Re: [-empyre-] mobile media

[marc <marc.garrett@furtherfield.org>]

Hi Joanna & all,

Thank you for this thoughtful introduction along with Luis'...

Regarding Sadie Plants "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 oneâs body."

I would propose that we may already be there in some respect, as in 
connected to various information and data-driven networks - with the 
Internet and mobile communications/technologies, adapting and mutating 
as a part of these disembodied realms, evolving into 'laterel-psyches'.

The concept of 'bi-psyche', definately goes some distance in offering a 
clear image in explaining a binary relation, to such technologies. But 
as these processes almagamate us, as part of their daily networks - 
states of 'being' and 'becoming' more present elsewhere, in various 
different places at the same time. The notion of 'POP', or 'point of 
presence' expands into a complex form of multi-presences.

So, our identities may become more meshed, entwined at different levels 
- causing us to expand like distributed entities, through these 
data-shfiting/collecting outlets. Our various personas created via the 
different uses and needs of the technology will also reflect certain 
contexts, as (ghost) micro-versions of our selves in respect of what we 
choose to do with it, even if it is a more decentralized form. Our 
externalized behaviours will become representations of our (moments in 
time) characters, but not as a whole.

Our physical and immediate 'conscious' bodies/selves, frames/bodies, 
would act as central hubs, like servers, in their own right, which will 
disperse multi-informational qualities or ingredients of our 
personalities, scattering snippets, collected as templated data.

We may even grow into psychological, flesh-based hubs, mental 
hard-drives for dispensing tags about us, introducing an element that 
could then become the property of a company. Our own dispersed Digital 
information could be patented, these companies could own these parts of 
our selves and appropriated as product and of course also become actual 
government property.

Our mobile media may be a potential medium of re-distributing our selves 
as monetary products, just by using it...

wishing you well.

marc



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 âegosâ or âselvesâ?   Who or what is the remote âotherâ?

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 oneâs 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. ââwith 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 âpresent extensiveâ (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.



> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre