Eric Kluitenberg, a researcher in the field of the significance of new technologies for society, explains how we are living in an environment in which the public population is constantly reconfigured by a multitude of media and communication networks interwoven into the social and political functions of space to form a ‘hybrid space’.
The physical spaces that we inhabit daily - including offices, shops and cafés - are now networked, located and recorded using digital technologies. A number of our daily social routines now reside in the virtual world; from social networking websites and online chat rooms to virtual shopping malls and cafés in virtual worlds like Second Life. New mobile technologies mean we can now connect, inhabit and perform in these spaces whilst remaining on the move.
Geotagging, using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to track and locate our physical latitude and longitude coordinates, can be uploaded continuously from our mobile devices to our networks, thus updating others on our daily activities and movements. A hybrid space, then, can be understood as “a space in motion and an interaction between perceived, conceived, lived and virtual space. This space is formed not only by materiality and social and political actions, but also by digital technology.” This space, then, creates new platforms in which artists can invite participation and engagement from a new, virtually residing public.
(Kluitenberg 2006: 8)
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