Just to geek out for a short moment:

The internet's "shape" is thus permanently in flux and illogical

I don't see why it's illogical. At the gross level (1) the algorithms used use perfectly logical route calculations, (2) while a given route may not be the theoretical optimal at any given time updating routing tables in 'real time' would create so much 'meta' traffic (For the geeks - I'm referring to BGP traffic here) that actual transit time would be way below the practical optimal. Moreover when you look at the sub-structure of the internet i.e. within a given Autonomous System (AS), then you tend to find a matrix of static routes formed with protocols such as ATM over which (or within which - yikes now I'm at it) IP sits, this allows for quite a lot of optimisation and what is known in the industry as 'traffic shaping'. Also at a higher level of abstraction the net is a simple three layer system with Tier 1 backbone providers (that peer with each other), Tier 2 providers (who buy transit from Tier 1's and peer with each other) and Tier 3 providers (that tend only to buy transit).

It performs movement without encapsulation, without borders, and with neither concrete interiors nor exteriors.

This depends on what level of abstraction you are talking about - at the engineering level (which is where things seem to be pitched here) the internet depends on protocol encapsulation.

Since the nodes in a message switching system act independently in processing the messages and there are no preset routes between nodes, the nodes can adapt to changing conditions by picking the route that is best at any moment

Well, no. Switching occurs within an AS but this is why different protocols are used to control it. AS hops are routed - the Internet uses both, often at the same time. It's also worth remembering that the DNS system, which is fundamental to internet routing (at a higher level in the protocol stack), is strictly hierarchical and the root servers sit within very secure concrete buildings, turn them off and good bye internet. Or to put this all another way, the way I understand it, is that while basic technical descriptions of net talk about its chaotic / self healing nature, at the engineering level it is actually made up of a set of Autonomous Zones that are highly ordered. But any description very much depends on what level of abstraction you are talking about. Ren www.renreynolds.com <http://www.renreynolds.com/> terranova.blogs.com -----Original Message----- From: air-l-admin@aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin@aoir.org] On Behalf Of Jillana Enteen Sent: 03 February 2004 23:56 To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet without Space) I second Michelle. Particularly when she writes: Computer representations can also justify the perpetuation of physical but certainly not necessary or natural conditions by mirroring material circumstances. I believe that such spatial vernaculars are having a significant effect on our cultural situations. I'm currently working on an essay about this topic, so I'll quote a brief couple of paragraphs that outline my argument: (Please don't quote without my permission and proper citational credit): In its current state, the internet may be understood as a dynamic, shifting network of computers and other electronic signal receptors transmitting and/or receiving bits of digital information. Popular conceptions of the Internet, however, depict this exchange of information as delimiting virtual space. Privileging certain conceptions of cyberspace over others is not a 'disinterested' aesthetic strategy; the envisioning of space, like all forms of rhetoric, inscribes particular relations of power (Foucault, 1979; Soja, 1989; Davis, 1992). In this brief essay, I argue that current procedures for identifying the location of electronic data, Uniform Resource Locators in particular, situate the internet and the World Wide Web (www) as geographically based systems with corresponding geopolitical reference points in the physical world. Rather than recognizing the networks formed through on-line data exchange, the prevailing archeology of the I\internet and World Wide Web ties individuals, not to mention data, to physical locations. Space is relevant to the internet when considering that vast sequences of binary code are physically stored on hard drives and other containers. It is the transfer of information, however, that fundamentally characterizes the internet; connections between computers are initiated. Code is exchanged. Data summoned. These connections are rarely direct or one-to-one; a request for data by a user at a computer will initiate responses from an unpredictable number of other computers and information exchange portals in order to complete a process as simple as viewing a text document or a personal home page. Janet Abatte relates the reliance of the internet on packet switching; "Since the nodes in a message switching system act independently in processing the messages and there are no preset routes between nodes, the nodes can adapt to changing conditions by picking the route that is best at any moment" (Abatte 1999, 13). In fact, "best" routes are often miscalculated based on previous paths of exchange, so predictions based on efficiency or availability cannot chart actual data transmission. The internet's "shape" is thus permanently in flux and illogical. It performs movement without encapsulation, without borders, and with neither concrete interiors nor exteriors. So why continue to think about the internet as space? Journalist accounts, versions of computer-mediated communication in popular culture, and foundational tracts by new media theorists such as Michael Benedikt and Howard Rheingold. Each employs architectural and territorial metaphors (Benedikt 1993) (Rheingold 1993). In Cyberspace, Some Proposals, Michael Benedikt compiles a series of essays that endorse the spatiality of electronic exchanges. Benedikt's own contribution envisions connectivity as another form of architecture, providing complex graphs and metaphors about movement in space and fields. In the same collection, Marcos Novak defines cyberspace in this same collection as "a completely spatialized visualization of all information in global information processing systems" (Novak 1993, 225-254). Still considered a visionary, Howard Rheingold refers to the internet as a frontier. As the title of Howard Rheingold's influential 1993 and recently reissued text The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier [emphasis mine] suggests, Rheingold redeployed America's sense of entitlement and masculinist spirit of conquest that was outlined in manifest destiny and redeployed by NASA to garner popular support for the space program, a rational that had correspondingly fueled exploration, domination and colonial exploitation by European nations. These images of colonization rescript territorial incursion as an invasion at the expense of whom/whatever pre-existed. These spatial metaphors translate into social subjugation. Much has been made of the affects of mapping on subjugation in terms of the colonial project. Neil Smith and Cindi Katz report: "In so far as mapping involves exploration, selection, definition, generalization and translation of data, it assumes a range of social cum representational powers, . . .the power to map can be closely entwined with the power of conquest and social control" (Smith and Katz, 70). In addition, Anne McClintock's account of the genealogies of imperialism reveals the historical precedence and will to dominate inherent in the project of mapping (McClintock 1995, 23). She writes: "The map is a technology of knowledge that professes to capture the truth about a place in pure, scientific form, operating under the guise of scientific exactitude and promising to retrieve and reproduce nature exactly as it is. As such, it is also a technology of possession, promising that those with the capacity to make such perfect representations must also have the right of territorial control" (27-8). best wishes, jillana Jillana Enteen jillana@jillana.net http://jillana.net On Feb 3, 2004, at 12:25 PM, Michele White wrote: Dear Colleagues, I am resistant to the continued use of the term "space" and spatial metaphors when writing about the Internet and related technologies. In fact, part of my ongoing research practice is to address this issue. I believe that the employment of such terms as "space" and "cyberspace" in popular and academic writings about the computer and Internet technologies makes it seem like representations are a kind of material environment. This writing repeats and even enhances design strategies that describe synchronous settings as "rooms," Internet maps that produce unnecessary and fictive geographies, and programming that makes users' progression through sites seem like bodily movement. Such visceral renderings discourage critical interventions into Internet representations because sites seem tangible. The conflation of space-producing discourses with user investment in particular sites and identities threatens to make stereotypes "real." The represented bodies of Internet settings are "fleshed out" because there seems to be an environment that can support varied bodily processes. Computer representations can also justify the perpetuation of physical but certainly not necessary or natural conditions by mirroring material circumstances. I believe that such spatial vernaculars are having a significant effect on our cultural situations. I also continue to ponder other ways that we can write about and experience technologies. I would be interested in continuing such a dialog. All my best, Michele _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l Jillana Enteen jillana@jillana.net http://jillana.net