The Wild Surmise

Does your language use English words for computers and the internet or do you have your own?

Does your language use English words for computers and the internet, or do you have your own?

I'm interested in the ways in which non-English speaking cultures are breaking away from dominant North American metaphors and concepts related to computers and the internet. I think that increased international use will radically change the way in which we view the 'landscapes' of cyberspace and I'm looking to prove that theory by finding new words and phrases in non-English languages. I'd very much like your help.

Netsurfing is a constellation whose three stars are the mind, the imagination and the wide-open internet

In her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking Rebecca Solnit writes: “Walking is a constellation whose three stars are the body, the imagination and the wide-open world".

How can this be extrapolated to cyberspace? Perhaps:

“Netsurfing is a constellation whose three stars are the mind, the imagination and the wide-open internet".

Which space is more significant: outer space or cyberspace?

This month we're celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon-landing. Few people connect this celebration with the fact that by some spooky serendipity 1969 was the year that humans landed first ‘on’ the moon (July) and then ‘in’ cyberspace (the first two nodes of the internet were connected in September).

Today the mountains of the Moon remain largely neglected and unexplored, but cyberspace has evolved into a deeply familiar habitat with a complex geography shaped by those who inhabit it. It could be said that the entering of cyberspace has proved to be a far more profound experience than the entering of outer space.

Image: Detail of ACC 1992 calendar, commissioned by Roland Bryan, a collaborative effort by ACC staff and the artist Chuck Huckeba

Where Lawns End

Where Lawns End: The Rumpus Interview with Amy Stein isn't about cyberspace but it resonates with my research because it focuses on 'our conflicting impulses to both hang back from and bridle the wild' - very relevant to the way human beings behave when they encounter an unfamiliar space. In cyberspace, very often, fear of wild animals is often replaced with of fear of the 'wild' humans who may be lurking with intent to harm. Even more reason, therefore, to be sure of one's boundaries. (With thanks to Tawny Grammar)

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The Twitter Tree

 

MG Siegler of Techcrunch provides not just a useful if short commentary:

Sure, you could read about the history of Twitter in long-form blog posts, but that seems to go against the spirit of the micro-messaging service. So instead, here’s a picture created by InfoShotsManolith that puts some key moments of the service’s history in visual form. This spans from the advent of UNIX “Talk” in the 1980s (an early real-time text update system), all the way to the Twipocalypse. for the blog

But also an earlier draft of the image concept:

'Nature and Cyberspace: The Wild Surmise' to be published by Bloomsbury Academic

Today I signed a contract with Bloomsbury's new scholarly imprint Bloomsbury Academic. Delivery date is September 2012 so i need to get my skates on - lots to do. I'm very excited to be working with Bloomsbury, since they seem to have the right idea about publishing in a new media world - they understand how open source works and they're prepared to experiment at the more risky end of publishing. I gather their new website will be launching soon, and there we will see the full glory of their intentions :)

As for The Wild Surmise - they want to switch the title around to 'Nature and Cyberspace: The Wild Surmise', and I can see how that makes sense because it's more explicit but retains the poetry of the original phrase. I'm keen to reach beyond academia with this book.

So now the idea becomes a firm reality. I'm really looking forward to it!

Tim O'Reilly: "If the internet were a landscape, it would be an ocean."

When I recently interviewed Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly Media, I asked him the same question I've been asking all my interviewees - "If the internet were a landscape, what kind of landscape would it be?" His first impulse, he said, was to think of it as an ocean:

"The sea is a sustaining medium, most of which is invisible to us and which, like our atmosphere, we largely take for granted. But elements of it occasionally swim within our range of vision. I think the internet is a lot like that - we see very little of it at any one time."

I was reminded of his comment yesterday when I marked my last week in California with a whale-watching trip in the Santa Barbara Channel. We saw several humpbacks but the really exciting moment was when we were surrounded by dozens of leaping dolphins racing alongside and even under the boat, speeding just below the water, right beside us, and flying into the air in groups of three or four. The water was boiling with them all around! This crummy phone picture doesn't begin to do justice to their joyful grace. Of course, we have no idea whether they are joyful in any sense at all, but being out there with them reminded me of how joyful they make me feel, and of how little I know about the mysteries of the ocean. I stared into the water and tried to imagine how deep it was and what was down there. It will be a while yet before the internet is equally deep and complex but I do agree with Tim O'Reilly that we see very little of it at any one time and indeed when I think about the deep web I often get that same sense of unplumbed depths. And I wonder what kinds of strange creatures are evolving down there in the internet dark?