Session 1: The Political and Human Geography of Cyberspace
Chair: David Silver

At the Interface: The Space of Cyberspace
Dominic Williams
University of Sydney, Australia

This paper seeks to explore the boundaries and frontiers of cyberspace in order to better understand the space of cyberspace. Immediately apparent to the cartographer of cyberspace is the privileged relationship that exists between cyberspace and the boundary itself. Rather than simply an unbounded, infinite space, cyberspace always already inhabits the boundary. Cyberspace is the final frontier in that it is pure frontier. Cyberspace, the interface par excellence, if you like.

Cyberspace is at once the “space” in between inside and outside, self and other and the point at which they intersect, eroding such distinctions. It is no accident that cyberspace emerges alongside the breakdown of critical theory. The emergence of fatal theory mirroring the fatality (death?) of Newtonian physics and space in the wake of cyberspace.

While fundamentally non-substantial, cyberspace is never empty (or full), representing a substantial nothingness analogous to the black hole, simultaneously a point of absolute mass and a point at which all mass, all matter, disappears. More accurately, cyberspace is the embodiment of Derrida’s khora, the ultimate receptacle, not as empty geometric space but always occupied. Cyberspace is categorised by the radical oscillation of the khora, that is, oscillation between different kinds of oscillation, specifically exclusion (neither/nor) and participation (both/and).

Cyberspace’s khoratic nature is representative of its broader affinity with the third term or middle articulation (Mittelglied) of contemporary theory. In short, cyberspace is to space what parergon is to ergon. This can be seen in the widespread scepticism and cynicism that both cyberspace and poststructuralist theory attract. Amongst this, mostly ill-founded, negativity there is a genuine question. As Virilio’s overly pessimistic formula for new technology, “who loves well punishes well”, reminds us, there is no such thing as the unilateral gift. Cyberspace inevitably consumes space as the boundary infringes on the open, parergon on ergon, medium on message … you get the picture. It remains unclear to what extent cyberspace fulfils the social function of the third term represented by the socially cohesive wound of Bataille. According to a Bataillean logic, for Cyberspace to fulfil such a function we must embrace its love complete with the accompanying punishment. This paper will join science fiction and the mass media in speculating on the result of such a liaison. A liaison cyberspace seeks to consummate at the interface.

Cyberspace, Culture and the Local-Global Nexus
Mohamed S. Abel Wahab
Cairo University, Egypt/University of Manchester, UK

The world, in the age of globalisation, has grown more global and more divided, more interconnected and yet partitioned, cultural boundaries are being simultaneously permeated and re-established.

With the progressive development of technology -the driving force of globalisation- a new globally networked computer-sustained multidimensional virtual reality has been created: the Internet. This network of networks has eroded physical territorial barriers, revolutionised communication and information technology, and created a parallel virtual community that has spawned its own culture, transcended the limitations of the real-world communities, and catalysed the process of cultural interaction. However, this trend of cultural globalisation has instigated an opposing force of localisation that aim at preserving distinct cultural identities. Proponents of the localisation thesis have accentuated the perils of globalisation and cyberspace as a form of cultural imperialism.

Accordingly, the author in this paper aims to address the following issues: the role of the Internet in intensifying cultural interaction and the emergence of a new cyberculture, whether the new technological revolution depicted by the Internet leads to genuine cultural homogeneity, and analysing the local-global paradox and how proponents of the localisation thesis perceive cyberspace as a threat to cultural distinctiveness. The paper shall also shed light on the different theses of cultural globalisation: the homogenisation thesis whose proponents advocate the view that the intensification of communications is leading to an increasing fleshing out of a skeletal ‘world culture’, and its diffusion to larger number of people, the polarisation thesis based on Samuel Huntington’s argument that the great divisions among humankind in our global village and the dominating source of conflict are cultural, and the hybridisation thesis whose proponents ascertain the existence of a global cultural ecumene; a medium of persistent cultural interaction and exchange, which embraces subcultures of the whole.

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Cybercultures: The Transnational and the Local
Ana Boa-Ventura
University of Texas at Austin, USA

The "cidadao digital" ("Digital Citizen") http://www.cidadaodigital.com.br/ is a web-based project that was developed in Brazil and which the IC2 - a UT related Institute for the incubation of small companies - translated to English (and to a CD format) to primarily serve underprivileged minorities in Austin. Austin has btw, a very interesting cultural geography with several institutions trying to fill the "digital divide" gap. After that first project, our group has now been brought in, for a new project - "Digital Entrepreneur" - again with the same Brazilian and US partners. All the parties involved see this new project as an opportunity to focus on the cultural component of "translation". The Brazilian projects that have been at the origin of this collaboration work are all in tune with the acquisition of a cyberculture by the average Brazilian citizen and we are interested in finding out how this cyberculture can be translated beyond borders (to the US but also to Mexico, also a part of the project.)