Tools and New Rooms
(Narrative in new spaces II)
By Martin Krusche
[deutsche
version]
The tools we use affect and change us. We have a broad
consensus on this. The new net media has domain over their machines but manifests itself
without spectacular claim. Our cognitive knowledge is of course under influence by these
machines of simulation and the belief that what is real and what is reality is in a
constant flux of change.
Writing, the task through which a text is formed, is at the
moment surely not affected as much as the gesture of writing. There are subcultural levels
where the technological aspect of writing has been absorbed into the mode of writing. As
soon as the light of the public is pointed onto these levels, changes would be seen
immediately in its course.
There are also those writers, who like to inform the entire
globe that they have just abandoned their manual typewriter for something entirely new and
that this fact has changed everything. These vociferous market screamers interest me not
at the least. I mean to say that one can notice, that the conditions for the literary
scene are changing radically. How one builds in this an existence as a writer for which
the net media is constitutional, would be very interesting to debate right now. The
offering of virtual worlds has long since been a domain for literature. and in this field
the medium book still holds a firm place.
Although the new machines of simulation have changed this
fact, such offerings for our senses are being channeled and suggest an expansion towards
another reality construction.
Thus it is plausible, to pose the question to the writer,
how and where they notice the emergence of this machine powered virtual world and what the
consequences in the quest of the author would be. Of particular interest would be the spot
where the entrancement of the machine polarizes the perespectives. Where the task of
writing remains in focus.
Since narration, listening and comprehension still forms
the core of any media application, the question what do we mean by reality and what we
want to understand by the term "conditio humana" are still cognizant. One asks
further who and what conditions facilitate in working towards clarification. Once again we
are attempting to describe fringe locations, breaking lines, and the territories adjacent
to each other and how they relate. It deals with claiming and instilling life into new
realms... if there is any realm at all.
By the way, core methods of production of the new
simulation machine is TEXT. Software. A gigantic library of statements, questions and
instructions. Again one further question to ask and to discuss: Who can narrate what is
told and what lays a claim to text.
(Translated by Joseph & Janice
Schuetzenhoefer) |