Recently, I’ve been reading an essay, ‘walking in the city’ (Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Chapter 7). Also, I’ve been taking lectures from Norman M Klein, a historian in the fields of architecture, media, and culture. Based on Norman M. Klein’s theories on ‘History of Forgetting’ and Michel De Certeau’s essay, ‘walking in the city’, I asked myself a series of questions and threw out my thoughts. 

What is the meaning of space?

The meaning of a space is constantly changing according to our memories that tie us to that place. These memories create myths about the space that would influence people’s behaviors. The forms of behaviors become a pattern which functions as a spatial language that adds pervasive texture to the space. Thus, people share the meanings of a space through their movements. People’s memory and stories of the place also become part of the space.  

What is the relation between people and media?

According to Norman Klein, and many other media theorists, for generations, people have been deeply interested in cyborg theories (an example is Donna Haraway’s cyborg manifesto) and tried to identify themselves with cyborgs. The definition of cyborg in a dictionary is ‘a hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body.’  McLuhan’s description of media and technology as extensions of the human body have been repeatedly articulated by many theorists for a remarkably long time. Today another example that support arguments related to identifying people with cyborgs can be found in studying the way in which people use their cell phones. “People carry it with themselves all the time as if they were part of their body. The behaviors of twittering or text messaging are done so intuitively that it almost feels natural.” (07Oct09 Norman Klein’s lecture)

Private space as a virtual theatre. 

In a world of pervasive networking and computation, the idea of an embodied and interlinked virtuality can be experienced as an extension of human mind. Through online networking, people are able to duplicate and constantly reproduce virtual representations of themselves to the public. In this world, people create visual simulacrum of their minds through virtual space and ironically, they are able to visit their own minds (representation of themselves) through the pervasive networking system. (‘Being John Malkovich’ depicts this idea of one’s mind(brain) being visited by the public and himself.) 

Metaphors of places and gestures.

Even though the virtual environment seems to be a parallel universe to the real world, in reality, the planetary networks are all connected to one another through cables in a physical environment. (OneWilshire building in LA downtown) Even when a person surfs the internet and simulates himself going through a journey in the virtual world, in reality, the person is merely looking at the visual representation of signals that were processed from physical data centers. In this sense, distinguishing the virtuality and the reality seems almost meaningless. What interests me the most is the way in which people’s habits, movements, and behaviors connects the two worlds more closer. What is the meaning of space? Can space become a medium for communications? What are the meanings of  gesture in communications?