preferred? In asking this, I am not championing a Platonic superior reality. I ask why only because I wonder, and I wonder why I even ask.

The underlying assumption to why the virtual is preferred must(?) be that humans are driven by their desires, specifically desires to be some other and to be in some other place. Desire is wanting something we do not have, or having something we do not want. In either case, we want to be other and otherwhere. Here, we could, it seems, equate other to the virtual, especially Aristotelian/Deleuzian potentiality: "virtual means the process of transformation into what a being can be but is not yet" (Silva, p. 69). Rather than being, we prefer becoming. And Levy describes virtualization as the escape from here, now, that (p. 30). We are never satisfied with what, who we are or with where, when we are. But you can?t always get what you want?.

If we are always desiring to be some other, to be in some other place, then the linking of mobility to virtuality becomes a natural relationship. Levy writes, "The invention of new velocities is the first degree of virtualization" (p. 32). New mobilities allow us to expand our space-time continuum, i.e., space-transcending technologies, as we read long ago in Kellerman. It makes sense that when we get in a car, we are not only going to some other place, but also becoming some other person. We are different people behind the wheel than when we are walking. Or, I think of people who hop in their cars to go joy riding to think deep thoughts, or to escape their anger as they peel out--like Rocky while "Eye of the Tiger" plays. Our mobilities allow us to actualize the virtual.

Once we connect virtuality and mobility, then communication can extend and amplify both in new ways. Phones, internet, (think Meyrowitz?s glocality )allow us to be in two places at once. Levy points out that communication and physical mobility are part of the same wave of virtualization and notes that "those who make the most phone calls are also those who interact with the largest number of people face to face" (p. 32). If this is true of phone calls, is it also true of Facebook, et al? I also wonder if this challenges Manovich?s conception of the data flaneur. Rather than flitting about anonymously page after page, people are using virtual communities to establish not only virtual places, but also real world connections (I believe this was part of Matt?s research question). This also suggests, as Dr. Silva establishes, the need for a conception of hybrid spaces.  

Because virtuality is(?) a process of actualization, of becoming, it seems, by necessity, to ignore the past in favor of the future. But this focus on the future and to become other only reminds us of our present, of what who we are now. Borges writes, "Then I reflected that everything happens to a man precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen" (p. 30). Thus, it seems that virtuality forces us to always consider what who we are not and when where we are not. No wonder we are not happy with reality, with the real because it reminds us of what we lack. But why are we happy with the virtual when it is defined by the negative? The virtual is what is not, is what does not exist, as Serres states. In a sense, the real is defined as the negative and virtuality negates the real. Thus, negating a negative becomes a positive. Virtuality is Nirvana. (Yikes?I will not expand on this point at this time, but maybe some other time.)

Because virtuality is focused on both the here and now and what is to be here and what is to be now, there is a strong sense of volition, free will, and world building. Levy writes: "Every life form invents its world, and with this world, a specific and time" (p. 31). Deleuze, too, emphasizes world building, or building worlds around singularities: "each individual includes the sum of a Compossible world, and excludes only the other worlds imcompossible with that world" (63). Here, I think of our discussions of making places out of spaces and non-places, or homes out of places. Especially pertinent to this is Deleuze?s interpretation of Judas: "Judas is not damned because he betrayed God, but because, having betrayed God, he hates God all the more, and he dies of that hate" (p. 71). Now, that is a powerful idea (and has hints of Buddhism). Every time we change our present thought, every time with actualize, we create ourselves and our worlds.

I think Poster says it best, "The virtual upsets the stability of the real in ways that were perhaps unintended but certainly unwanted by proponents of the modern" (129). Then again, I do not know how I feel about that last phrase, "unwanted." We wanted virtuality all along, we just did not know it or have not accepted it. Virtuality is the next new gadget, the kiler app.

Or perhaps, Voltaire said it best: "Let us work without theorizing," said Martin. "That is the only way to make life bearable."
?
And sometimes Pangloss would say to Candide, "All events are linked together in the best of all possible worlds. For after all, if you had not been driven from a fine castle with great kicks in the behind for loving Miss Cunegonde, if you had not been seized by the Inquisition, if you had not crossed South America on foot, if you had not thrust a sword into the Baron, if you had not lost your sheep from the good country of Eldorado, you would not be here eating candied citrons and pistachios."

"That is well said,? replied Candide, ?but we must cultivate our garden."