flâneurs of the net: self-representation, co-existence and community feeling
jekaterina lavrinec |
2005-05-01 | 23:01
temos: bendruomenės,blogosfera,ENGLISH
Shifting our spaces in the course of the day (office, café, public transportation, shop, home), the dynamics of our bodies shifts as well. We find ourselves in an open square and take a turn to a narrow street, enter the nightclub, prepared for intensive rhythms, or enter a slow space of theater, filled with thoughtful glances, emphatically graceful gestures and whisperings – the body reacts to the rhythm of environment even before we think. These spaces are weaved of various rituals, which we intuitively catch through reacting in a respective way: walking style, gesture, speech manner, voice timbre.
Now that the Internet has become a part of our daily routine, we periodically find ourselves in a space, demanding a specific form of expression. The fact, that the mediated spaces dictate different forms of expression than those, to which we are used in our everyday environment, is illustrated by a vague advice, I happened to hear: ”as you are being filmed, make faster gestures and speak slower. Or vice-versa, I do not remember. In other words, everything should be done in a different way. Then the effect will be good“. But in the Internet our motions and gestures acquire a form of a text – if only we care about interaction with other people. The Internet is an environment, where it is difficult to imagine a silent support, silent approval, silent protest. Our attitudes, emotions, mimic, all of that will exist to other people inasmuch as we are able to transform them into a text, or shape them into a graphic expression.
Once, opposing the passiveness of TV viewers against the activeness of the Internet users, Umberto Eco maintained, that the use of Internet establishes a certain focus of attention and purposefulness – at least because the absent-mindedness may cost.[1] However, just like a city nomad, who sets out to journey through streets of the city, so can his virtual twin set out to a pointless wandering in the Net. In a recent discussion with a group of Lithuanian internauts it turned out, that most of them would like to talk about specific intuition, used while looking for a specific information on the Internet. As one of the participants of the discussion says, “I simply noticed, gradually Google and myself came to a better understanding of each other. I couldn’t possible explain. Accurate key words give results, but one should also choose out of those results. It is only then, that the virtual intuition starts working“. After entering random key words into the search engine, and having the results, as if addressed specially to you, talking about areas of your interest, one could start doubting about the efficiency of a systematic browsing. Because if the hypertext is a “multilayer system, where each point may be potentially connected to yet another point“[2], in its principle of organization reminding of a rhizome[3], couldn’t randomness become the principle of our movement in this environment?
Surfing the Net, stumbling upon corners abandoned long ago, of which existence you did not have a slightest idea, discovering the unexpected information, which you haven’t looked for – such is a pleasure of the tracker, familiar to the urban nomad who pointlessly roams the streets of the city. The source of the pleasure is drifting[4] itself. A film director Wim Wenders, whose works focus so much on cities, acknowledges that the first episodes of ”Tokyo Ga“ were filmed through somnambulistic roaming the streets of Tokyo, filming everything in a dream-like manner: he shifts his focus to separate episodes of the city, which does not add up to a homogeneous story. Somnambulism (some people compare it to the computer mode of stand by) is a condition between vigilance and deep sleep, ability to float tirelessly through the Internet for a long time, but after shifting to different activity, they start feeling a deadly fatigue – these are things, admitted by most nomads of the net.
The analogy between the figure of a city nomad (flâneur), which has been of huge interest for Walter Benjamin and Michel de Certeau, and the nomad of the Net was noticed by scholars of Internet practice[5]. The distinctive features of the nomad – passiveness of a participating observer: he is immersed into the city life, but at the same time – detached. The posture of flâneur is sensitive to the pulse of the changing city, he is a professional reader of the text of the city – taking anthropological records about the city life. After the nomad starts sensing and broadcasting his experience to other people, it appears that his somnambulism is reflexive. Equally the same is a virtual twin of the nomad, whose being in the Internet is limited to browsing, he may leave an impression of passive and involuntary devourer of information – until one day he speaks up in a virtual space, whether or not it is forums, blogs, commentaries of electronic publications, etc.
From this moment the nomad of the Net becomes a creature of dual nature, the Centaur, a writing reader. By moving through space, he leaves traces (as a character of the movie Memento, covering every possible surfaces in text). Even more so, the Net offers a plethora of places for realization of creativity, by multiplying texts, video and audio information. The activities of a writing reader, a continuous production of texts may be partially interpreted through application of Roland Barthes words ”I produce fragments. I observe my fragments. I observe my waste (narcissus)“[6]. Alongside the creative euphoria the writing reader is often accompanied by disappointment. The desperate question – ”why am I writing here?“ – is periodically raised even by veterans of internet fields, who initiate discussions on the purpose of self-expression. An unstoppable narcissus-like publication of one‘s ”waste“, in the long run becomes a natural action, a biological function of the virtual body – the body, entangled in a net of texts, thrown into the flow of information.
Each day we receive more information, than we actually need. Its valuable part may deposited in our hard discs, go the archives and start waiting for the day, when we could get to know it. And it is highly possible, that this day may never come, because next day, another portion of information is archived. Even Paul Valery noticed, that surplus is the main characteristic of information as such (the other characteristic is its fragmenticity)[7]. This may become apparent, if we visit any news portal, which informs us that (cited headlines)
Referendum in the
Scientists baffled by images from Saturn‘s satellite Titan
Frontier troops bust another amphibian human
The Veterinary Service warns against birds flue
The polar bear Maša to be sedated in
Homeless teenager finds a treasure worth thousands
A man marries the wrong twin[8]
An increasing flow of information is becoming the mass compilation of Absurd: fast deteriorating news, worthless daily sensations and monotonous news about global catastrophes – which some time ago used to shock, and now they leave us indifferent. An inert consumption of news and informational apathy – widespread diagnoses. I was confronted with an unexpected way of consumption of information in one Lithuanian forum[9], where one of the participants would periodically post notes reminding of stream of consciousness, dedicated to everyday highlights: this could be the competition of Eurovision, political intrigue, cultural events, weather forecasts, or some other information, taken from news portal[10]. Any news were put into phantasmagoric body, mingled into spontaneously arising plots, enhanced by irony. Information flow was transformed into absurd literature, exposing the absurdity and monotony of the very information flow. The information is uninteresting by nature (no matter how scandalous the headlines are), but it could be used as a raw material for creative process, building their stories. No matter how these texts distorts the original information, the question, so what really happened after all, becomes uninteresting. And maybe it has lost its meaning long ago: visiting news portals, drinking coffee is simply a ritual of daily bathing in the information sea having nothing to do with search for the real things.
The result of re-interpretation and re-organization of information as a raw material (creative act) is returned to the same space, where the “raw material“ has been taken. Texts, their critique, their inspired texts, their commentary make one Net. Through a narcissist penetration into the Net, the text becomes a communicative gesture, by becoming the object of other interpretations and reactions. Besides, the specifics of Lithuanian Internet is that famous authors, specialists of different fields, culture activists rarely engage in public on-line discussions. Therefore, the distance between authors and the reading public remains the same, as it is when they speak through paper publications. As a contrast, I will mention an example of runet (Russian Internet), with most active characters being professional journalists, writers, culture activists – those who back in 2001 started a Russian-language blog community, called livejournal[11]. This accidentally formed virtual intellectual club keeps attracting new, still unknown authors, many of whom find their publishers, editors and illustrated namely in livejournal. Lithuanian Internet has not fully implemented a cooperation model of such a scope. It is substituted by, for instance, popular websites dedicated to literature[12] and art[13], which have an important element – discussion area, devoted to social and cultural interaction of registered website users. However, this space is not inherently a warranty of successful interaction. For instance, a possibility to comment articles of a popular news portal in some cases may turn into a long-term mass on-line fits of hysteria with elements of flood. Editors of electronic publications were forced to cast doubt on such a peculiarity of commentary in
After starting to write, the nomad of the Net acquires a textual body, seen by others. The news portals, websites of various topics, forums and blogs, chats and IRC – these are spaces, where writing readers (or, in a broader sense, creating perceivers) meet each other. This is a laboratory of social virtual creation and the scene of its introduction, stage where virtual affinity is experienced, the tribune of voicing their own ideas and the grounds of common activities. The Net is a place, especially suitable for harboring personal mythologies, and the question about those myths and stories, and about the reality of one‘s self in certain cases may be considered yet incorrect. As in most off-line situations, so in on-line too, there is a principle “you are what you say about yourself and what others say about you“. Could you picture, for example, Odysseus, Sinbad, Marcus Polus, returning home after their voyages in silence? A voyager is not only a character traveling to foreign lands, but also a character of stories about voyage. You must tell a story about your voyages, or let the others tell about yourself – only then will you become a full-esteemed voyager. Therefore, despite the, fact, that some people from the said characters (Odysseus, Sinbad, Marcus Polus) are biographical, and others – literary, they are all known to us as voyagers. Each of them is known to us only thanks to stories about voyages and adventure.
However, the stories about their adventure (and finally, about themselves) need a listener or reader, but what if listeners and readers are occupied with telling their own stories? Then certain strategies of how to draw public attention are put in place. Starting from choosing of nickname, the nomad of the Net is dragged into games of representation and self-identification (withdrawing a futile question about the reality/non-reality of virtual identity, scholars of virtual communities resort to metaphors of theater and theatricality). Hence, the nomad of the Net becomes (perhaps even involuntarily) an actor of virtual grounds. It is only possible to see his “true face“ in off-line mode – such presumption is still used by scholars of virtual communities and most members of virtual communities. No matter how sincere he could be, each virtual gesture generates interpretations of spectators, seeing each other only in the shape of texts. Therefore, by creating their virtual representation, they resort to dramaturgy. Deliberate gestures or epatage is often an adequate form of messages/actions under conditions of information noise and in the media of hyperactive interpretations.
As regards epatage, culturologist Valerij Savčuk has proposed an interesting thesis about the evolution of a new-type cultural activist: intellectual, seeking public space for his statements, resorts to an array of strategies, offered by new medias, which demands from him to think on his feet and make clear and accurate formulations. This is how an intellectual becomes a cultural – an intellectual showman, oriented towards broad audience. Meanwhile, an intellectual, continuing his fight against the Authority as such now seems to be a naive personage: you see, in order to pursue a successful realization of idea, project or creation, one needs not to fight against the Authority, but choose the horizon of his own authority. Therefore an Intellectual, living on the idea of resistance places himself behind the scenes (only if he does not become a Cultural).[14]
One of the “grounds“, which could be inhabited by a Cultural, are the already mentioned blogs, the popularity of which triggers a conversation about the appearance of the ”new journalism“. Various interviews[15] show, that the blog by its popularity and effectiveness has outdone mass media. Given this fact, it may be possible to draw a tendency: coming from a de-personalized information flow to personal, first-hand sources of information. Rapid reactions of blog authors towards global events is a tempting possibility to receive information about those events from “first hands“. And the independence of blog authors, together with trusted personalization is a serious competitor to anonymousness of indifferent information flow. All of this determines the popularity of blogs, so blogs are already considered as potential channels of advertisement.
This marks a theme of fight for attention, which is important, speaking not only about the use of blogs for advertising, or maybe also political purposes (although at this point blogs are becoming well-known specifically as realms of independent opinions, and their tendentious use may undermine the still growing trust in blogs as a genre). „”The broadcasting of opinions of “independent experts“ is not the only function of blogs. Blogs are the environment for cherishing personal mythology and creation of long-term mystifications, providing professionally written biographical facts (which could be “illustrated“ by photos). Authors of most blogs seek more public attention; here we could talk about the whole series of strategies to increase the popularity of blogs. A fight for public attention towards my own blog, my own created character, my own self – is also happening at a personal level, among authors of blogs.
Moreover, a single author may create several blogs, becoming the master of puppet theatre, where each character is different from others. A known case is when two opposing users of the same blog server, have for a certain time fought between each other, constantly insulting each other by posting endless complaints in their blogs and writing non-stop complaints to the personnel of the service – so that finally it was decided to abolish all blogs belonging to these two authors, fighting between each other. After all, 170 diaries, belonging to one fighter and 302 diaries to another were also abolished.[16]
Trust is an essential component of cooperation, without which a productive interaction is hardly possible. A clear example of anonymous gathering is a continuously supplemented on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia[18]. The number of its articles (these articles are in different languages) has already exceeded Encyclopedia Britannica. When using the services of Wikipedia, we should trust the competence of those people who write, edit and supplement it. Equally, by publishing pictures of close people in our blog, we trust other users and take it for granted, that images of dear people will not be abused (although it happens among evil users from time to time, that once in a while biographic stories of certain people is falsified: to create such frauds, personal information and pictures are taken from blogs). We indicate our e-mail address in the feedback of electronic publication, and we are naive enough hoping to avoid spam and viruses. By offering to the community an introductory fragment of a text, which under original idea, could developed by anyone interested, we hope to get a reply. The literary[19] and visual[20] projects of such nature and audiovisual projects are copious: an example could be a general virtual creation “The Novel“[21], of which the main fragment was written in 1987 and developed until 1997; by now “The Novel” has became an exhibit in “The Museum of Internet”. Besides, Grafedia is also mentioned, the essence of which is described briefly: But where are the words, connected to images, video or audio files on-line. Grafedia artist: the one, creating graphedia“[22]. Besides the mentioned projects, Typophile[23] is also an outstanding one, where, without participation in the creation process (during which letters and numbers are formulated, voting for black and white squares, composing the former) we may overview the multiplication[24] of the creative process itself.
Those are examples of anonymous creation. It is unknown, whether in the context of above mentioned projects we may talk about the interaction of their participants: what is seen by the new visitor of Typophile – the voting result left by other nomads long time ago, where he makes his modest contribution. Alongside examples of anonymous creation, without claiming the creation of a full list of virtual interactions, we should mention deliberate on-line interactions. An example from Lithuanian Internet context could be a spontaneously created community of one of the forums, which lasted for two years.[25] The forum served as a space for making new contacts and voice one‘s ideas. The results of this co-existence turned to be a couple of websites and a journalism project[26] – which hardly could have been the initial purpose of members of forum (the motivation of visiting the forum is rather emotional). In this sense the above-mentioned production of co-existence is the result of spontaneously formed configuration of human resources – who indicate the significance of open discussion spaces –venues of cooperation.
The element of chance and spontaneity in emerging of on-line community, the mix of its members, marked independence and sensitivity to reactions of other members of community yields a slightly unexpected analogy. Oleg Aronson – the author of studies, dedicated to the experience of community[27], notices, that the openness and anonymity are essential characteristics of bohemian life. The bohemia is not correlated with a specific social group; in principle, anyone can become a representative of bohemia. The involvement into life of bohemian community by and large is incidental. After joining this community, self-representation in other life contexts, the importance is given to trappings – the proof of belonging to bohemian world – not individual qualities. In other words, the individuality of bohemian people is defined through their involvement into “bohemian“ connections.
The same tendencies are observed by scholars making a research into virtual communities, indicating a factor of chance in formation of community which is based on regularity of communication practice. These communication practices result in formation of collective community identity which later becomes a distinctive feature of that community when they interact with members of other communities. As authors of blogs, and members of long-term forums, at a certain point, while being in off-line mode you start looking for “my type of people“ among passers by; and if it happens, that in some on-line periphery you meet a familiar nick, the same, as used by your alter ego of a forum, for some time you are obsessed with a thought that this could be him.
One more “virtual“ element, common among bohemians, is conspiracy: cherishing ideas of resistance, secret, plotting or their illusions, which are integral parts of community feeling[28] anyway. However, even though he starts a community relationship, a bohemian remains a lonesome type. According to O. Aronson, the bohemia is not a social group, but rather a spontaneous, disorganized and liberal connectivity of different people, outlining our understanding of society.
This does not mean, that virtual communities are “bohemian“, but parallels of such nature help us discover new nuances in both on-line, and off-line interpersonal relationships. Elements, ensuring the existence of bohemian community these days are turning into principle of creation of transient communities; so, contemporary society may be interpreted as a unity of momentarily created and disintegrating configurations of communities, a kaleidoscope of continuously re-grouping community relationships – and, as we all know, community life of the net is highly intensive. The flâneur, independent of social ties, bohemian seeker for sensation of closeness and nomad of the Net, floating on the waves of information (his prototype used to be cyberpunk, who supports ideas of bohemian “conspiracy“ and “resistance“), they are characters of his “kaleidoscopic“ world view.
The overwhelming of short-term community is materialized by a popular phenomenon of flash mob[29]: public instant appearance of a group of people, engaged in unusual, surprising activities. These groups are formed spontaneously: anyone who finds out information about a planned event is welcome to join in (it is important, that the beginning of the appearance is synchronized). This is momentary form of community, described by enthusiasts of flash mob (mobbers) as a possibility to “model an unusual situation“ or a „possibility to change reality“. By conceptualizing this phenomenon, the enthusiasts of flash mob quote Howard Rheingold, whose book “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution“[30], according to them, has inspired the movement of flash mob. This is a great example of spontaneously evolving community, although, reflexive from its own perspective. What more needs to be mentioned, is that overall discussions and preparatory activities are done on the Internet[31]; besides, there is a parallel Internet-mob, with the aim of “Cherishing the diversity of Internet life“[32].
At some point U. Eco was working on a project called “The Multimedia Arcade“, with, among a number of functions, an educational purpose: teach people how to use the latest technologies – create a possibility to use them. On the one hand, this project was oriented to implementing the principle of knowledge availability. On the other hand, this project was a solution of the anticipated loneliness issue of Internet users. Based on words of U.Eco, one of the aims is to “get people out of the house and – why not? – even into each other’s arms. Perhaps we could call it "Plug ‘n’ Fuck”, instead of „The Multimedia Arcade“[33]. Here they speak about creating conditions to experience the sensation of closeness – and this, as U.Eco thinks, can be experienced only in off-line environment.
The motif of loneliness is inseparable from lifestyle of exceptionally individualist nomad (whether he is the city nomad described by W. Benjamin or the nomad of the Net). Meanwhile, the information surplus (and, primarily, surplus of visual information), confronted by the nomad of these days, inspires a search for more intensive impressions, overcoming the monotony of information. Today‘s popularity of flesh, even physical pain, appearing in literature, art and cinematography is often correlated with prevalence of visual information (and at the same time with ”virtualization“), and brushes away sensations received through touching, tasting and smelling to the periphery of world of senses. Therefore, there is no coincidence that the nomads of the Net, fighting and cooperating on-line, where they experience feelings of community and aggression, are apt to keep up the idea of short meetings off-line, transforming the community feeling into a form of physical community.
[1] The World According to Eco. By Lee Marshall // Wired. Issue 5.03, 1997 –http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_eco_pr.html (2oo4)
[2] Žr.: Eco, U. From Internet to Gutenberg. A lecture presented by Umberto Eco // http://www.italianacademy.columbia.edu/pdfs/lectures/eco_internet_gutenberg.pdf (2oo4)
[3] Landow G.P. Hypertext 2.0: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology.
[4] which some time ago was discussed by Roland Barthes in his “The Pleaseure of Text”, indicating, that the blissful feeling of floating is related to unconditional devotion to the text, without trying to consider it as a whole; having in mind the situation of hypertext reader (the nomad of the net), we may say, that hypertext as a whole is totally impossible to keep in our heads, so therefore, if we follow Barthes, the nomad of the Net is doomed to float.
[5] See. Pvz. Mireille Rosello. The Screener’s Maps” Michel de Certeau’s “Wandersmanner” and Paul Auster’s Hypertextual Detective // Hyper/Text/Theory (ed. By George P. Landow).
[6] Rolan Bart o Rolane Barte (per. S.Zenkin), M.: Ad Marginem, 2oo2, p. 11o
[7] See.: Pol’ Valeri. Ob iskusstve (sostavitel’ V.M. Kozlova). M.: Iskusstvo, 1976
[8] Taken from delfi.lt news portal
[10] As an example, I refer to a text from TV-show “Robinzonai“ (with elements of epatage, as necessary). On the one hand it is fraught with lively stereotypes (e.g. traditional opposition between residents of Kaunas and Vilnius), yet it is also ironic, and unlike the prism of irony, we do not recommend reading this text: http://www.ore.lt/phorum/read.php?f=16&i=47415&t=47415
And another topic, popular in Lithuania – basketball:
[12] e.g. http://www.rasyk.lt/
[13] e.g. http://art.scene.lt/
[14] Savchuk, V.V. Delo Kulturala // Baltijskie filosofskie chtenija ,1. Izd. Universiteta Sankt-Peterburga, 2oo4
[15] E.g.: The power of blog marketing and word of mouth – http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives/000956.php?10#comments (2oo4)
[16] http://www.livejournal.com/users/avva/950060.html (2oo4) – in Russian.
On this occation: http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/dueling/
[17] Foucault, M. To Discipline and Punish. The Birth of Prison. V: Baltos Lankos, 1998, p. 237
[19] Garden of tangential haiku: http://www.litera.ru/slova/hokku/
Interactive poetry website: http://www.csd.net/~cantelow/poem_welcome.html
[20] e.g. http://www.jeffharris.org/
[22] Words, written anywhere, then linked to images, video or sound files online. Grafedia artist: one who makes grafedija// http://www.grafedia.com/
[24] more at: Clive Thompson. Can an online crowd create a poem, a novel, or a painting? // http://slate.msn.com/id/2104087/ (2oo5)
[26] “Home-made“ website of obscure topic with original material (http://delirium.ten.lt/), the winner of best site competition (www.top.lt) – website devoted to IDM music (http://www.sutemos.net/) and a journalist project, an imitation of blogs (http://www.omni.lt/index.php?i$9359_204770).
[27] Oleg Aronson. Bogema: opyt soobshestva. M.: Fond nauchnyh issledovanij “Pragmatika kul’tury”, 2oo2
[28] A pure example of this in
[29] “Momentinė minia”, (English.).
[30] Žr.: Rheingold H. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Perseus Publishing, 2oo2
[31] e.g. http://www.flashmob.com/ ; http://www.fmob.ru/ ; etc.
[33] This will be one of the main functions of Multimedia Arcade: to get people out of the house and – why not? – even into each other’s arms. Perhaps we could call it "Plug ‘n’ Fuck" instead of Multimedia Arcade. (The World According to Eco. By Lee Marshall // Wired. Issue 5.03, 1997 –http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_eco_pr.html (2oo4)
temos: bendruomenės, blogosfera, ENGLISH |
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