>I am particularly interested in the issues raised about cyberspaces and
>on-line places. What gives a literal space a sense of place? presumably
>some semiotic dimensions, some ways people have of meaningfully being in
>those spaces, so that we say the place comes to mean something to us, in
>general, or when we are in it in a certain way-of-doing/being/meaning. So
>the space does not have to be a literal one to acquire a sense of place, it
>can also be our on-line xmca place, or the more visualized cyberspaces of
>some chat (not CHAT) groups on line (e.g. The Palace, MUDs and MOOs). Texts
>can define a place, signifiers in general can define a place -- but not in
>just any way, and there is much to be learned about the semiotic
>constitution of place.
If we are theorizing something called place or setting, I think your
references to Latour could help, i.e., thinking about a hybrid, networked
model, where durable materiality in space (the literal space) does matter.
Thus, the computer screen, keyboard, speech genres of xmca displayed as
texts on the screens, etc. may consititute a 'place' even if it is not
fixed geographically on the earth. Perhaps religously constituted places
might also be useful examples to consider in this regard--I've been reading
Hanks' discussions of how to identify the participant structures and deitic
planes of Mayan shamanic practice.
What I'm thinking is that a "place" may be constituted in a matrix of
activity (of sociohistorically produced artifacts, practices, and persons),
but that place doesn't necessarily have to be fixed in space and doesn't
need the entire ensemble to be reconstituted.
Classrooms have a familiar sense of place at this point in many many
different schools, but a "classroom" could also be constituted with just a
few of the artifacts, practices, and persons normally employed, like a
blackboard and some books with a techer and kinds. For that matter, I've
watched my oldest daughter create play classrooms by reorganizing and
renaming parts of our cluttered basement. What makes classrooms such robust
settings is our deep and broad histories with them at this point.
Back to survivability, it seems important to see the survivability of a
setting like 5thDimension or the kindergarten class down the street as an
issue of networks extending in space and time, and perhaps the durability
of material artifacts, be they specific texts, technologies, or the built
environment is an important factor in the sustainability of settings.
Paul Prior
p-prior who-is-at uiuc.edu
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign