CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

Doing Cultural Studies in Cyberspace

Organiser: Jonathan Lillie

Hillis, Ken (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA) VIRTUAL CULTURE AND THE LOGIC OF ACTUALITY
Much Internet-related promotion relies on metaphors of "virtual space"; the term "virtual" propels the political economy of IT research and development. Yet, "the virtual" is losing its shiny status of "the new." Recently, "actuality," a key concept in the theorization of early cinema, has been adopted by academics and industry players as a discursive strategy intended to suture the virtual/real split and provide a replacement term for virtuality. As currently deployed, however, actuality raises many concerns. A crucial one is its commodification as a concept and as a set of technologies already heavily branded. By articulating the dominant fantasies, economics, and theories of subjectivity that underwrite corporate ideas of virtuality to reality, actuality, and the technologies of spatial simulation it supports, may deflect attention and resources away from those aspects of material reality that do not explicitly relate to the logic of virtuality and the communication technologies it informs.

Roibas, Anxo Cereijo (University of Brighton, England)
Mobile Internet has represented an evolution of the concept of utopical (no space) interaction (to which the Internet was related, as virtual space where it is possible to interact with information), to the concept of topical interaction, in which interaction (still with a virtual information space) happens in real places. This simultaneous presence of utopical and topical interaction makes necessary a direct relationship (mapping) between both ambits (e.g. thanks to the GPS what happens in the real space must have an effect in the virtual one, and viceversa). The communication becomes now 'space sensitive'. The 3G communication technology will be able to merge (at least) four media (Internet, SMS, iTV, Smart-home). This incoming scenario will, more and more, place users in the centre of a network made of fixed and mobile interfaces (mobile phones, iTV, palms, pocket PCs, PDAs, etc.). In this environment of ubiquitous communication it will be possible to choose the most appropriate interface to 'interact with the world'. Users will able to exchange almost any kind of information (to communicate) with anyone and with any other 'machine', in anyplace and at anytime.

Lillie, Jonathan J. M. (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA) MOBILE SUBJECTS & NARRATIVES: UBIQUITOUS CONNECTIONS TO EVERYDAY LIFE
This paper analyses Hewlett-Packard's vision of "Cooltown" technologies, considering how new media narratives mediate realities of media uses within what amounts to a "new" liberation theology where technology individuates and ameliorates social relations creating a safe haven for the smooth flow of capital and labor while simultaneously furthering the enclosure of bodies and subjectivities within the machine, the ubiquitous networked media apparatus. Life for the First Class Citizens of Cooltown is the promise of the post-Fordist information society made real - a world where a fully articulated global capitalism is expertly and glibly navigated by those graced with the gadgetry of technotopia, and those trapped beyond the city limits are damned to the poverty, precariousness, and boredom of the living hell of neo liberal economics and outdated analogue cultures. By mapping the discourses that these Cooltown narratives work within, we can more easily identify those alternative narratives (and the fissures/inconsistencies within the dominant discourses) that open up future possibilities rather the closing down and limiting the potential range of future political economic and technologically mediated realities.

Telli, Asli (Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey) CYBER-INVOLVEMENT - ARE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES NET-AWARE?
Today's Net communication stands out because of its low distribution costs, high information density and a high degree of interactivity and connectivity. The Internet has outstanding potential for further democratization of the political sphere. This becomes evident when looking at citizen's action groups who increasingly use the Internet to coordinate their political initiatives. The virtual city project of Amsterdam (initiated in 1994) and similar micro-simulations pose questions that may well open new paths for cyber-involvement. How this path develops depends on perception of developing countries for which Turkey could be a working example. With her young population and long-lasting economic constraints, high percentage of Turkish population with above-average intellect have promising cyber-masks for coordinating civil action towards 21st century socio-political hyper-solutions. The perspective offered by cultural studies for uses of new technology in fostering a better mediation between state and citizens and among citizens themselves is a natural challenge to be envisaged throughout this paper.