23 October 2007

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA), consisting of 350 antennas of about twenty feet diameters each will be used by radio astronomers to "map vast swaths of the sky cheaply and efficiently" and by so doing, they will be able "to catch transient events, like radio bursts from colliding black holes" and "to search for lumps of gas without stars, the so-called dark galaxies" (Dennis Overbye, "Stretching the Search for Signs of Life," The New York Times, 11 October 2007). The Array will be the preliminary step towards the use of an even greater undertaking: the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). Indeed, the SKA is estimated to be built in Australia or South Africa within a couple of decades. Currently, the largest radio telescope is located in Puerto Rico - the Arecibo - and consists of a one thousand foot diameter dish. Despite its size, it can only cover a fraction of what the ATA is projected to cover and is threatened to be shut down due to monetary constraints.

Utilizing relatively cheap and simple materials to remediate telecommunications technology for extraterrestrial exploration, radio astronomers are revolutionizing - at least evolving - the 'self/other' dyad. Beyond the other-worldly, they are adding an extra depth to the 'other' by vivifying the reality of an other-universe. Moreover, they are anchoring the possibility of an anti-universe through their projected exploration of the dark galaxies and the black holes.

Here, ideology is restored through praxis.

In the opposite direction is exploration and discovery of the ocean floor through the Alvin, "a three-person submarine for deep sea exploration," as documented by biologist Dr. Cindy Lee Van Dover (Claudia Dreifus, "Deep in the Sea, Imagining the Cradle of Life on Earth," The New York Times, 16 October 2007). Through the Alvin, Dr. Van Dover ceaselessly discovers new and unusual life forms as well as uncovers clues to the first signs of life in the animal kingdom.

By venturing to such depths, she proves the critical need not to overlook what is subterrestrial. Rather than an anti-universe, she lifts a macro-universe of the ocean floor into our reality.

Extraterrestrial and Subterrestrial.

The Above and The Below.

From self and other to self, other, other-worldly, other-universe, and anti-universe. Perhaps a re-introduction to the anti-self distinct from other...

Although the dyad continues in critical relevance and discovery, technology and presence currently add depth and dimension to the one - the not-so-single entity - other. From this other, there blooms into fruition an 'anti-other', quite distinct from the self. In virtuality, we mediate not a simple other, but a rather complex anti-self.

Through Jaiku, Google is remediating the address book into 'animation' - from material to "live diary, constantly updated so that we can see, on our cellphones, where our contacts are and what they are doing" (Ivar Ekman, "Google's Purchase of Jaiku Raises New Privacy Issues," The New York Times, 22 October 2007). Chris Messina wrote of Google's Jaiku purchase that with the live diary, " 'you see all manner of social and presence data' " so mapping will truly take on quite a personal dimension. Here, virtuality will become a sphere of the closest mediated presence.

Data is vivified.

LifeAt.com takes Google/Jaiku one further by mediating social networks in virtuality to effect and to initiate ties in reality. The premise for the online social network is grounded in socioeconomic indicators as relevant factors for successful collaboratiing and socializing ties - at a distance (Bob Tedeschi, "Meet Your Neighbors, but Just Not in Person," The New York Times, 22 October 2007). Although the site takes on a more intimate 'myspace' feel because it consists of neighbors in the same apartment complexes and/or housing developments, there is great doubt that it will strengthen "offline social ties".

Data is shared but not a socializing tie.

The "spillproof, rainproof, dustproof and drop-proof" XO laptop will be launched in November to two billion "educationally underserved children in poor countries" (David Pogue, "Laptop With a Mission Widens Its Audience," The New York Times, 4 October 2007). According to Pogue, the laptop consists of a Linux operating system, a lithium ferro-phosphate battery, a 1,200 by 900 pixel color screen, a word processor, a Web browser, a calculator, a PDF textbook reader, a chat program, and a wireless Internet as well as a mesh networking connection. The great thing about the mesh network is if only one laptop has an Internet connection, all the others will be able to share that same connection.

Data is educating - effecting and strengthening a tie of virtual community.

Privacy will co-exist with a mediated community in virtuality for education.

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Immediacy and Privacy.

Virtuality and Reality.

Today, the evolution from real to mediated communities through education and data sharing is becoming the true exploration of self qua other. From extraterrestrial to subterrestrial, radio astronomy to biology, and from virtuality to reality, there is a constant and insatiable exhibition of dimensionality far beyond dyads, triads, and other such heuristic constructs. Rather, there is now a re-introduction to a remediated and redefined one.

More importantly, we are becoming a self finding a place - virtual or mediated - in that one...

Creative potentiality in virtuality is continuously re-defining the imagined. There is a new reality pushing the existing doxa and forcing acknowledgment. Hyphenation is the potentiality acknowledging this and forcing the re-evaluation of the currently assumed realm of possibility. It is a language structured by the new reality of multiple virtuality spheres - a reality dynamically in flux to exponential degrees with our increasing discoveries.

There is critical need for a language to accommodate accurately the self and the one in this present potentiality.