Materializing Communication Concepts

This chapter is concerned with exposing the material basis for the concepts of the syntagm and paradigm from linguistics, and the message and messages for selection from information theory. The priority, given to abstract concepts over their material basis when cutting paper is conceived as a pedagogic technique to illustrate the distinction of syntagm from paradigm, is reversed. Materialities of linearity, of surface, and of store or reservoir, are revealed to lie behind the abstractions of linguistics and of information theory. The paradigm is regarded as generated from the immediately present material reality of the syntagm as the line of writing. The understanding of the word, as a cohesive group of letters with strong statistical influences, is understood as more explicitly revealing the material basis for communication, and to correspond to the instantiation of the word in paper- and computer-based systems. A rematerialization, rather than a dematerialization, of communication is discerned in current transitions in information technologies and practices.

Representing Space

The chapter is concerned with the relationship between the planar space of graphic representations and the world space that they represent. To achieve some coherence in thinking about the spatiality of different media such as film, television, and videogames, two opposed modes of composition, the configurational and the pictorial, are described, both historically and in current practice. The film theory concepts of diegetic and extra-diegetic are also unified with these two modes of composition. It is argued that the historical, developmental path to the spatiality of modern media suggests an almost irresistible pictorial imperative. So while we may at times regret the dominance of one particular mode of picture-making that, for some purposes, certainly has weaknesses in both informational and affective terms, in the end we must acknowledge its attraction and its power.

Spatial Language in Computer Mediated Communication

People use spatial language in everyday face-to-face conversation, and we also now use such language during everyday computer-mediated interactions. Commonly, such interactions can take place over mobile phones or in shared virtual environments such as multiplayer games. However, to date, very few academic studies have looked at how people’s use and understanding of spatial language might differ when it is computer mediated. Our own experimentation has investigated the relation between the uses of route, survey, and also gaze perspectives in a simple virtual environment.

Context, Boundedness, and Structure

In distinguishing between space and place, one approach is to contrast the physicality of space with the sociality of place: space directs attention to the material configuration of the physical environment while place indicates an individual’s understanding of the social behaviors that are appropriate within that environment. However, such a distinction juxtaposing the physical configuration of space to the social orientation of place is, on consideration, too limiting in its applicability. A more effective and generalizable distinction between space and place must also consider perceptions of context, implications of boundedness, and the influence of organizational structure. This broader approach to analysis of space and place can lead to the identification of meaningful differences that influence the functional activities of an information system and contribute to a greater understanding of what it is that constitutes an information environment.

Voice and Space

The widespread use of mobile telephony prompts a reevaluation of the role of the aural sense in spatial understanding. There are clear correlations between voice and space. The attributes of the voice constitute important variables in the way people position themselves in public spaces: to speak, to hear, or to get away from the voice. The voice can connote intimacy, communality, and welcome, but also has the potential for disquiet and disruption, particularly as an unseen acousmêtre, (a term developed in film studies). Spatial design can benefit from an exaggerated consideration of voice, to counteract the primacy already given to the visual field. This chapter examines the relationship between the voice and space in public spaces, and the technologies and practices involved.

Listening, Corporeality, Place and Presence

This chapter considers the role of sound, and more specifically, listening, in creating a sense of presence (of “being there”) in “places” recreated by virtual reality technologies. We first briefly review the treatment of sound in place and presence research. Here we give particular attention to the role of sound in inducing a sense of presence in virtual environments that immerse their users in representations of particular places. We then consider the phenomenology of listening, the nature of different types of listening, and their application: listening is active, directed, intentional hearing, and is not merely egocentric, it is body-centric. A classification of modes of listening that draws on work in film studies, virtual reality, and audiology is then proposed as a means of supporting the design of place-centric virtual environments in providing an effective aural experience. Finally, we apply this to a case study of listening in real and simulated soundscapes, and suggest directions for further applications of this work

Reconfiguring the Rose

This chapter discusses artists’ use of virtual space to collaboratively create a digital stained-glass rose window. It explores the use of virtual space to provide a working environment for artists, the Wombrose workspace, using the design metaphor provided by the rose window to create a collaborative space. This space focused at supporting practice-based artists in a democratic and effective negotiation process with the aim of developing a potentially monumental artwork to be installed as a digital projection in a real architectural space.

Technosocial Space

The chapter is based on a study of Internet cafés in Norway, and interrogates the way space and place is produced in interconnections between people and technology in the Internet café. Drawing on actornetwork theory and practice-oriented theories of place and space, the Internet café is understood as technosocial spaces producing connections between people and places at different levels. Firstly, the Internet café can be understood as a hybrid, a site where users and technologies as well as space are coconstructed in entwined processes where gender, as well as other identity markers, are central in the way the technology, as well as the cafés, develop and are understood. The next level looks at the production of Internet cafés as technosocial spaces. Despite being perceived as an “urban” and “global” phenomenon, Internet cafés are configured based on local circumstances, in urban as well as rural communities. Differing images of what the cafés want to achieve, as well as material constrains, are at play in this process. Finally, the chapter shows how Internet cafés are places of connections, producing space beyond the walls of the café, linking the local into a translocal sphere.

On Information, Meaning, Space and Geometry

Current methods of automatic indexing, automatic classification, and information retrieval treat index and query terms, that is, vocabulary units in any language, as locations in a geometry. With spatial sense relations among such units identified, and syntax added, the making of a geometric equivalent of language for advanced communication is an opportunity to be explored.

Let's Meander Through a Measured Space

This chapter concerns the question of how people navigate through a space in which other people are also present. Issues addressed include how the space itself affects the way people navigate, how this is changed by the presence of others in the space on a collective or individual basis, and how navigational abilities and behaviour can be measured. Such measurements can then be used, for example, to identify aberrant behaviour in public spaces. The state-of-the-art and current challenges in this domain are discussed. A new empirical approach to the tracking of pedestrians who are navigating populated spaces is then described, and its verification, validation, and further extension discussed.