Visual & Media Studies Academic Journal
ISSN 2299-906X
1. CYBERMETRIES
Using the well-known geometric structures as a base for forming the landscape of cyberspace is part of the natural process of 'transition' from the known to the unknown world; in other words the process of 'colonization' of the new space. Within this process, we can observe a cyberspatial ‘evolution’ - the selection that allows extracting and consolidating the best possible solutions for virtual worlds, allows establishing new paradigms, and also allows extracting characteristics of these worlds. Isolating the specific features leads to more efficient ways of navigation in the new spaces, better usage and more effective management.
Also the geometric structures of virtual spaces adapt as a result of adjusting to the requirements of the evolving electronic environment. We are redefining existing concepts, creating new definitions, and finally, creating new geometries as a response to the inadequacy of the old systems. New geometric systems in cyberspace form a quite distinct field of geometry of the digital world that is separate from the traditional notion of geometry. These new systems are freed from the function of description of nature; they are abstract, and open for mind to create existential space, which is set in the electronic domain of cyberspace.
These new geometries of cyberspace, which are the outcome of the processes described above, we can call ‘cybermetries’ [1] rather than ‘geometries’ – in order to distinguish them from the traditional geometric theories. Cybermetries are created based on the characteristics of the environment of cyberspace: a new concept of dimension, hypertextual access, lack of continuity and location, no point of reference, mathematical infinity, lack of scale, and the specific dynamics characteristic of the whole system.
3.1. Examples of cybermetry
The process of clarification of cyberspatial environment brings the emancipation of cybermetry. A good example for that is proposed by the Kenton Musgrave combination of fractal geometry with the Euclidean geometry as a new geometry more relevant for cyberspatial environment than the ones that relate to the physical world. Other examples could be Mark Titman’s Zoom Geometry or Michael Leyton’s New Formalism.
3.1.1. Titman’s Zoom Geometry
Mark Titman’s Zoom Geometry is a response to the new characteristic features of virtual environments. Zoom geometry is the geometry of becoming, the geometry of life.
Titman postulates to derive the multidimensionality of cyberspace from the movement. The movement that occurs in cyberspace is a result of polarity, the force which exists within all living beings, including the organisms of digital origin (Organized Data). ‘Polarity has generated dimensionality through movement,’ says Titman.
A position in cyberspace cannot be estimated based on a relationship with the environment, as happens in the physical world; the position in cyberspace is defined as the proportion of mutual relations of users and the current needs of the user-defined direction of movement. Position is determined by the vectors of the optimum changes. In this case, the destination is a priority, even if is unknown. Establishing a permanent change and the intention are integral parts of this process.
The movement, according to Titman, is the only way to determine the position in cyberspace. Every new position generates different expectations and answers for the user. Based on this, the user / inhabitant of cyberspace decides in which direction he should proceed and what size of the cyberspatial environment he must generate.
Titman also underlines that in cyberspace there is no frame of reference; we cannot determine the point to which we will refer when forming, measuring, or describing virtual worlds. The reference points depend on whether the system is static, dynamic, or nomadic, and whether the objectives have been defined. If the target is specified, the navigator knows the position, can define the area, and the structure can be created, gaining some stability during this process. If the target is not specified, or there is not enough data to determine it, the user moves using his intuitive qualities of navigation: instinct, intuition, and intellect.
According to Titman, cyberspace has three basic dimensions: height, width, and breath. Breath is movement, life; it’s pulsing and temporary.
Zoom geometry exists in space, in which a point and a plane can be balanced. The point, in cyberspace, according to Titman, is its negation, its opposite, which is an Infinitely Distant Sphere. Everything can be determined by the relationship to the empty space. Zoom geometry is an idea of a space where past and future components, peripherals and centers, planes and points maintain perfect balance.
3.1.2. Leyton’s New Formalism
Michael Leyton has developed the concept of a new geometry where shape is equivalent to the Memory Storage. Leyton called this theory a New Formalism. According to this theory, a memory of every geometric transformation is preserved in a shape. The procedures contained in the shapes of objects and in their nature constitute the basis for the New Formalism. ‘Instead of thinking about the results, describing them in a geometric manner, let’s concentrate on the process,' says Leyton.
M. Leyton: the inferred histories on the shape
Leyton’s New Formalism is a theory widely used in other fields of science. Leyton himself describes the use of his geometry in the processes of discovering structures of paintings and the creation of architecture (described in the publication The Structure of Paintings, 2006). In his opinion, works of art are a storehouse of information. Leyton also believes that the emotions expressed through images or architectural shapes are in fact the memory, which is easy to reconstruct based on certain laws. He says that these laws that concern keeping/storing memory allow for the systematic and rigorous mapping not only of the compositional structure, but also emotional structure.
M. Titman, Zoom Geometry
New Formalism introduces a new approach to geometry. In the New Formalism, a shape is the means of reconstructing history, is the way by which past actions are restored. The shape is equivalent to the memory storage; it is no longer only a form.
Leyton believes that memory is stored in asymmetries and erased in symmetries. He developed a ‘principle of asymmetry,’ which says that any asymmetry must return to the symmetry if it goes back in time. This allows reconstructing the history of shapes. The form is the result of history; in other words, form is memory.
M. Leyton: the inferred histories on the shape
Referring to the architecture in cyberspace, Leyton says that it itself is a living structure, asymmetric, which allows us to rediscover and restore the history of the process by which it was produced - bending, cutting, twisting, breaking, etc.; in other words, it is a magazine of memory about itself.
[Architecture] is no longer dull and aloof, like the conventional building. It is alive with time, and, because it is filled with memory it is alive with mind. [2]
Leyton, like Titman, pays special attention to the problem of time and movement in cyberspace. Both also introduce new ways of looking at the cyberspatial dimensionality. A fundamental change from geometry in cybermetry lies in redefining dimension.
3.2. An alternative understanding of dimension - a cyberspatial dimension
The process of creating cybermetry is based on redefining certain geometrical values. The basic change, and the base for the creation of the new language, is redefinition of the concept of ‘point,’ replacing it with the concept of ‘event.’ This brings the need to change the concept of line, which is no longer just a set of points, but a collection of events, thus losing continuity. Similarly, we can look for redefinition of the plane, solid, and in the end, the space itself. To conclude: electronic virtual space consists of events, and the movement is a condition of its existence.
We will also need to redefine the concept of dimension for the purposes of cyberspace. Since the notion of distance or scale does not exist, we lack the tools of description to establish location and determine the 'size' of an object or event. Dimension in the mathematical sense cannot function in an environment where there is no reference point (it can only function in the local systems, in which encoding is unified, and every user knows its predefined rules), so the notion of dimension in cyberspace should be considered to be based on completely other values of 'measuring.'
These values may not be quantitative, but they must be considered in terms of quality. This means that the dimension of cyberspace is a characteristic (property), not a number.
3.2.1 Metadata
Dimensions in cyberspace are often interpreted as properties of the data - metadata.
Metadata is information helping to identify data in cyberspace. It is basically data about data. Most metadata consist of information about the author, date, and time of creation of the file (or information), size of a document, date of last change, format, etc. This information identifies the uniqueness of the document and its location in cyberspace. It can be defined as dimensions of the document / information / event in cyberspace.
To determine the location, shape, transformation of an object in physical space, we use geometry; to determine the location, shape, transformation of the object in cyberspace, we use metadata. Metadata is therefore one of the key factors that shapes cybermetries. The object is information, and its dimension is information about itself and its properties.
Understanding of metadata as the characteristic features of the document / object / event / in cyberspace can be extended to a description of properties such as color, the frequency of sound, etc. All of unified qualitative systems can be metadata, thus dimensions of cyberspace.
3.2.2. Semantic Dimensions. Semantic Spaces
Alan Wexelblat’s concept of Semantic Spaces and Semantic Dimensions relates to the idea of metadata.
Wexelblat says that through the combination of properties such as the document’s language, lines of code, date of modification, and author with the concept of dimension, we create n - dimensional information space in which objects are identified and classified according to the characteristics of these dimensions, as he calls them: semantic dimension.
The semantic dimension is a way to combine elements of different values. Semantic dimensions are mechanisms to help solve the problems of positioning and composition. They create ways to organize the elements according to their importance.
Semantic space is n - dimensional space where each dimension is a semantic dimension and n is the number of properties that express forms of objects in space (including the values not found). According to this concept, cyberspace is a multi-dimensional information space.
The goal of semantic dimension is to give a representative meaning for the arrangement and position of abstract information. As a result, we are creating the logic of the position in accordance with the structure of objects.
Wexelblat describes two basic types of semantic dimension that exist in cyberspace: the Absolute Dimensions, i.e. those that can be described based on examination of a particular isolated object (such as author and the size of the object), and the Relative Dimensions, which refer to the relationship of object with other objects and users. In the group of Relative Dimensions, furthermore, we can distinguish five types: Linear Dimensions, which correspond to those dimensions which can be described in the form of conventional lines (i.e., values correspond to real numbers); Ray Dimensions, similar to linear but connected at one end to a fact or feature; Quantum Dimensions; Nominal Dimensions; Ordinal Dimensions; and Functional Dimensions.
Because the dimensions carry information, both editing and changing the position of the object influences its dimensionality. Editing is done by movement of the object:
Movement – in semantic space we change the meaning by moving them along one or other dimension. [It is] Editing by moving. [3]
3.3. Cybermetries without geometry
A cybermetric system is used to describe the creation of electronic and virtual worlds. Cyberspace, as a visualized world of ideas, uses symbols - images. It also produces its own language of symbols, which evolves adapting to the environment.
Does cyberspace seek to abandon the figurative language of symbols? As it is the product of abstract intellect and it relies on abstract ideas, what is the role of figurativeness in cyberspace? To be able to communicate, must cyber architecture be linked to forms of ‘spatial’ forms or must it be based on the spatial geometric system?”
Cybermetries are associated with a new understanding of the properties of geometric objects and are the result of thinking about cyberspace as a space environment. Defining new properties, dimensions, may lead to conclusions which in effect starts to change perception of space itself.
[1] ‘Geo’ – ‘Earth’ is not adequate for Cyberspace environment, as we are not using these systems to measure physical world. So we propose to replace ‘geo’ with ‘cyber’ coining a new term ‘cybermetries’.
[2] Leyton M., Shape As Memory, A Geometric Theory of Architecture, Birkhäuser, 2006.
[3] A. Wexelblat, ‘Semantic Dimension’ in Architects in Cyberspace.
The First Administration Building M. Leyton
The Second Administration Building M. Leyton
The Forth Administration Building M. Leyton
The Third Administration Building M. Leyton
The Seventh Administration Building M. Leyton
The Sixth Administration Building M. Leyton
AGNIESZKA SZÓSTAKOWSKA
3. SKETCHES FROM VIRTUAL SPACE - II CYBERSTRUCTURE
1. Abstract
2. Thesis
3. Sketches – Methodology
1.1. Phantomology and Immersion
1.2. The Virtuality and the Myth
2.2. Existential Space
2.3. The Space of the Mind
3.1. What is Cyberspace?
3.1.1. Electricity and Multimedia
3.1.2. Extended sensorium
3.2. Where is cyberspace?
3.2.1. Self-organization (User-Driven Environment)
1.1. The substance of cyberspace
1.2. To sculpt cyberspace
1.2.1. Formation of the interface
1.2.2. Shaping the message
1.3. Structure of cyberspace
1.3.1. The order of space
1.3.2. Spatial coordinates
1.3.3. Right Hemisphere Structures
1.3.4. Lef t Hemisphere Structures
3.1. Examples of cybermetry
3.1.1. Titman’s Zoom Geometry
3.1.2. Leyton’s New Formalism
3.2. An alternative understanding of dimension - a cyberspatial dimension
3.2.1. Metadata
3.2.2. Semantic Dimensions. Semantic Spaces
3.3. Cybermetries without geometry
4. STRUCTURES OF CYBERSPACE
4.1. Kenton Musgrave’s concept
4.2. Michael Benedikt’s concept
1.1. Architectural (r) evolution
1.2. Architectural (re) definition
3.1. Designing the Process
3.1.2. Genome. The processes of nature
3.1.3. The code of cyberspace
3.2. Creating images. The new symbolism of cyberspace
3.2.1. Places
3.3. New design methods. Creating the Worlds
3.3.1. Defamiliarization
3.4. Function and forms of cyberarchitecture
Acknowledgments:
This research project would not have been possible without the kind support of many people. I would like to express my gratitude towards my supervisor, prof. Barbara Borkowska – Larysz and all individuals from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow who helped me with it. My special thanks and appreciations go also to people who helped with the English translation: Charlotte Snyder, Brendan Kennedy and Gus Russo. I am also highly indebted to Edna Emmet and Gus Russo for everything. Many warm thanks go to my wonderful friends for their support: Wiola Mazurek, Robbye and Kevin Apperson, Gail Langstroth, Mark Towles and Sherri Romm Towles. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my family: my parents Ela and Marek and my sister Ania, who encouraged me during the process and especially to my wonderful husband Lucas Lechowski, for his great music and inspiration.
Thank you!
Agnieszka Szóstakowska
CyberEmpathy SPECIAL EDITION 1 / 2011: Sketches from Virtual Reality
AGNIESZKA SZÓSTAKOWSKA
3. SKETCHES FROM VIRTUAL SPACE - II CYBERSTRUCTURE
„Nothing could be more important
than the effort
taken to understand where our
world is going,
and if we should resist, or
whether, accepting the
move, actively participate in it.”
(Stanisław Lem)
Bibliographic description to this article:
3. Sketches from Virtual Space - II Cyberstructure /A. Szóstakowska. CyberEmpathy: Visual Communication and
New Media in Art, Science, Humanities, Design and Technology SPECIAL EDITION 1 /2011.
Cybersky. ISSN 2299-906X. Kokazone.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web
PhD Dissertation 2011
Jan Matejko Academy
of Fine Arts, Krakow
CYBERMETRIES
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