Friday, March 21, 2008
Totalizing Fragmentation: Navigable Space and Cognitive Mapping
Totalizing Fragmentation: Navigable Space and Cognitive Mapping
According to Jameson, postmodern space is discontinuous. The postmodern subject is separated from the larger realities that constitute his world, inserted “into a multidimensional set of radically discontinuous realities…” (“Cognitive Mapping” 351) Cognitive mapping aims to solve this postmodern problem by representing overall forms or “totalities” to a disconnected subject. For Jameson, totality is a real force—for example, he testifies to the continuing influence of capitalism—but is inaccessible to the postmodern subject. An individual cannot conceptualize totalities because he experiences a “disorientation of saturated space.” ("CM" 351) The postmodern “schizophrenic” subject needs a cognitive map to represent totalities that are muddled by the saturation, complexity, and formlessness of space that constitute his individual experience. As Jameson acknowledges, creating a form for a formless world is paradoxical. Since the experience of fragmentation that Jameson describes is itself a global reality, “a new and historically original dilemma,” ("CM" 351) for cognitive mapping to represent this reality it must “totalize” fragmentation. Cognitive mapping links the individual to society, fragmentation to totality, and formlessness to form.
This problem of mapping an increasingly formless world has a solution in computers. As characterized by Manovich, computer space (footnote: see comment 1) is both aggregate and haptic, and can comprehensively map larger totalities while remaining true to the multiplexities of postmodern society. Computer space, which is oversaturated and discontinuous, resembles Jameson’s postmodern space. Yet computer space is also given form by a user’s trajectories—it is unified through an individual agent’s navigation. Manovich’s navigable space is not only a fundamental form of new media, but the form that Jameson predicts when he writes that “achieved cognitive mapping will be a matter of form” ("CM" 356). Navigation through computer and internet space is the solution to the problem of cognitive mapping in a postmodern world.
Internet space also resembles postmodern space in its immediacy. The experience of postmodern space, Jameson writes, is one of “suppression of depth…a bewildering immersion…” (Postmodernism 43) This saturation is present in Virilio’s idea of real-time, which enables a plethora of immediate information and the elimination of the interval between sending and receiving of data. As Manovich characterizes it, “In Virilio’s reading, technologies collapse physical distances.” (172) The experience of browsing the web is one of the suppression of gaps and voids, as all data is seemingly connected through hyperlinks. The computer user, immersed in a constant flow of immediate, random information, is subject to a disorientation similar to that of the postmodern subject.
Manovich’s computer space also recalls postmodern space in its discrete nature. Jameson characterizes postmodern space as segmented, subject disconnected from his surroundings. “Postmodern hyperspace…has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself….an alarming disjunction point between the body and its built environment” (Postmodernism 44). This “disjunction” of postmodern space, Jameson argues, manifests itself in art, architecture, literature, and capitalism, among other things. Similarly, Manovich points out that computer space is haptic, each object independent from its enviornment. Computer data is discrete, andmust be digitized to be represented, “turn[ing] continuous data into discrete data…occurring in distinct units” (Manovich 28). Internet space also reflects postmodern fragmentation: “The space of a web, in principle, cannot be though of as a coherent totality: it is a collection of numerous files, hyperlinked without any overall perspective to unite them.” (Manovich 257) Curiously, both computer and postmodern spaces factor into larger systems and organizations despite their discrete nature. In computers, haptic elements interact in a system to efficiently execute tasks. In turn, postmodernism is part of the “late capitalist” system. “The advanced capitalist countries today are now a field of stylistic and discursive heterogeneity without a norm.” (Postmodernism, 17) Both types of space participate in the subtle efficiency of complex, multifaceted, commodity and information saturated systems.
Despite its discrete, haptic nature, computer space is unified through navigation and individual trajectories. For Manovich, navigation is the most important element of new media space. Navigable space is defined by individual users: “space functions in computer culture as something traversed by a subject, as a trajectory rather than an area.” (Manovich 279) This concept of navigation alters the notion of a discrete and disjointed computer space. Trajectories through fragmented space give it form—the user joins discrete objects through movement and agency. Manovich also explains the unifying capability of trajectories through historical continuity: “I have chosen to emphasize the continuities between the new media and the old…I wanted to create trajectories through the space of cultural history…” (284) Navigation and its trajectories can unite the fragmented objects of computer space, giving form to the complex, hyper-saturated reality of data and information.
The agency of navigation is key to linking it with cognitive mapping. The computer user navigates the chaotic jungle of information, creating a map from his own path. For example, the History feature in web browsers records user actions to form a personalized map based on his own trajectories. Navigation is dependent on individual agency and decentralization, and the user is “comforted by the variety of data manipulation operations at her control.” (Manovich 274) Similarly, in postmodern space, individuals are no longer cohered by a central authority: “Faceless masters continue to inflect the economic strategies which constrain our existences, but they no longer need to impose their speech..” (Postmodernism 17) Cognitive mapping must totalize this “random and undecidable world of microgroups” ("CM" 356) in an individual, decentralized manner, in order remain true to the fragmented reality of postmodernism. Another way to look at agency in cognitive mapping is through Jameson’s political activism. He argues that individual activism is inhibited by postmodern fragmentation. In linking an individual’s project to the global systems it aims to alter, cognitive mapping enables individual agency. This relationship is also present (but reversed) in computer spaces, where individual agency enables the navigation through haptic, discrete objects.
Navigable space solves the paradox of giving form to formlessness—it maps the vast complex of immediate information through an individual agent, remaining true to disunited nature of the subject in postmodernity as well as the goal of totality. Whether Jameson himself would accept this solution to cognitive mapping is unclear. In postmodernism, he dismisses computers as a “degraded attempt…to think the impossible totality of the contemporary world system.” (37) Jameson is too faithful to “totality” to accept the fragmentation of computers as a valid map, seeing them as mere reflections, or “distorted figuration[s] of…the whole world system of a present-day multinational capitalism.” (Postmodernism 37) As I have argued, however, the new media form of navigable space, perfected in computers and the internet, is the key to enabling us to cognitively map our world. Despite Jameson’s qualms about computer technology, navigable spaces achieves his final goal of individual activism within a multifaceted system. Quoting Kabakvov, Manovich expresses this perfectly: “trajectories trace out the rules of other interests and desires that are neither determined, nor captured by, the system in which they develop.” (Manovich 268)
According to Jameson, postmodern space is discontinuous. The postmodern subject is separated from the larger realities that constitute his world, inserted “into a multidimensional set of radically discontinuous realities…” (“Cognitive Mapping” 351) Cognitive mapping aims to solve this postmodern problem by representing overall forms or “totalities” to a disconnected subject. For Jameson, totality is a real force—for example, he testifies to the continuing influence of capitalism—but is inaccessible to the postmodern subject. An individual cannot conceptualize totalities because he experiences a “disorientation of saturated space.” ("CM" 351) The postmodern “schizophrenic” subject needs a cognitive map to represent totalities that are muddled by the saturation, complexity, and formlessness of space that constitute his individual experience. As Jameson acknowledges, creating a form for a formless world is paradoxical. Since the experience of fragmentation that Jameson describes is itself a global reality, “a new and historically original dilemma,” ("CM" 351) for cognitive mapping to represent this reality it must “totalize” fragmentation. Cognitive mapping links the individual to society, fragmentation to totality, and formlessness to form.
This problem of mapping an increasingly formless world has a solution in computers. As characterized by Manovich, computer space (footnote: see comment 1) is both aggregate and haptic, and can comprehensively map larger totalities while remaining true to the multiplexities of postmodern society. Computer space, which is oversaturated and discontinuous, resembles Jameson’s postmodern space. Yet computer space is also given form by a user’s trajectories—it is unified through an individual agent’s navigation. Manovich’s navigable space is not only a fundamental form of new media, but the form that Jameson predicts when he writes that “achieved cognitive mapping will be a matter of form” ("CM" 356). Navigation through computer and internet space is the solution to the problem of cognitive mapping in a postmodern world.
Internet space also resembles postmodern space in its immediacy. The experience of postmodern space, Jameson writes, is one of “suppression of depth…a bewildering immersion…” (Postmodernism 43) This saturation is present in Virilio’s idea of real-time, which enables a plethora of immediate information and the elimination of the interval between sending and receiving of data. As Manovich characterizes it, “In Virilio’s reading, technologies collapse physical distances.” (172) The experience of browsing the web is one of the suppression of gaps and voids, as all data is seemingly connected through hyperlinks. The computer user, immersed in a constant flow of immediate, random information, is subject to a disorientation similar to that of the postmodern subject.
Manovich’s computer space also recalls postmodern space in its discrete nature. Jameson characterizes postmodern space as segmented, subject disconnected from his surroundings. “Postmodern hyperspace…has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself….an alarming disjunction point between the body and its built environment” (Postmodernism 44). This “disjunction” of postmodern space, Jameson argues, manifests itself in art, architecture, literature, and capitalism, among other things. Similarly, Manovich points out that computer space is haptic, each object independent from its enviornment. Computer data is discrete, andmust be digitized to be represented, “turn[ing] continuous data into discrete data…occurring in distinct units” (Manovich 28). Internet space also reflects postmodern fragmentation: “The space of a web, in principle, cannot be though of as a coherent totality: it is a collection of numerous files, hyperlinked without any overall perspective to unite them.” (Manovich 257) Curiously, both computer and postmodern spaces factor into larger systems and organizations despite their discrete nature. In computers, haptic elements interact in a system to efficiently execute tasks. In turn, postmodernism is part of the “late capitalist” system. “The advanced capitalist countries today are now a field of stylistic and discursive heterogeneity without a norm.” (Postmodernism, 17) Both types of space participate in the subtle efficiency of complex, multifaceted, commodity and information saturated systems.
Despite its discrete, haptic nature, computer space is unified through navigation and individual trajectories. For Manovich, navigation is the most important element of new media space. Navigable space is defined by individual users: “space functions in computer culture as something traversed by a subject, as a trajectory rather than an area.” (Manovich 279) This concept of navigation alters the notion of a discrete and disjointed computer space. Trajectories through fragmented space give it form—the user joins discrete objects through movement and agency. Manovich also explains the unifying capability of trajectories through historical continuity: “I have chosen to emphasize the continuities between the new media and the old…I wanted to create trajectories through the space of cultural history…” (284) Navigation and its trajectories can unite the fragmented objects of computer space, giving form to the complex, hyper-saturated reality of data and information.
The agency of navigation is key to linking it with cognitive mapping. The computer user navigates the chaotic jungle of information, creating a map from his own path. For example, the History feature in web browsers records user actions to form a personalized map based on his own trajectories. Navigation is dependent on individual agency and decentralization, and the user is “comforted by the variety of data manipulation operations at her control.” (Manovich 274) Similarly, in postmodern space, individuals are no longer cohered by a central authority: “Faceless masters continue to inflect the economic strategies which constrain our existences, but they no longer need to impose their speech..” (Postmodernism 17) Cognitive mapping must totalize this “random and undecidable world of microgroups” ("CM" 356) in an individual, decentralized manner, in order remain true to the fragmented reality of postmodernism. Another way to look at agency in cognitive mapping is through Jameson’s political activism. He argues that individual activism is inhibited by postmodern fragmentation. In linking an individual’s project to the global systems it aims to alter, cognitive mapping enables individual agency. This relationship is also present (but reversed) in computer spaces, where individual agency enables the navigation through haptic, discrete objects.
Navigable space solves the paradox of giving form to formlessness—it maps the vast complex of immediate information through an individual agent, remaining true to disunited nature of the subject in postmodernity as well as the goal of totality. Whether Jameson himself would accept this solution to cognitive mapping is unclear. In postmodernism, he dismisses computers as a “degraded attempt…to think the impossible totality of the contemporary world system.” (37) Jameson is too faithful to “totality” to accept the fragmentation of computers as a valid map, seeing them as mere reflections, or “distorted figuration[s] of…the whole world system of a present-day multinational capitalism.” (Postmodernism 37) As I have argued, however, the new media form of navigable space, perfected in computers and the internet, is the key to enabling us to cognitively map our world. Despite Jameson’s qualms about computer technology, navigable spaces achieves his final goal of individual activism within a multifaceted system. Quoting Kabakvov, Manovich expresses this perfectly: “trajectories trace out the rules of other interests and desires that are neither determined, nor captured by, the system in which they develop.” (Manovich 268)
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