Of Space Forevermore

  • Michal Kobialka University of Minnesota

Abstract


We have been flirting with space for over two millennia. And, as this Forum so clearly indicates, we have not had enough.

The Call for Papers for this special issue opens with a bold statement that makes the following claim: "with the invention of the internet—that infinite cyber space—our world has both radically expanded and contracted. Opened up, as our practice of intersecting with others has been drastically changed; but contracted, as this freedom has altered our experience of spatial distance forever." More important, "our world, our cities, our domestic, private, and public spaces have undergone a drastic re-definition; these new spaces have forced a change in our understanding of the nature of space itself."

Indeed. However, beware. The temporal framework superimposed upon space—that temporal linearity associated with the pre- and post-moment of the invention of the internet—could accidentally re-introduced the normative category of absolute time that rationalizes and legitimizes the events in the world that has both radically expanded and contracted. This temporal framework superimposed upon space, which, as it is argued, caused a re-definition of the material and immaterial attributes of space, should make us aware that this framework will only represent a present intelligibility of space and will only remain valid until a new invention replaces the invention of the internet.

Published
05-Jun-2010
How to Cite
Kobialka, Michal. 2010. “Of Space Forevermore”. FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & The Arts, no. 10 (June), 1 - 13. https://doi.org/10.2218/forum.10.639.
Section
Guest Contributions