Virtual) SPACES to (Hybrid) SPACES AS MULTIUSER ENVIRONMENTS Nomadic Technology Devices and Hybrid Communication Places

FROM MULTIUSER ENVIRONMENTS AS (virtual) SPACES TO (hybrid) SPACES AS MULTIUSER ENVIRONMENTS Nomadic technology devices and hybrid communication places ADRIANA ARAUJO DE SOUZA E SILVA Rio de Janeiro 2004 ii FICHA CATALOGRÁFICA de Souza e Silva, Adriana Araujo. From multiuser environments as (virtual) spaces to (hybrid) spaces as multiuser environments—Nomadic technology devices and hybrid communication places. / Adriana Araujo de Souza e Silva. Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ/CFCH/ECO, 2004. xi, 260 f.: il. Dissertation (PhD in Communications and Culture) – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro—UFRJ, School of Communications, CFCH, 2004. Directors: Paulo Roberto Gibaldi Vaz, Victoria Vesna 1. Hybrid space. 2. Mobile communication technologies. 3. Culture—Dissertation. I. Vaz, Paulo Roberto Gibaldi (director). II. Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. School of Communications – ECO/CFCH. III. From multiuser environments as (virtual) spaces to (hybrid) spaces as multiuser environments— nomadic technology devices and hybrid communication places. © Adriana de Souza e Silva, 2004. iii To Elizabeth Araujo, my mother, who has always been the closest one, even being far away. To my dear grandparents, Nelly and Evandro. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It would be impossible to thank all of those who, for the past four years, helped and contributed somehow to the development of this work. The restricted space only allows me to mention a few names, although I would like to include all of them. I would like to thank, first of all, CNPq (National Research Council, Brazil) and CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Graduate Scholars, Brazil) for the Ph.D. and “sandwich” scholarships, respectively. A very special thanks to Professor Paulo Vaz, my advisor, who, even at distance, has always been a constant presence and support in all important moments, explaining questions in theoretical conversations and supporting my professional and personal lives. I would also like to thank the CiberIDEA research group at the School of Communications in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), especially Professors Luiz Alberto Oliveira and Fernanda Bruno and graduate colleagues Luciana Ferreira, Fernanda Costa e Silva, and Julieta de Souza, for the exciting research environment and the stimulation for looking for new theoretical questions. Equally important to the development of this work has been the academic environment I found at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It is a privilege to have two advisors. Professor Victoria Vesna, chair of the Department of Design | Media Arts, who welcomed me to Los Angeles and supported me during my whole stay abroad, has also been fundamental to the definition of the main questions in this dissertation: the blurring of borders between the physical and the virtual, and the physicality of digital spaces. Thanks to all the professors and artists who, through conversations and interviews, also contributed to the definition and clarification of my inquiries. Among them are Erkki Huhtamo, Machiko Kusahara, Bill Seaman, Norman Klein, Christian Möller, Sara Diamond, and Benjamin Bratton, responsible for the title of this work. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor N. Katherine Hayles, who taught me a new way of writing and thinking, and whose attention and dedication only strengthened my admiration for the academic life. I could not forget my friends in the Department of Design | Media Arts. Their friendship and the conversations with them have also been important to the writing of this work. Particularly, I would like to thank Fabian Winkler, always present friend and v collaborator in the installation database, my first media arts project. Also thanks to Ashok Sukumaran, Ruth West, Silvia Rigon, and Vishal Dar, for the talks and “media arts discussions.” Thanks to Joanne Michiuye, for the English text copyediting, and to Simone Martins, for the Portuguese version revision. And as private life cannot be separated from professional life, I would like to thank all my friends in Los Angeles, who have been so important to my adaptation in a completely new (“unknown and unexplored”) environment: Gabriela Coutinho, Ricardo e Ana Lucia Coutinho, Ricardo Merched, and Charles Hachtman. In my family, I would like to thank my brother, Claudio de Souza e Silva, for the philosophical chats, and my father, Nelson de Souza e Silva, and my uncle, Edmundo de Souza e Silva, for the constant support in my academic life. I am enormously grateful to my mother, Elizabeth Greenhalgh de Araujo, who was perhaps the most present and dedicated person during all this time that I have been away. I think this dissertation would not have been concluded without her. Special thanks to my dear Daniel Sauter, who always supported me with talks and stimulated my professional aspirations, but mainly for the everyday joy necessary to write this work. vi ABSTRACT de Souza e Silva, Adriana. From multiuser environments as (virtual) spaces to (hybrid) spaces as multiuser environments – Nomadic technology devices and hybrid communication places. 2004. This dissertation addresses how mobile communication technologies, with a focus on cell phones, have an active role in creating new types of communication and social networks in a hybrid space formed by the blurring of borders between physical and digital spaces. It analyzes the transference of social places from cyberspace to hybrid spaces. Nomadic technology devices are responsible for producing new social networks in a space that interconnects the physical and the virtual due to their users’ perpetual mobility. During the last decade, multiuser environments in cyberspace have frequently been regarded as utopian spaces in which users could project their imagination. Moreover, digital spaces have been considered as essentially disconnected from physical spaces. Nowadays, the constant connection to virtual spaces, allowed by new mobile communication technologies, transforms our social spaces, as well as the projection of our imaginary places in urban spaces. This research is based on theoretical and practical studies. First, I analyze the existing literature on cyberspace and mobile technology devices, emphasizing concepts such as virtual, cyberspace, immersion, and hybrid. Practical aspects include analysis of current practices, via interviews with artists and scholars and an Internet survey applied in the United States and in Brazil. vii LIST OF SIGLA AND ABBREVIATIONS 2G = Second Generation Cellular System 2,5G = Second Generation and a Half Cellular System 3G = Universal Mobile Telecommunication System AR = Augmented Reality CDMA = Code Division Multiple Access FCC = Federal Communications Commission GPS = Global Positioning System GSM = Global System for Mobile Communication GPRS = General Packet Radio Service GUI = Graphic User Interface HMD = Head Mounted Display HUD = Head Up Display HTML = HyperText Markup Language HTTP = HyperText Transfer Protocol J2ME = Java 2 Platform Micro Edition MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game MMS = Multimedia Message Service MR = Mixed Reality MOO = Multi-User Dungeon, Object Oriented MUD = Multi-User Dungeon, ou Dimension NTD = Nomadic Technology Devices PARC = Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox) PDA = Personal Digital Assitant SMS = Short Message Service TDMA = Time Division Multiple Access VR = Virtual Reality VRML = Virtual Reality Modeling Language WML = Website META Language WWW = World Wide Web viii LIST OF PICTURES Picture 1: Guido da Siena (13th century). © Scala / Art Resource, NY (School of). Saint Clare repulses the Saracens. From a diptych with four stories of saints. Location: Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, Italy. Picture 2: Psalter mappamundi, 1225-1250 A.D. (oriented with East on the top). Unknown author. Location: British Library (Add. MS. 28681, fol. 9r). Available at: http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/223.html. Accessed on: 29 Nov. 2003. Picture 3: From Unveiling the Edge of Time, John Gribbin. © 1992, John Gribbin. Re- printed by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc. Picture 4: The (simplified) semiotic square according to N. Katherine Hayles. (1996, p. 9) Pictures 5 and 6: Karl Sims: Evolved Virtual Creatures and Panspermia. © 1987- 2001, Karl Sims, All rights reserved. Available at: http://www.genarts.com/karl/ Accessed on: 28 Nov. 2003. Picture 7: database, installation overall. © 2002, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Fabian Winkler. Picture 8: database’s database after the printing process. © 2002, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Fabian Winkler. Picture 9: database’s printer. © 2002, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Fabian Winkler. Picture 10: database’s screen interface. © 2002, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Fabian Winkler. Picture 11: database; time is running fast on the projection screen. © 2002, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Fabian Winkler. Picture 12: Richard of Holdingham. Hereford Map, Hereford Cathedral, Hereford (1280s). Available at: http://www.dac.neu.edu/english/kakelly/med/beyond.html. Acessed on: 25 Nov. 2003. Pictures 13 and 14: Imateriais’ graphic interface. © 1999, Itaú Cultural. Picture 15: Banja. © 1998-2002, TEAMcHmAn. Available at: http://www.banja.com. Accessed on: 29 Aug. 2003. ix Picture 16: Netbabyworld. © 2003 PlayCom Game Design AB. Disponível em: http://www.netbabyworld.com. Acesso em: 16 mai. 2004. Picture 17: Phantasy Star Online. © 2004 Sega of America, Inc. Available at: http://www.sega.com/games/game_temp.php?game=pso1and2 Acesso em: 16 mai. 2004. Picture

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