[-empyre-] mobile media

[Luis Silva <silva.luis@netcabo.pt>]

Hello everyone,

I am very happy to be able to be part of this month's discussion.  
Having studied Social Sciences and personally interested in how they  
can share some insights over our relation to technology, Mobile Media  
is such an interesting subject to be discussing. Mobile media changed  
the way we interact with technology, with physical (i won't be using  
the term real) space and with each other. The term here is ubiquity,  
no longer nomadism. These devices have been shaping a new kind of  
public space that is no longer the utopian cyberspace of the  
ninetees, but a new one that still relates to a certain extent to  
Habermas's definition and has , by means of its own mobility, a  
strong relation to the physical space in which we lead our daily  
routines. It is public, but is is also private, it is dependent of  
the physical environment but only to deny its specificity and  
minimize the importance of local references and context.

A good example of this new kind of public space, not dependent on the  
geography but on connections, that can also serve as a good starting  
point to this debate is the project "As if we were alone" by the  
artistic duo Empfangshalle. This project adresses the mobile phone  
user and how he or she creates mobile "private spheres" while  
communicating over the phone. They have concluded that "whoever uses  
his cell phone in public dissociates himself from his surroundings  
via real or virtual spaces". The core of the project lies in this  
process of dissociating oneself from the physical space through  
mobile media. One departs from the geographically defined public  
space of the streets, the squares, or public transportation to join a  
(semi) public space defined by the amount and variety of connections.

So my point here is, are these two public spaces ontologically  
different, despite overlaping? Is this mobile media space truely a  
public space, or a new version of the concept of private sphere, but  
once again with no physical references?

Best,
Luis