>
> the electrosphere, whether television, radio, or the internet, acts like
> a single place...here...a here without a there...
>
In __Imagined Communities__ (did I mention this before?) B. Anderson
describes how the novel contributed to the creation of a virtual space
that made possible the nation state. The effect he summed up in the word
"meanwhile"--the experience that all the things going on simultaneously in
dispersed locations were part of one entity, added up to a coherent
identity. The nation state is a product of literacy.
And electracy? Meanwhile, in Amsterdam? Meanwhile, in Tokyo?
Meanwhile, in Florida? It is said that a nation is constituted by three
dimensions, three borders: economic, geographic, symbolic. Multinational
corporations are abolishing the economic border. Germany's declaration
separating German identity from specific geography (the excuse for WWII?)
is symptomatic of the population flows that are eroding geographic
borders.
What of the symbolic borders? Only a few states have developed fully
a symbolic identity, with the U. S. being one of those few. It is a
feeling that one gets: perhaps I should go to America... Or, perhaps I
am already "there"?
for the emerAgency
Greg Ulmer
-------------------------------------------------------------
a forum on spatial articulations, perspectives, and procedures
texts are the property of individual authors
for information, email majordomo@forum.documenta.de with
the following line in the message body: info blast
archive at http://www.documenta.de/english/blasta.htm
or http://www.documenta.de/deutsch/blasta.htm
documenta X Kassel and http://www.documenta.de 1997
-------------------------------------------------------------