RE: [-empyre-] mobile media

["Joanna Callaghan" <aonewomanshow@hotmail.com>]

Hi Luis and everyone else,

Thanks for inviting me Paula to be part of this months list.

I think Luis' comments are a really good starting point. They also happen to 
be directly related to some work I did recently called Mobile Dream Telling, 
was part of the Sydney Design Festival. 
(http://mobiledreamtelling.blogspot.com/)

What might be useful to discuss is whether the concept of 'space' is 
relevant to the notion of mobility. Perhaps what we are dealing with is 
different ways of being within time. Are mobile phones changing how we are 
to ourselves and to others? Do they influence our sense of self? Is the 
mobility that is at the heart of the mobile phone creating mobile, mulitple 
?egos? or ?selves??   Who or what is the remote ?other??

Theorist Sadie Plant believes that mobile phones have created a new form of 
functioning of peoples minds which she refers to as bi-psyche. This double 
psyche is required to attend simultaneously to the real world that 
physically surrounds the speaker and the virtual world that is opened up 
through the phone he or she is holding. She raises questions around the 
effects of what can be seen as a schizophrenic existence or bi-psyche, that 
is a divorce between what one says verbally and what one does with one?s 
body.

Following on, Jose Luis Pinillos has coined the phrase The Present Extensive 
as a way of living in time that emerges as linked to the modern city or 
urban psychopathology. ??with its incessant mobility and rapidity of its 
changes, the city situates its inhabitants in a permanent here and now, 
where references to yesterday and tomorrow vanish. Precisely because of this 
provisional character that prevails and because urban existence accentuates 
the ephemeral nature of all events, the technified city produces in those 
who live there a form of living in time that has been called the ?present 
extensive? (Pinillos 1977:239)

So what does this mean in terms of the self? If mobile phones allow us to 
manage multiple identities simultaneously what does that mean for our 
relationships? Can we collate these identities to create an enduring or 
permanent sense of self that I think, is necessary to live and make sense of 
ones life?  If mobile phones connect us to particular, remote others, do 
they close us off consequently from the spontaneous, unexpected contact with 
strangers that can be so important in opening our experiences and minds to 
our fellow human beings?

These are purposefully philosophical questions since my own interest in 
mobile media is not about the technology but about the sociological and 
psychological effects, affects, consequences, influences and creative 
product that can be derived from these fascinating little machines.

Joanna






> From: Luis Silva <silva.luis@netcabo.pt>
> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: [-empyre-] mobile media
> Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 10:04:51 +0100
>
> 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
>
>
>
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