Inke Arns on Fri, 08 Jan 1999 00:26:17 +0100 |
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Syndicate: Caius Grozav: A possible METRIC in cyberspa |
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 16:36:01 +0100 From: "caius grozav" <cgrozav@hotmail.com> (by way of andreas broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>) Subject: Caius Grozav: A possible METRIC in cyberspace 1 A possible METRIC in cyberspace Some time ago I was experiencing the World Wide Wait, together with my daughter, for some advertised Cartoon Network stuff... you know; the young lady was directly interested, and when I started to be impatient she calmed me -" be patient, it comes from so far away!" Sounds hackneyed simple, but why not - for getting oriented in a new space, scientists establish measurement units for each dimension and then define a way to compute distance between two points; so I decided to take this a few steps further. Let's pretend we admit response time as distance definition in cyberspace - basically this will mean that the faster information gets to me, the closer that site is, and in reverse, slower response will come from a faraway site. It's often quite difficult to mentally wrinkle a map to meet this criteria, so that a distant search engine could be closer than a crowded server next block. I particularly like this distance definition because it links time to space - and time in ciberspace is different from our day to day continuum of schedules, appointments, sleeping ours and holidays. Lots of information is exchanged on the net in the form of email, which is a logical, time-independent connection (I can take my mail anytime, and from everywhere in the world) - even a chat has a strange simultaneousness when it takes place between people spread all over the world, each one with his own local time, from midday to midnight. Response time of a page is basically dependent on three elements: 1. speed of the lines; 2. number of concurrent requests; and 3. volume of material to be transferred. Little can we do in the field of line speed ... select the best provider in the area, buy the best affordable hardware, and wait for your government to build the informational highway... Especially here in The East, we have to resign ourselves being far from Europe and the rest of the world... (which is unfortunately true from more points of view). Number of simultaneous visitors of a site is not very interesting either, from my actual prospective - several reasons can attract people to real or virtual places, and I think there will always be crowded places in this world. Volume of information to be transferred looks interesting - the smaller the page is, comes closer to the user... the more heavy elements you introduce in it, the further you are pushing it... (e.g. I have a slow connection and there is a page I can hardly load because from some obscure aesthetic reasons it's designers used graphics to write text in - no names because I don't want to offend nobody). >From this point on, things get more complicated - in this information space we have one dimension named Volume and one named Value - their relation is delicate and hard to catch in figures. Volume is a certain number of bytes, Value is mainly subject-dependent,... but I dare to say the tremendous majority from the visitors of a site, come for something else than a "WIN A BLA, BLA animated CLICK HERE". I think we can even start speaking about pollution in this space (a common phenomenon for all modern media) - and this is a delicate subject too, because in order to clean, it can open doors for censorship and so on... I'm not trying to discuss things I need - or not need, I like - or dislike in a page, but things no visitor really needs and are still present... (e.g. every time I want to check my inbox, I have to bring in some add - I'm not interested but I have to pay for it). OK then - if images are generally big and text is small, let's have just texts in our pages. It is true that the volume of an image file is the equivalent of hundreds of pages of plain text, but you can believe me everybody will look at the picture and very few will read your text - screen is not made for huge texts. Working on a computer induces a special state of mind, different from reading a book or watching video, and information here is supposed to be structured according to the specific rules of this new media. In this particular environment, volume of transfers will be determinant in structuring on line and off line information (e.g. CD-Web Page). I think sooner or later a web specific aesthetic is to be defined (or self defined), based on common sense and exploitation of tool's potential in conjunction with user's real needs. 2 IMAGE 1. Reflection of an object in consience, based on impresions and sensations provided by our senses. 2. Reproduction of an object with the help of an optic system; plastic representation obtained by drawing, painting, sculpture, etc.; reflection of reality by help of words. (Dictionary deffinition) I think this is important because we can not operate directly on reality - we absolutely need this form of mental representation for understanding world and generate decisions. Let's take the simpest example - "A man on a plain" - land, horizon and sky... The litle tree in front of us may look taller than the church faraway (the laws of perspective) - there's prior experience teling us it's not true (we know that...); but whitout prior experience clouds will look like flat coluds up there, allthough the foamy Cumulus are only 4000ft. high and the fogy Cyrus 30000ft. If you deare to do it by night, it will be desastrous - your image will consist of fragments happening now and hundered thousand yers ago on distant suns... (not mentioning details you won't notice because of the dark...). To a certain extent it is normal - our senses have their limitations and we must live whit it as it is... aniway I have to conclude two levels of prossesing: 1. - A phisical trim (our eyes can see a limited arrea we chose); and - focus control in the receptioned arrea; both under subconstient control. 2. - A mental trim (our brain will select interesting items and reject the rest); - prior experience/knowledge refinement; and unfortunately - prejudice. This is all under dual subconstient/constient control. All of this comes from outside - it's an otside-in perception, and now coms the interesting part of it. We all play the prime part in our own plays..., so the main character has to be inserted in the sceen - this is already an inside-out image - it's ment to be iserted here and then taken out, and showed... This bringhs in the old dilema about WHAT WE ARE and WHAT WE WANT TO BE ( or LOOK LIKE). Maybe here lies the fascination of the mirror - as a feed-back that bringhs in the immage we send out... In this teritory our miths come to live... We are very vulnerable here, and belive me or not, basicly false... I do you think the primary purpose of our cloths is protection of our bodies? Try to explain the function of a tye, or compare the shape of a fashionable shoe with the shape of a human foot in an anatomy book... Try to explain why handy phones (~200$/unit) are largely sold in a country where the awerage income/capita is ~100$... Now comes the video screen image - it's more agresive than the real one because it produces it's own light (the real one just reflects it) - and more than that it gives you the ilusion of reality although you've just lost your natural instruments of intervention. Trim and focus are not enymore in your hands - you are projected in an alpha state, when ewerything comes in with the power of "I'we seen it with my own eyes"... we don't even need special efects to generate this hymera (although largely used...). So if you put a camcoder in somebodi's hand, the result can't be an objective one... sorry! Sounds (and words) can alone generate images, but if put in conjunction with image, the results can be spectacular, strengthening or distorting the message. In this medium, written text is ignored unless absolutely needed (e.g. translation), but anyway it's message will be ignored. More than that, myths and models can be inserted this way in a brain, or you can emotionally take part in the actions of fiction characters... - the less experienced and educated, the strongest the impact is... You can daily experience products of "masters of illusion" selling life-stile (or images of the self) - once captured by the screen you become helpless in front of the attack - you want to see the end of the movie, so waiting for it, messages will penetrate your brain... (unfortunately even bad add will work). Computer image comes with all this plus INTERACTION - this brings an unpleasant need of decision (and a necessary beta activity increase) - trim, focus and decision are back in my hands (at a constient level). Let me believe we have here a SEED OF FUTURE... ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com