Frances Bell’s Blog

Those of us who spend time thinking, writing and generally wandering/wondering about the Internet at some time inevitably puzzle about time and space. There are many matrices to represent possibilities of time and space and map them on to technologies in the CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) and Learning Technology literatures, for example this one that dates back to 1988

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Time Space taxonomy, Johansen (1988)

Taxonomies such as this, particularly when used to classify technologies, seem a long way away from what people do with their inventive and flexible use of technologies, defying the dead hand of classification. And yet, classification of technologies, as opposed to people’s multiplexity of use of technology, persists.

Something happened this morning that was a delightful puzzle, and then made me think about time and space more generally.
Bird 1, Cat 0, Dog ?

My husband Terry called me out to the garden to see some tracks in the snow on a low wall outside our kitchen door. We thought the paw marks were from a cat and there were no feathers or blood so we imagined the scene of next door’s cat pouncing on a bird that flew off and escaped. I had some fun taking pictures of the tracks and then taking more pictures around the garden. I called the image Bird 1 Cat 0 to indicate the bird’s triumph: an image (digital and in my mind) that was the trace of an event.

Later, whilst I was sorting and uploading the pictures to Flickr, Terry called me back to show me that the paw marks were exactly where our dog Billy touches the wall as he leaps over it on his way from the kitchen to try, in vain, to catch a squirrel. So! the bird probably walked along the wall and flew off early this morning, then the dog jumped over the wall at a later time. We do not really know what happened but we did learn, that there was not necessarily one event, and that the traces were probably of two separate unrelated events, separated in time but coincidentally co-located in space. Snowfall was the only reason that this co-location in space was evident. In any other weather, unless I had seen the event, I would never have imagined that it took place.

Of course, our experiences do not fit neatly into conceptual boxes. On a family holiday to Iceland this year, we saw a statue on a volcanic sand beach at Vik in South Iceland, of a man leaning out towards the sea, its plaque inscribed with “Those who go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters share a mutual respect and understanding with fellow seafarers.”

The statue is one of a pair, “For” at Vik, the other being “Journey” in Hull, as part of a fascinating project to symbolize the bond between people in Hull and South Iceland, in contrast to the usual ‘Cod War’ linkage between these people and places. The statue at Hull leans out to sea, its eyes following the route of trawlers to the Icelandic fishing grounds.

“Like I in italics, this bowsprit figure,
clean as a sloping drift of snow,
looks out and shows how close we are,
how far, how cold, the last sea goes.”Angela Leighton

In each of those two examples, there are contradictions in their location in time and space. The links are conceptual (as well as the practical links within the project to commission and position the statues); primarily the links between the seafarers, their helpers and those who long for their return. Secondary are the links imagined by those who stand and look at one statue, located firmly in one time and space, and imagine the other statue (that they may or may not see, in the past or the future).

Such contradictions also exist in so-called synchronous and asynchronous information and communication technologies. Imagining is a powerful force both for enriching and hampering online communication (and face to face, come to that). ‘Literate’ users of media can employ multiple channels to enrich their communications:

• Text or email message requesting someone to phone them
• Back-channel communication, online chat or texting whilst in audience of conference session e.g. at Moodlemoot 2005
• ‘whispering’ in a group chat
• BCC (blind copying), printing and forwarding of email
• Noticing someone is online and prompting them (by instant message) to participate in an ‘asynchronous’ forum e.g. in Moodle where online users are chosen with link to message them.

These examples confound the taxonomy above, e.g. the backchannel communication example was both same time same place for the audience and presenter on one channel, but also same time different place for those in the audience and elsewhere on the chat channel. Because the audience got to talk in the chat channel, the (text) chat could seem as engaging as watching multimedia presentation.

Johansen, R. (1988) Groupware. Computer-Support for Business Teams, The Free
Press, New York and London.