Access, grids, networks and diaspora
As part of the Electosmog Festival of Sustainable Immobility, http://www.electrosmogfestival.net/ Zita Joyce, James Charlton and I hosted a session on the New Zealand University’s Access Grid network. Access Grid is a multi screen video conferencing system, we had about 6 nodes and 9 screens (cameras) working and asked a group of people (scientists and social scientists, historians and artists) familiar with working through access grid and making use of the KAREN high speed network. We asked questions about the perfect network, the kinds of relationships that networks can enable but also the kinds of experiences that are determined by the networks. There was an interesting twist between the network as an enabler of knowledge and thought that would not have been made possible without the network. This work was often dependant on pre-existent personal networks, but that most importantly these sessions were dependant on a desire, or a willingness to collaborate. We discussed what it might mean to truely collaborate and the different methodologies necessary. The technology was not apparent as a kind of abstract logic as we listened to descriptions of projects with very real and physical aims and outcomes. I remain fascinated with the ability of technologies to determine different kinds of behaviours.
Central to my accessgrid experience was a sensation of disconnection because of the difficulty to make eye contact with anyone. The frontality of the multiple screens means that it is easier to focus forward onto the screen rather than towards the people at the same table. Also there is a spatiality that is controlled by the cameras themselves and the positioning of the screens. These things may seem minor events that over time as one gets used to the set up, one can look through. But I would argue that it is impossible to fully look past the technologies. We never stop inhabiting these systems. In line with the notions of immediacy and remediation described by Bolter and Grusin the technology continued to assert its own role within the room.
The session certainly bought up some important ideas regarding networked research, most importantly that it is based in real life exchange and must be supplimented by other kinds of interaction. Furthermore these real life exchanges do not always need to be in ‘real time’ and the distinction between a real time and a real life exchange was certainly bought to the fore for me.
I’m now listening to someone from Madrid present to the electrosmog festival through the live stream http://www.coolmediators.net/websites/electrosmoglive.jsp# and combined with my real life experiences today I’m starting to feel a part of this festival.
Interestingly, in our access grid session, we made a very real effort to work through and across all the screens. I am watching people in debalie talk about themselves in the real space and those in Madrid and New York inhabiting additional virtual spaces, there is a definite hierarchy to this in terms of location and the kinds of discussion that are occuring. People in Amsterdam are talking around their table. Our table did not allow this, which seems to be a good thing.
Also in our session there was an attempt to connect one network with another. Julian Priest was in Whanganui in an EVO room (something to do with a platapus) but unfortunately Accessgrid denied access, Lloyd (the OU technician) explained to me that to allow Julian’s presence would have slowed us all down and dragged us down to his speed. Julian succeeded at one level. The system was pressured and did not respond favourably. It seems that the network is open but only to a proliferation of its own style and kind of nodal way of working. One rhizome cannot easily interbreed with another.
