The Question of Public Space within the Context of New Technologies

In his essay The Third Interval: A Critical Transition (1993), Paul Virilio discusses the issues of relativity and tele-presence due to interactive teletechnologies. Virilio suggests that telecommunications, being and meeting at-a-distance, have shifted the centre of attention from real space to real time and have eliminated all sorts of extension

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and duration: “when technologies of telemarketing replace those of the classical era of television, we begin to witness how the premises of an urbanisation of real-time follow in the heels of the premises of an urbanisation of real space” (Virilio, 1993, p.3).

Controlling the environment in real-time is now more important than the environment itself. Virilio moves from notions of Atopia and Utopia to the Teletopia, the condition of being “telepresent”, in other words, being here and someplace else at the same time.

Real time becomes then real space-time, “since different events surely ‘take place’ even if, finally, this place constitutes that of the no-place of teletopical technologies” (Virilio, 1993, p.4). Real space-time has to do with instantaneity, immediacy, and speed, and therefore changes our relationship with the environment. “Time (duration) and Space (extension) are now inconceivable without Light (absolute speed), the cosmological constant of the speed of light, an absolute philosophical contingency, according to Einstein, that follows the absolute character that until then Newton and his

predecessors had ascribed to space and time” (Virilio, 1993, p. 6). Real space-time constitutes the “here and now”, the “real moment” and the immediate action that eradicates duration and even “present time” for the sake of the “present instant”.

This shift to the absolute “here and now” has a direct impact on the individual and its social environment. For Virilio, the development of the territorial, physical space is giving its place to the immaterial management of the environment through satellites and networks that connects to the “terminal body”. Similarly to the conceptualisation of the

“cyborg body”, the terminal body is the “plugged-in” human being, connected to various interfaces and prosthetically augmented, that turns the “healthy (or ‘valid’) individual into the virtual equivalent of the well-equipped invalid” (Virilio, 1993, pp.4-5). The plugged-in human body is by itself a receiver and a sender, using sensors and detectors, therefore it does not need to be mobile any more as everything may move around it. But this “everything”, Virilio argues, is nothing but an optical illusion and a cinematic projection of the world, that is, entirely “telepresent” and always available. In this way the body comes at the centre: “the very body of the connected witness happens to be the ultimate urban territory – a folding back over the animal body of social organization and of a conditioning previously limited to the core of the old city. In bodily terms, it resembles the core of the old familial ‘hearth’” (Virilio, 1993, p.5).

Therefore, mobility is replaced by “motility” since the terminal citizen does not need to undergo any physical displacement, as anything can be sent or received via his

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equipment. But then what happens to space when everything becomes instant and motile? Virilio suggests that public space is indeed replaced by public images, as

everything happens within present time alone. For the sake of the real instant, and when the image replaces the “thing”, the interval gives space to the interface in real time, “in which everything arrives without there being any need either to travel or to leave in the slightest physical sense” (Virilio, 1993, p.10). The interface makes notions of proximity and distance become less important than interrelations and connections. Objects, people, relationships of physical proximity, and, most generally, public space are thus at stake.

Virilio’s argument questions public space in its construction. Telecommunications may have marked the end of the traditionally conceptualised as homogeneous and continuous public space, but they have also opened the potential for a new public sphere. Every electronic device is responsible for the production of some sort of shared – by those who possess the adequate technology – space, because of the personal information that it carries and its connectivity to other devices, and this unique space is entirely public. By default, reproduction becomes costless, information travels in real time and communication is above all decentralised, so that they altogether introduce new codes of behaviour and new social functions. For many, the idea of the public sphere as a platform of dialogue, in the model of the ancient Greek agora, can also be found in cyberspace, which is capable of instituting communities and developing political thought. In this regard, since the human body becomes augmented by information, informational space may equally stand as an extension of the

conventionally conceived – physical – space. The development and the expansion of the Smart Mobs illustrate this idea.

On January 20, 2001, President Joseph Estrada of Philippines was the first governor to lose power to a Smart Mob (Rheingold, 2003, p.157). The demonstrations broke out when a trial in which President Estrada was accused came to an end through the interference of senators linked to him. When opposition leaders sent text messages out to their acquaintances, describing the event, the reaction was immediate. Over 20 000 people, mostly dressed in black, were gathered on Edsa [Epifanio de los Santas Avenue]

within seventy-five minutes, and more than a million people showed up in the four days of the peaceful demonstration. The now famous text that passed from phone to phone

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read "Go 2 EDSA.Wear blck." (Rheingold, 2003, p.160) The “People Power II”¹

demonstration was not the first one organised through electronic texting; however it was the first that had such a direct political impact. Rheingold attributes the appearance of the first smart mobs to teenage "thumb tribes" in Tokyo and Helsinki who used text messages to organise impromptu gatherings for various reasons, to organise street games or to stalk their favourite celebrities (Rheingold, 2003, p.158). Ever since, different sorts of mobs for all kinds of occasions have been organised, such as the Critical Mass (Rheingold, 2003, p.158), a gathering of cyclists organised via the Internet that swarm hundreds of cities around the world and holding up traffic on the last Friday of every month, or the demonstrations organised by Zack Exley after the U.S. presidential election of 2000, who set up a website proposing protests all over the country, asking people to nominate locations for their own cities (Exley, 2010)². Similar to Flash Mobs as a practice, only devoted to a specific cause, smart mob actions are very common in recent times, and very effective in organising instant mobs for different reasons, from peaceful gatherings and urban actions (fig.2), to political protests and riots. Some of them, although having a clear reason and not designed just for fun, are often also named as Flash Mobs, probably to emphasize their peacefulness, or to present a cheerful aspect.

Figure 2: Caron, M. (2012) Critical mass, San Francisco

1 The name refers to the “People Power” peaceful demonstration that was organised in 1986 on the same site against the Marcos regime (Rheingold, 2003, p.157).

2Exley writes at his article: “The protests had little impact on the political scene, but for many of us involved, the experience demonstrated that a fundamental change is taking place in our national political life. It's not the Internet per se, but the emerging potential for any individual to communicate -- for free and anonymously -- with any other individual.” (Exley, 2010)

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In Smart mobs: the next social revolution, Rheingold defines a smart mob as a

“mobile ad hoc social network” (Rheingold, 2003, p.169). It is the “new social form made possible by the combination of computation, communication, reputation, and location awareness” (Rheingold, 2003, pp.169-170). In this definition, the term

“mobile” has to do with the fact that the telecommunication devices are portable and therefore can be always carried on us and “ad hoc” means that the organisation happens almost spontaneously and in a rush. According to Rheingold, “social network means that every individual in a smart mob is a ‘node’, in the jargon of social network analysis, with social ‘links’ (channels of communication and social bonds) to other individuals” (Rheingold, 2003, p.170). Then nodes and links have a double function here, they constitute the basic human elements of the communication networks, and they are connected and thus realised by wireless devices and the proper technology. By being both human and technological, nodes and links can have a significant and spatial impact.

Rheingold identifies two principle reasons for the development of the smart mobs, the fact that people have always functioned through social networks, and the

collaborative structure of the Internet, especially at its beginning. Having carried out significant research on spatial imageries and the experience of dwelling in virtual communities, he suggests that the more informal public spaces cease to exist, the more people seek alternative forms of communities and spaces (Rheingold, 2000, p.6).

Therefore, Rheingold argues, it is not our attachment to electronic devices and our connectivity that threaten public space – as Turkle argues in “Together Alone” (2011) – but instead the already-declining public space, coupled with the emerging technologies, that encourage alternative space constructions. Moreover, the way the Internet was structured and developed proposed new ways of organising communities and

collaborative action. At their beginning (early 1960s), personal computers and networks were developed by these like-minded people, who aimed at creating something for their own purposes: “in the 1960s, the community of users was the same as the community of creators, so self-interest and public goods were identical, but hackers foresaw a day when their tools would be used by a wider population” (Rheingold, 2003, p.48). Back then, the term hacker was used to describe the people who developed the computer systems. It was not until the mid-1970s that computer development passed from the hands of passionate researchers to government laboratories, corporations and computer

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gamers, and in 1976 that Bill Gates, on behalf of his new company Microsoft, first claimed that software was not a public good to be freely shared, but instead a private property (Rheingold, 2003, p.49). However, the ideas of the original “hacker ethic”

(Rheingold, 2003, p.51) were not abandoned. The term “free software movement”, developed in the mid-1980s refers to the software that can be downloaded, used, improved by users and redistributed without restriction and at no cost, aiming at keeping computer and operating systems a public good. It is the “open source”

philosophy and individuals’ contribution that have preserved the decentralised, self-organised character of the Internet and its development as a commons. And it is this commons that is often presented as a substitute for the declining public space.

Rheingold argues that people have always been linked in networks, rather than closely-bounded groups (Rheingold, 2003, p.56). Unlike groups, networks are here considered fragmentary, loosely-bounded and widely distributed, arranged over happenings, acquaintances, jobs or interests, throughout which anyone can construct one’s own

“personal community” (Barry Wellman interviewed by Rheingold, 2003, p.57).

Networks are also praised by Noam Chomsky in the construction of the “Occupy”

movement, proposing a new sort of action in public spaces: “in many ways, the most exciting aspect of the Occupy movement is the construction of the associations, bonds, linkages and networks that are taking place all over – whether it's a collaborative kitchen or something else. And, out of that, if it can be sustained and expanded to a large part of the population who doesn't yet know what is going on.” (Chomsky, 2012, p.45) Hence, social networks have been here before new technologies, although these have attempted new structures of social organisation, so that “community” can now be defined as “networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging, and social identity” (Barry Wellman interviewed by Rheingold, 2003, p.57), independent of geographical restrictions. Rheingold and Wellman suggest that with new technologies, it is the person and not the place that institutes a

community. The ever-connected mobile person becomes itself “an autonomous

communication node” (Barry Wellman interviewed by Rheingold, 2003, p.57) to create personal social networks and delineate space accordingly through these networks.

Then the body gains ground as place in its traditional sense loses its power. People tend to look for a sense of belonging to other people who do not need to be

geographically close to them anymore. Therefore the body becomes the starting point,

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the centre of a personal hybrid geography, around which people, places and space revolve. Through the “body-portal” digital and physical worlds merge: urban places are superimposed with information, media become linked with location, “smart homes”

sense, adapt and respond to their users’ needs, and virtual worlds are controlled while we press our computers’ keys. Moreover, portable electronic devices have rendered the body more mobile than ever, able to effectively organise place and time around it.

Physical locations, networks and virtual communities are combined accordingly to create shared space, places of intimacy, or places of social interaction.