Meaning without mirrors: Mapping the Margins of Cyberspace

Symposium:

• ISEA94: Fifth International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA94:  

• Cyberspace: Configurations of Space, Memory and Language in the Electronic Arts (Spacecapes)

• Meaning without mirrors: Mapping the Margins of Cyberspace

• David Tafler

• Intro

  Moving within a cybernetic world belies notions of the human body traveling through an electronic spacescape. In cyberspace, the horizon catches the mind indeed transcending the limitations of the body. Crossing this conceptual divide requires a radical language that articulates mental variations and possibilities without blocking them in space. Such a language will depart from many of the phenomenological standards currently used to trace virtual experiences. Conventional notions of time and space have no meaning when moving through this new environment. Nevertheless, a one dimensional cyberspace seems unfathomable. Therefore, inside cyberspace schematics mask that world. Entry points become windows, electronic windows (CRTs, televisions) with a multi-dimensional facade. These portals translate the cerebral system into a sense oriented display. Eventually, the voyager sheds the constraints that have framed the imagination with the laws of the physical world.

Category:

• Panel