At 03:31 PM 1/9/2003 +1100, you wrote:
I'm interested in sources which discuss presence/telepresence with regard to online text based communication practices (email, in particular). most of the literature concentrates on presence in teleconferencing, VR, webcams etc (eg The Robot in the Garden, 2000) or, if it does look at electronic textual mediation it's often from the 'social presence' theoretical perspective which, while it needs to be noted, is not the speculative path i want to pursue. i'm also familiar with William Mitchell's formulation of the "economy of presence" - and would welcome discussions on this.
Presence is, of course, implicit in many of the discussions about subjectivity, supposed immediacy & transparency of the medium, but i wonder if anyone knows of any specific, cultural studies (whatever that is) or philosophy of technological approaches? Specifically, perhaps any that work within a Derridean framework?
Richard Coyne's excellent 'technoromanticism: digital narrative, holism, and the romance of the real' (MIT, 1999) might be the ticket, particularly as it takes on questions of narrative. His earlier, 'Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age: From Method to Metaphor' (MIT, 1995) also could be interesting, dealing more with philosophy and interpretation than with ordinary 'design' issues. Willard Uncapher, Ph.D. / Network Emergence / 8706 Kendall Court, Arvada, CO 80003 mailto:willard@well.com / http://www.well.com/user/willard