On “Welcome to ‘Electronic Cafe International’: A Nice Place for Hot Coffee, Iced Tea, & Virtual Space”

This essay is another interesting study of the ideas of telepresence and virtual space. Particularly interesting is the insight provided on the effect that this technology has on the way we as human beings interact with one another. While covering some old ground, the essay commented on many new facets of this technology. Among these, the increased familiarity allowed by not being physically in the same space as others, but also exploring the duality of this mindset in that individuals are still disturbed by the violation of their image in virtual space. Also intriguing, was the promising use of this technology to bring disparate groups of people together, allowing them to resolve long-standing conflicts and to dissolve old prejudices. Finally, it should be noted that while the authors take a somewhat anti-corporate stance, it was indeed large companies that brought the full extent of their ideas to fruition.

GHOST CITY by Jody Zellen - Rhizome.org


GHOST CITY is an eerie piece. Sitting and viewing it conjures strange feelings in one's very core. This is not due to any explicit or troubling content, but rather to the fact that it is so successful in transporting the viewer to this place, envisioned by Zellen, in which everything is constructed by various representations by the mass media. The images that comprise this work, while individually are very stunning, combine to create a virtual landscape that in effect surrounds the viewer with small captured moments in time making the experience incredibly compelling, like opening a time capsule or viewing old family photographs.


Turning now to the analysis of the piece. While from the above one might conclude that the most prevalent of the multimedia concepts in this work is immersion, as a work of Internet art, the linking of the various sections of the GHOST CITY together makes the concept of hypermedia the most functionally vital to the work. The varied and decentralized nature of this piece is reminiscent of Mark Amerika's Grammatron. However, the two differ in the purpose of Grammatron being the telling of a story and the objective of GHOST CITY being the construction of a virtual realm changing not by the flow of a plot or the influence of characters but rather solely by the selections of the viewer.


This brings me to the concept of interactivity in this work. Depending upon the choices the viewer makes, GHOST CITY can be a very different place. Much like the streets of a real city, entering certain back alleys will provide a very contrasting experience to staying on the well-lit main avenues. In his lecture at San Jose State University, David Ross described one of the paradigms of net art as being the shift of authority from the artist to the viewer. In the case of Zellen's piece, the landscape, if you will, is laid out and it is left to the viewer to wander in it creating infinite new experiences.


Finally, GHOST CITY seamlessly integrates photography, poetry, prose, random text and dynamic web design to create what the Rhizome.org description aptly refers to as a "collage of moving parts". Like Fragment 2 for Composition VII by Wassily Kandinsky, many of the sections of GHOST CITY require the viewer to look deep within to find a meaning that ultimately becomes as personal as the nonlinear trip through the work itself. Particularly impressive, however, is the fact that the rapidly changing and incredibly varied sections are never jarring or disjointed but rather always seem to fall into place within the cohesive whole. Perhaps this is the genius of GHOST CITY and of all excellent multimedia works: the combination of disparate parts to create a unified work of art.


In conclusion, Zellen's GHOST CITY is the epitome of multimedia art. By providing perfect examples of the concepts of immersion, hypermedia, interactivity, integration, and to some extent, narrativity, this piece shows that good net art has both inherent structures and archetypes but also remains fluid and constantly relevant. GHOST CITY proves that multimedia deserves as much consideration as its more traditional counterparts, and that the experimentation in this field may alter the way we think of and experience art forever.

On "Virtual Interface Environments" by Scott Fisher

Mr. Fisher's essay while incredibly visionary and interesting fails to address certain negatives inherent to virtual reality technology.

First, I believe that the most obvious concern with virtual reality is a matter of cost vs. reward. While Fisher notes the decreasing cost of the systems that comprise VR technology, the 16 years since the writing of this essay have proved that even with those costs going down the necessity for VR has not increased to the point where the technology has reached critical mass. Evidence of this is the fact that the 1990s were full of fringe interest in VR but very little commercial investment. I can name several movies off the top of my head that addressed the technology, but can name only one mainstream commercial application of it: Nintendo's ill-fated Virtual Boy, which I actually own but only used for some months after receiving it.

The above suggests that the world is a place where while certain technologies are interesting and "cool" they still don't bring enough substance and functionality to the table to make them commonplace. I recall a year 2000 commercial where Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actor Avery Brooks ruminated over the question "Where are the flying cars?” The commercial was for IBM and concluded that with the current state of information technology flying cars were unnecessary. I feel that being completely immersed in virtual environments has also proved unnecessary, as even intricate surgery (let alone a mere rehearsal) would only require extensive mapping of a patient's interior anatomy, a monitor displaying a proper vantage of the patient, and an apparatus allowing the surgeon to use a robotic appendage as his or her own; not the detailed recreation of the entire operating room environment as Fisher suggests.

This leads me to the next negative inherent to VR technology: the ultimate death of human imagination and empathy. As the realism of artificial experiences increases the need for the viewer's imagination to become engaged and fill in the blanks decreases. As a child, daydreaming was a favorite pastime of mine. I could do it for hours and be perfectly entertained. However, as my access to television and the Internet increased, not only did my desire to daydream decrease, but also my ability to do so.

More dangerous than this is the addicting nature of increasing levels of realism in artificial experience. As the individual's imagination is further eroded by exposure to increasingly realistic artificial environments, increased levels of realism become necessary to create an emotive response. Thus, a "hyper-reality" will have to be created once artificial reality reaches a level of parity with actual reality. At this point, the individual will no longer be moved by the actual world around him and will be desensitized and indifferent to all but artificially created fantasy.