January 29, 2007

Hyper-Relations and In Between Spaces

There's only one direction in the faces that I see;
It's upward to the ceiling, where the chamber's said to be.

Like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree.

They are pulled up by the magnet, believing they're free.

The carpet crawlers heed their callers:

"We've got to get in to get out

We've got to get in to get out

We've got to get in to get out."

--GENESIS--


Someone asked me last week, what's this "social drama" you've been talking about. I said, what do you want it to be? A beginning? An ending? A welcome? Rejection? It's the net--it means what you want it to mean.

Or maybe I didn't write back at all.

What I know is this: what's new is happening on the hyper-strands connecting us, not in the "places" where everyone already is. Sure, I'm interested in what's inside all of the coolest social networks, what's playing on the Internet's intranet -- from myspace to facebook to orkut to flicker to second life and on and on.

But I'm even more interested in the spaces in between blogs and old media and new media and social networks and marketplaces and so on. I'm interested in how we are living and working and hyper-commuting across the web, and in the ways we are relating to and touching one another as we go, and what our travels do to our DNA, and what strands we pick up as we travel. How it changes us. What kind of organisms we are waking up as we move. What wakes up inside of us.

's a big thing, that.

Somewhere in there is where social drama fits. I don't know exactly the parameters -- what constitutes a social drama or what precise definition it deserves. I do know that social dramas taking place AMONG and ACROSS the network, not inside. And I do know that social dramas of one or more people -- with real or merely realistic identities -- offer a way to pull the strands of our social travels together into stories that engage, entertain and maybe even move.

That's enough for me. That's enough for us.

It's not always easy--maybe you feel duped. Maybe you should. Digital Identity's more than a technorati tag, and suspension of disbelief can be a bitch. Conception-to-birth -- it's a rough ride.

You got to get in to get out.


Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , = Powered by Qumana