User:Kendal/ThesisOutline

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How Have We Shifted From an Imagined Utopia to Desolate Wastelands of Forgotten Space Online?

Background

During the pandemic, a large number of 3D virtual environments were constructed as a way to connect people in a time of isolation. However when viewing these spaces, I noticed a stark difference between these worlds and the worlds I would inhabit in the early years of the internet. It led me down a path of how and why this changed, and while exploring I also began to notice the reflections of the promises made in physical space which also result in a series of forgotten wastelands.

Format

An analytical essay exploring related artistic, theoretical, historical and critical issues and practices that inform your practice, without necessarily referring to your work directly.

Introduction- overview

[500 words]
Previous iterations of online space are radically different from those that populate the internet today. Less popular are fantasy lands of imagined creatures, and in their place stand the hyperreal 3D spheres. Has modernisation quietened the impossible and other in favour of space that is more relatable and preexisting? With the boundless space of the internet, why do we create these spaces that already exist in our physical reality? Is it to blur the boundaries of real-life and inhabiting online? Have we blocked our ability to imagine and create without the constraints of our own human existence?

Chapter 1 Categorisation & Standardisation of the Internet & Architecture

[2000 words approx]
1. How the idea of utopia comes into play when designing space both online and offline
2. What issues arise with standardisation of the internet?- the perils of categorisation and its inevitable modular cut and paste visuals & Walled Gardens. (Annet Dekker's definition)
What follows is the emergence of fringe events, cozy web, digital gardens & the desire for vernacular design in web making

Chapter 2 Non places and the Web

[1500 words approx]
1. Introduce the theory of Marc Auge's Non-place in physical space
2. Theorise what this means in online space.
(Examples: chain mails, Abandoned platforms, Old landing pages, Error pages, Online queues, Ads between streaming pages, Log in pages, Clip graveyards)
3. Introduce idea of kenopsia by John Koenig to lead into final chapter.

Chapter 3 Virtual World Progression: Fiction or Reality?

[3000 words approx]
1. How virtual worlds have evolved with time and technology, their movement from fantasy to reality, niche to mainstream and abandoned attempts.
2. How we identify and inhabit these spaces
3. Link to Simulation & Simulacra (Jean Baudrillard's definition)
4. What types of interventions and acts of making public can help reintroduce us to the forgotten spaces? Can we use them as spaces to create artworks? Or is it a way to reconstruct the abandoned histories of these spaces?

Conclusion

[500 words approx]

References

Augé, M. (2008). Non-places : [an introduction to supermodernity]. London: Verso.‌
Benjamin, W. and Eiland, H. (2003). The Arcades Project. Cambridge, Ma: The Belknap Pr. Of Harvard Univ. Pr.
Blank, T.J. (2009). Folklore and the internet : vernacular expression in a digital world. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.
Bosma, J (2011). Nettitudes. On a journey through net art. Rotterdam: Nai.
Bowker, G.C. and Star, S. L. (2008). Sorting things out : classification and its consequences. Cambridge, Mass.: Mit Press
‌Castronova, E. (2007). Synthetic worlds : the business and culture of online games. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
Critical Art Ensemble (1998). Flesh machine : cyborgs, designer babies, eugenic conscousness. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Autonomedia.
Dekker, A, Wolfsberger, A. and Virtueel Platform (Amsterdam (2009). Walled Garden. Amsterdam: Virtueel Platform.
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Hertz, G. and Parikka, J. (2012). Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an Art Method. Leonardo, 45(5), pp.424–430.
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Rheingold, H. (2000). The virtual community : homesteading on the electronic frontier. Cambridge, Mass.: Mit Press.
Star, S. L. (1999) ‘The Ethnography of Infrastructure’, American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3), pp. 377–391. doi: 10.1177/00027649921955326.
Turkle, S. and Schuster, S. (2014). Life on the screen : identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, Dr. ‌