Abstract not available

The home is a material place of routine and isolation. Cyberspace, on the other hand, is associated with the lightness of disembodiment and engagement with others in virtual worlds. I am interested in the home as a locale of cyberspace in regard to the relationship between attaching and detaching, territorializing and de-territorializing, the smooth and the striated. My experimentation is about frozen moments in day-to-day situations. Through experiments with light, materials and installations, I intend to draw out a tactile perspective on cyberspace and domesticity. In terms of materials, I am particularly interested in the residues in everyday life. Light and materials are considered to be tactile as well as visual. Performativity, Heuristics and Active Documentation are my main methodological approaches. My work does not seek to fix a solution, but open up an area of ongoing discovery. The physical makings are the ignition for later developments. Once the installation has been set up, the performativity is transferred to the audience. The surrounding space becomes activated because of the energy released by the audience's engagement. Heuristic use of intuition and informal experience was applied in my working process to discover imperceptible traits of materials and daily situations. Active Documentation helps me to re-consider, re-negotiate, reflect and renew my work throughout the project. In this way, hidden codes can be brought out to the surface.

<p>This paper’s chief focus lays in essence, in the examination of what the eventual relevance of the internet has for refugee youth in Sweden, regarding the realisation of a sense of community and participation therein. Rather than acquiring grounds with which to make generalisations feasible, it is an approach towards attaining a better comprehension in understanding the significance of a youth’s views and perceptions, through which ultimately also their internalisation, of the internet as a medium towards eventual capitalisation of the cybersocial potential. However, by ‘sense of community’, this primarily refers to interactional and relational aspects, rather than on premises of eventual membership within forums that may in turn prove to be ’dormant’.</p>

No description available.

The aim of this dissertation is two-fold. First, the discussion seeks to understand the concepts of nationalism and patriotism and how they relate to one another. In respect to the more critical literature concerning nationalism, it asks whether these two concepts are as different as is sometimes assumed. Furthermore, by problematizing nation-branding as an “updated” form of nationalism, it seeks to understand whether we are facing the possible emergence of a new type of nationalism. Second, the study endeavors to discursively analyze the ”bottom-up” processes of national reproduction and re-definition in an online, post-socialist context through an empirical examination of the online debate and polemic about the new Polish patriotism. The dissertation argues that approaching nationalism as a broad phenomenon and ideology which operates discursively is helpful for understanding patriotism as an element of the nationalist rhetoric that can be employed to study national unity, sameness, and difference. Emphasizing patriotism within the Central European context as neither an alternative to nor as a type of nationalism may make it possible to explain the popularity and continuous endurance of nationalism and of practices of national identification in different and changing contexts. Instead of facing a new type of nationalism, we can then speak of new forms of engagement which take place in cyberspace that contribute to the process of reproduction of nationalism. The growing field of nation-branding, with both its practical and political implications, is presented as one of the ways in which nationalism is reproduced and maintained as a form of “soft” rather than “hard” power within the global context. The concept of nation re-branding is introduced in order to account for the role that citizens play in the process of nation branding, which has often been neglected in the literature. This concept is utilized to critically examine, understand, and explain the dynamics of nation brand construction and re-definition, with a particular focus on the discursive practices of citizens in cyberspace. It is argued that citizens in the post-socialist countries, including Poland, can engage in the process of nation re-branding online. It is also argued that this process of online nation re-branding may legitimately be regarded as a type of civic practice through which citizens connect with each other and reproduce a form of cultural national intimacy. The results of the analysis of the online empirical material illustrate that nation re-branding is a complex, dynamic, and ambivalent phenomenon. It involves a process of discursive negotiation of nation and of national identity, but also challenges, dismantles, and transforms the national image as it is communicated both internally and externally. This reveals nation re-branding as an element in the post-socialist transformation from a ”nation” to a ”Western,” ”modern,” and ”normal” country in which dealing with an ”old” nation brand is as equally important as the introduction of the new brand. Nationalism does not disappear in the digital age, but rather becomes part of the new way of doing politics online, whereby citizens are potentially granted a form of agency in the democratic process.

This paper’s chief focus lays in essence, in the examination of what the eventual relevance of the internet has for refugee youth in Sweden, regarding the realisation of a sense of community and participation therein. Rather than acquiring grounds with which to make generalisations feasible, it is an approach towards attaining a better comprehension in understanding the significance of a youth’s views and perceptions, through which ultimately also their internalisation, of the internet as a medium towards eventual capitalisation of the cybersocial potential. However, by ‘sense of community’, this primarily refers to interactional and relational aspects, rather than on premises of eventual membership within forums that may in turn prove to be ’dormant’.

This thesis investigates if it is possible to speak about a virtual culture. If so, it seeks to answers to the following questions: Is it possible to mention a culture peculiar to cyberspace or virtual culture is just a mirror of real life culture? Where does the body position? How have been identities experienced? What does fluid and fragmented identity mean? Does it offer a space of opportunities? How has been gender formed on cyberspace? Is removal of gender barriers possible? Answers to all these questions have been explored through text-based virtual reality environments on the Internet called MUDs in which creating alternative identities is possible. A survey and interviews as well as direct and participant observations for the exploration of MUD environments have been conducted. Mostly, MUDs called, LambdaMOO and Aardwolf, and then Cab&uuml / lka Cab&uuml / lsa have become central sites of observations and interviews. The findings show that cyberspace has its rules and limitations which are not independent from the real world. Since gender is a key component indicating the society interacts, culture of cyberspace cannot stay aside. Despite possibility of gender switching, stereotypical gender performances continue to exist. However cyberspace is a new and rich communication environment in respect of facilities it offers and its future structure and form largely depend on the users.

The discovery of new geometries in the 19th century and the departure from an absolute to a relative understanding of space-time, together with the invention of higher dimensions have caused a shift towards the idealization of space. This new type of ideal space was called hyperspace. The counter-intuitive quality of hyperspace has opened up new formal possibilities and representation techniques in art and architecture. In a similar manner, with the introduction of computers, the virtual and immaterial quality of cyberspace has offered new design techniques and forms to architecture. Algorithmic design tools and the use of surface as the primary architectural element in cyberspace have caused a shift in the conception of space together with the way it is perceived. Taking its departure point from physical space, this thesis investigates the upper and lower dimensions of space in order to understand and analyze the current conception of architectural space in the virtual realm. Three types of spatial qualities are investigated in detail: the ideal characteristic of hyperspace, the visual medium of cyberspace and the algorithmic formation of hypospace.

Abstract: This thesis aims to explore how utopian desires re/shape the posthuman, cyberspace and histories by means of information technologies in William Gibson¡¦s Idoru and All Tomorrow¡¦s Parties, which construct a fragmented but subversive power by representing the world in a utopian text that allows the free play of ideology. Gibson uses utopian imagination to cobble together a near future that reflects his concern with information technologies and media over contemporary society. Utopian imaginations on the one hand open up possibilities and transform fixed ideas; on the other, utopian imaginations are easily turned into utopian desires that are subject to manipulation if utopian designers want to sell. I intend to discover how desires to realize a utopia (body, space, and history), which is the ultimate goal of utopian program, are being manipulated by utopian designers. I will mainly adapt and blend Katherine Hayles¡¦s notion of the posthuman perspectives to challenge human possibilities, Donna Haraway¡¦s notion of the cyborg as a blasphemy to Western traditions, Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus to examine utopic expressions in William Gibson¡¦s textual constructions of utopias, and Walter Benjamin¡¦s notions of material historiography and history¡¦s messianic power in tracing individual memories under a capitalist contextualized History. In Chapter One, I will argue that Idoru as well as Idoru metamorphosize from a dialectical structure into an informational pattern-random structure, from a commodity into a posthuman subjectivity. I will adopt Katherine Hayles¡¦s concept of information narratives in explaining the re/shaping of Rei¡¦s body and her concept of the posthuman to explicate the struggle between the posthuman and the transhuman. In Chapter Two I will argue that cyberspace serves as a utopia that brings forth the desire to transcend the flesh. This utopian desire is a transgressive discourse that breaks up the totality of a closed system. Moreover, cyberspace exposes the feedback looping of the discourses of capitalism and anti-capitalism. Respectively, by the representation of virtual Venice and the Walled City, these two utopias write proposals that project discourses of pleasure and criticism for achieving their programs. I will adopt Donna Haraway¡¦s cyborg ontology in explaining cyberspace as a transgressive discourse and Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus of utopic expressions and the limits of utopia. Next, in Chapter Three, I shall expose how Harwood the capitalist manipulates the world to fit into his utopian proposal: modernization of the city as a manifestation of a utopia by means of cyberspace as a network that connects people globally. To contravene Harwood, Idoru, Laney and the Walled City denizens collaborate to checkmate Harwood¡¦s king. I will elaborate on the interactions between the universal history and the individual histories based on Walter Benjamin¡¦s concept of history.

Univ., Diss.--Erfurt, 2005.