Defining Electronic Space from First Principles

Peter Anders, ptr@mindspace.net

Space to Think

The field of cyberspace design is populated by those working at the boundaries of their professions as artists, designers or engineers. Distinguishing nascent principles of cyberspace design from those of its tributary disciplines is difficult since cyberspace depends on the vision of its contributors – each working within their own fields. Instead, it may be more useful to address cyberspace at its root level, understanding cyberspace as an extension of our consciousness. Doing so allows us to discover principles innate to the medium rather than prejudicing its development with values of pre-existing disciplines.

Examining cyberspace on the basis of first principles requires us to understand what cyberspace is and how it supports human activity and aspirations. If we characterize cyberspace as the spatial reference used in electronic media, we are still left with defining space itself. What we experience as space is actually the product of complex mental processes. The dimensionalized environment of thought and experience, is a powerful tool for thought. It presents a relational array of sensation and thought in a matrix of our own making.

As a result space, as an artifact of cognition, only contains products of mental processes. Even concrete objects undergo cultural and linguistic manipulations as we place them in our field of awareness. All objects of our attention are imbued with meaning, whether through deliberate signals of our culture, or the inferred construction of our mental image.

This assignment of meaning transforms all objects into subjects of our awareness. Significantly, distinctions between physical and symbolic artifacts are leveled out in this transformation. They take the same status. For example distinguishing between a brick and its image becomes a matter of perceived and cognitive content rather than a biased polarity between reality and simulation, real vs. virtual.

Anthropic Cyberspace

This is crutial to realizing cyberspace’s potential extension of our thought processes. Only by understanding the human-based (anthropic) relationship between space and information can we begin to see cyberspace as a means for managing and appreciating information – turning it from data into knowledge. It is this understanding that must inform the design of cyberspaces that extend our human capability, anthropic cyberspace.

While it may seem risky to place reality and simulation on the same plane, it does yield valuable fruit. It lets us recognize the symbolic content latent in all our artifacts – whether or not they are material. Conversely, we also see reference to the material world in even the most abstract metaphors. This awareness leads to one of the first principles of cyberspace design. All artifacts rest on a scale ranging from the most concrete to the most abstract. On this scale rest also the symbolic artifacts of cyberspace.

A look at our own creative processes reveals the relationship between physicality and cyberspace. Any project requires available means for its accomplishment. These include material resources as well as information drawn from experience, texts or other media. Increasingly these media include electronic resources: television, telephone and computer networks like the Internet. Aside from our own intentions, the project comprises symbolic and concrete elements throughout its development. To the degree that these are mediated electronically the project is a hybrid of simulation and actuality.

Cybrids

An example taken from the world of design helps illustrate this point. Until they are incorporated into the project all objects and artifacts are potential resources. As the project develops resources are assembled into strategic relationships. While the early stages of a project may only be manifested in sketches and a site, the electronic files supporting the effort – while not physical – are nevertheless vital to the project. These files may be printed out, adding to the overall physical manifestation of the project.

These print-outs are then regarded and critiqued, leading to modifiations in the electronic files. In ensuing stages of the work the files are again “printed-out” as drawings, models, mockups and, ultimately, the product itself. The cycle of production and evaluation demonstrates that the project – at all times – has a dual existence as information and matter.

Nor does this necessarily end when the product is realized. The occupant of a completed building, for example, may also use the generating files to monitor the building’s security and operation. (Indeed, the files be a model that may be used to help the owner’s business, projecting it onto the Internet, for example.) Some facility management systems let operators control buildings’ systems though a computer simulation. It is as though the building’s information base is its electronic double, its soul.

This double condition of the project – which I call cybrid – extends aspects of the physical project into cyberspace. While I used architecture in the example above, the principle of cybrids applies to many other creative fields. Cybrids are simply the evolving relationship between the material and symbolic components of a project. The concrete aspect may be a building, a painting or a book. So long as the physical project is attended by an electronic double, it is a cybrid.

As computation becomes more prevalent in different fields we will continue to see more of this new class of artifact. Cybrids emerge from the “natural” history of artifacts which all comprise physical and informational content. With the last century’s onset of electronic media, the symbolic content of artifacts takes an active role, extending the artifact’s presence beyond the boundaries of its material form.