<nettime> Re: there is no place in cyberspace

[brian carroll <human {AT} architexturez.com>]

 astronomical space has space dust, asteroids, stars,
 gases, high-energy particles, etc. it is a void, but it
 is not completely empty. space on Earth is much more dense
 and populated by an atmosphere of air and other molecules.
 we live within a medium of atoms and their interconnections
 and interrelations. there is many times more empty space
 in an atom than there is matter. for example, the space of
 an electron orbiting around a nucleus, while able to make
 an atom, is mostly vast distances of empty space, while
 charged electrical particles spin around it at a scale
 millions of times smaller than the volume they occupy,
 their speed ultimately enabling them to appear as a
 material form to our senses, solid, gas, or liquid.

 the relation between astronomic space and digital space,
 then is different in a physical sense, in that in one there
 is a vacuum, in the other, there is a plenum, a consistent
 materialized medium. on Earth, empty space is that of the
 sub-atomic particles which spin and orbit around each other
 in nothingness, and yet provide us with the ability to exist.
 
 like oxygen as a medium for humans and other life to exist
 on Earth, cyberspace or digital space requires material atoms,
 not the nothingness of the atom, to create the electronic
 spaces that we increasingly inhabit. (the electro-chemical
 human brain, consciousness, and reality being a natural
 version of this e-space).

 this is Virilian in that not only is the light of speed, the
 movement, the message. but that it is a twist on Einstein's
 equation: energy = mass x lightspeed^squared

 in the digital realm of electronics and cyberspace, electrons
 of energy become electrons of information, carrying the
 symbolic code of human meaning. thus, the equation could
 be said to have become:

 electronic energy = electronic information

 thus--

 electronic information = mass x lightspeed^squared

 that the electron has mass, it is thus material and physical
 and while still mysterious, not wholly virtual or immaterial
 or ethereal, in itself.

 electrons are in every atom and in every molecule that makes
 up the Earth, its life, and the e-infrastructure of cyberspace
 and digital space.

 when dialing in to an ISP via a phone line, not only is there
 a physical connection between the electrons coursing through
 the microprocessor and other circuitry of the computer, but
 a physical connection consists between the power plant miles
 away and the energy being transferred near lightspeed (not
 in a vacuum, but in a cable, probably copper, thus slower,
 but still instantaneous).

 when online and sending some information from your hard
 disk, the formatting of sectors of information, magnetic,
 help encode electrons as the correct bits, and thus the
 energy that carries the code becomes that information as
 a symbolic representation. this energy-info then is sent
 via modem, through wires made up of atoms, whose electrons
 are used to relay the information from one orbit to the
 next by utilizing and controlling the materiality of the
 electron particle of the wire's atoms.

 the empty space of nothingness, in these cases, is sub-
 atomic, the interface between particles and nothingness,
 like the astronomical space of planets orbiting suns
 in the void, billions and billions of these in the known
 universe. yet, Earth is different in that it is mostly full
 of material stuff, whether it is a clay wall that you
 bump into or air which you can walk through. it is still
 material, made up of the physical stuff of atoms. thus
 the concept of space is somewhat different in these realms.
 
 electromagnetic energy, while all over the universe, is
 somehow able to transfer itself in the void of the empty
 space. that must be how particles organized in the void
 after the big-bang, becoming worlds. thus, since particles
 that have mass are physical, then a electromagnetic
 science and technology like radio broadcasting can exist
 in both the atomic (physical) and sub-atomic (void) realms.
 for example, i think it is AM radio which broadcasts its
 electromagnetic energy-information via an antenna of
 vibrating electrons, sending a signal out across space,
 both through the empty space of nothingness of the sub-
 atomic void, and, also having the dynamic of having the
 signal's frequency bouncing off the atoms of the Earth's
 atmosphere, thus dealing at the atomic physical realm
 of space. when the signal finally reaches a radio receiver,
 the electrons in the antenna replicate the signal by
 mimicking the movement of electrons in its antenna,
 and thus is able to decipher the info-energy code that
 is carried by electromagnetics. thus, although transferring
 through the void of astronomical space and the plenum of
 Earthly cyber- and digital-space, the info-energy sign/al
 is materialized and connects the sender and receiver.

 at least that is how it seems that cyberspace and astronomical
 space are related and differentiated from my point of view.
 i am very fuzzy on it and would appreciate any corrections
 or clarifications. thanks.

 bc

 the architecture of electricity
 http://www.architexturez.com/ae/

 ps: regarding my previous post on mapping cyberspace
 i sent out the wrong url for the database-map prototype:
 mapping the electrical assemblage
 http://www.architexturez.com/site/projects/mea/mea_m.htm





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