CYBERSPACE AND NUMERICAL LIVES

Nowadays  in our information age, cyberspace which exists in our life with developed technologies in fact has just finished its development and its affects became one of the projectile power that provides fast motion for global world. Cyberspace has first appeared in 1984 with the novel called ‘ Neuromancer written by science-fiction writter William Gibson in which it is called Cyberspace in Wiene dream. Gibson named Cyberspace in his novel as a virtual network system  which connects people eachother.When  we look near back, we can see that this fiction has grown with information age of 1970s and popularity of communication revolution concepts.

Internet Revolution

Digital world which is called ‘ Cyberspace ‘ made its biggest revolution in 1980s after internet became a part of our daily life. In those days because number of personal computers increased, internet network started to reach more users and cyberspace took its place in the center of numerical world. Internet progressed this fast development in different four revolutional steps. First of these steps is Electronic message service.(e-mail) Second; file transfer protocol(FTP) Third;interactive systems for getting advantage of sources(google,wikipedia,etc.) and the fourth is social communication networks(Usenet,facebook,twitter etc)

internet protocol network
Digitizetion Of Places

Especially, fast development of social communication networks expedited information of info and eliminated the distances between people. Thanks to this, public space of numerical world has slowly started to be shaped. These developments that removed place dependence also started to change  urban functions and life styles. Because there is no border,no center and accessibility is easy, physical distances between socials and cultures have been removed. Physical interaction of the public space, creating space for a numeric space  with the establishment of the actors began to break from physical world. All of today’s evolving concept of information systems undergo a digital transformation of everyday life, amplification and a match to occur at the surface of a virtual actor that creates space to the rear of the causing identity.

Numerical Identities
Scene from Surrogates (2009) Photograph: PR

These numerical identities are not responsible for cyberspaces which have no border in social classes and are open to free communication . In these spaces person can be what he wants to be and he can share his ideas freely. In the film called Surrogates, surrogates  which are healthy, good-looking and wireless  – controlled machines,take people’ places in physical world and it is told  in an anxiety way to whom we should trust in the world which is full of masks and who is real.

With the developed technologies , people do not need physical space because; they  use cyberspace in numerical places, there is a decline in physical communication , confidence between people in the cities and actors who give identity to these places start to leave the places. All these reasons are very important factors that we should think on.

These endless cyberspace and social systems should be organized systematically and these systems should also be designed in consideration with public policies. A city which provides intersection of two parallel world maybe not lose its origins but  may keep in step with technological development.

Erdem Dokuzer

Share Post :