στο "ΜΕΤΑΛΛΑΓΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΣΥΝΕΧΕΙΕΣ. Πρακτικές, πολιτικές και λόγος για τον αστικό χώρο". Εκδόσεις ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΙΑ, Αθήνα , (ΣΕΛ.38-43) 2009 "DIGITAL WORLDS IN LIMBO" Abstract: Digital technologies bring about fundamental changes in the way we relate to the environment. Architecture has worked with models for centuries; models that are not neutral and predetermine the outcome. Media used for the conception and presentation of architectural works, configure a production frame similar to that of the on the spot construction. The special characteristics of digital media are a result of the nature of the code. The computer has the ability to perform complicated transformations in a high velocity. These can be classified in four categories: translation, discretization, rationalization and metaphor. The computer’s method is projection and its aim is transformation. Computer performs complicated design tasks thanks to the existence of suitable software. Therefore another type of projection emerges, the one related to the distinction between the production of media used for the design process and the proper design process. The design process does no longer involve the gesture, the implication of the hand and, furthermore, the implication of the corporeity. The heavy, analogue body cannot communicate with the immaterial digital code immediately but only through interfaces. The immaterial nature of the code is the one that allows the elaboration of every point separately. All points become equivalent, and we can now refer to relations field-field, which brings along an algebraic logic, very different to the geometric one that distinguishes among, points, lines, surfaces and volumes. Processing the parts independently and continuously places the scale issue in a new condition. Digital code makes scale irrelevant as parts are no longer dependant of the totality. The code doesn’t recognize any other system of reference apart from itself, not even the human body. Our definite insertion or withdrawal from the reality of the digital era never occurs; our permanence in the digital worlds remains open, latent, pendant: in limbo.

Lev Manovich and the Language of New Media, ed. Rune Dalgaard, The Centre for Internet Research, 2007

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 1985

2008

Computer has become inevitable media of learning which, in addition to computer games, surfing the Internet and chatting, focuses on series possibilities of usage, and it becomes a working tool in the world of school, similar to business and working environment. By the fact that it not only serves for fun, but it also reflects educational function, computer as medium of learning becomes interesting for school, and media-didactic discourse obtains a complete, broader and more intensive character in relation to the time when school media were identified with school radio and school programme. Thinking about educational function has began in the 1980’s and development of computer technologies has offered a new direction in which a computer has become easy user device that enables the initiation of the programme through simple devices, by one click of the mouse. In this paper, the model of multimedia networking will be explained through three essential aspects for those who educate themselves: • as a replacement of calculations culture by simulations culture, • as multimedia work environment and • as a sphere of mediating virtual with real. Computer competences were initially related with “culture of calculations” because it was believed that computers are “transparent” for the people when a user is able to see through a magic of mechanism and to manipulate the surface. In the meantime, computer was receiving fewer orders and people had interactive contact with it which shows a new standpoint where computer lessons do not have anything in common with calculating and rules and they greatly refer to simulations, navigations and interactions. „Interaction“ implies active use of the computer, not only mere consuming. In such experimental environment, the young can learn and understand simulations as a part of a meaningful everyday life, rather than science fiction which is located in some space, opposed to the reality of everyday life. Computers are machines which are not remote from reality and which could enable the young to develop their own interests. Computer networking refers not only to communication channels (implied by them), and essential characteristic of multimedia represents the connecting of different media – text, image, animation, video, etc. – in one hypertext, therefore in one non-linear networked relationship. By connecting the language, image and tone, views from various perspectives are opened and different competences are required. Computers are thus equated with multi-purpose devices which support cognitive competences of the ones that are formed by image, tone documents and short clips. Essential aspect of networked structure that is connected with computer is today commented as virtual reality, but therefore it is not necessary to immediately refer to abstract three-dimensional spaces. It is about virtual spaces that networkedly refer to “real” life, since one can today shop in some mall or chat in some private rooms, etc. In that sense, development of this network into some type of second world – the world in which it will be discussed, reported and decided on relations in the first “real” world. This “alternative” world would be imbued with real world, it would overlap with it, and the possibilities of their formation and usage are yet to be discussed.

Regarding computational media as a mere enhanced remediation of physical media and screens as their medium overlooks the ontological distance between both modes of representation. Moreover, these characterisations disregard the essential role software and computational devices play in conforming the architecture and «language» of digital media. In the following pages, I argue the characterisation of computational media as dynamic visualisations of information, and of screens as interfaces constitute, instead, more suitable descriptions. The argument being that screens are not a medium, but instead fundamental components of a more complex system: the computer metamedium. By arguing against purely discursive and visual interpretations of computational media, this paper shows that understanding our contemporary visual landscape requires —at least— a baseline understanding of the tools and logic involved in generating them. Media practitioners interested in pragmatic and interdisciplinary approaches to computational media will, perhaps, benefit from the following account.

Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2004

The hybrid contemporary space, which integrates urban and interactive virtual spaces, implies particular ways of inhabiting that suggests new identities, promoting the constant alternation between its different worlds. This article proposes to analyze and understand the design, construction and appropriation processes in this new social space-time. These processes are not only guaranteed by the accessibility to new media, but they involve the organization of complex strategies which included the development of instruments and landscapes that allow the migrations and interweaving between two realities: the urban and the virtual. This project generated an accumulation of unforgettable experiences that turned into a multiplicity of words and images that expanded through informal media or planned strategies. These activities allow reflecting upon the behaviors, meanings, and diverse thresholds that were constructed by the actors themselves during this process, and suggest new ways of being-in-the-world.

Computer, 1977