The Porter Bureau

Just finished Simulacra and Simulation by Baudrillard. It took me a bit longer than I had hopped because I had to intersperse my reading with preparation for the class I’m teaching next semester, Literature in the Wired World. Even so, I’m quite glad to be through it. Baudrillard is a challenging read generally, but one of the particular issues with Simulacra and Simulation is that the latter essays are all variations on the themes articulated earlier in the book, and quite deliberately so. The model of Baudrillard’s work, the ever duplicating replica sans original, structures and defines the rhetoric of Simulacra and Simulation. By the third or fourth essay, I was quite sure that Baudrillard had nothing left to tell me that he hadn’t already said, and if I was to contest him at all, the only sure way of doing so would be to simply put down his book and walk away. In fact, that strikes me as the point of the latter half of the book: Baudrillard knowingly reserves the final few essays of the book for those who would “study” his work, i.e. academics. There at the end, a place he feels that only the scholarly will arrive at, he takes the academic study of his own work to task by inveighing against the cultural morbidity of the university system, which he calls “The Spiraling Cadaver.” A final, “you think that your ‘critical thinking’ offers a way out of the implosion of the hyperreal? Well it doesn’t, and my proof is that you’re still here looking for one.”

I’ve often said that the most cogent and accessible definition of postmodernism can be found in Umberto Eco’s postscript to The Name of the Rose titled “Postmodernism, Irony, The Enjoyable.” As the title might suggest, Eco’s take on postmodernism is thoughtful but not particularly bleak. Not so with the final essay in Simulacra and Simulation, “On Nihilism,” which likewise telegraphs its mood. Here’s a delightful sample:

I am a nihilist…
I observe, I accept, I assume, I analyze the second revolution, that of the twentieth century, that of postmodernity, which is the immense process of the destruction of meaning, equal to the earlier destruction of appearances. He who strikes with meaning is killed by meaning.
…
The masses themselves are caught up in a gigantic process of inertia through acceleration. They are this excrescent, devouring, process that annihilates all growth and all surplus meaning. They are this circuit short-circuited by a monstrous finality.
…
There is no longer a stage, not even the minimal illusion that makes events capable of adopting the force of reality–no more stage either of mental or political solidarity: what do Chile, Biafra, the boat people, Bologna, or Poland matter? All of that comes to be annihilated on the television screen. We are in the era of events without consequences.

I can only compare the pathos of reading “On Nihilism” to the feeling, or affect, of watching Brazil for the first time; the harrowing of the soul by the anti-cathartic ending leaves the viewer/reader simultaneously nauseous yet desperately wanting food, water, anything to fill the void carved out by the experience. (Don’t get me wrong, I love the film, but if you don’t come away from your first viewing fully gobsmacked, then you weren’t paying attention.) If, then, I recommend Eco to anyone wanting to understand what postmodernism is, then I recommend “On Nihilism” to anyone wanting to know why we would be well rid of it as the dominant philosophy. (Some would argue that we already are, but that is a different discussion.)

Below you will find a guide to abstract geographies in Second Life. Abstract geographies, as I am using the term, are places that don’t try to represent something that can be found in the physical world but instead originate from the imagination. They break the basic signifier/signified duality that defines many of the locations found in Second Life.

To understand what I mean, let’s first consider a few examples of representative geographies in Second Life.

Perhaps one of the most frequently visited places in Second Life is the recreation of the Eiffel Tower. What the designers tried to do was to recreate in a virtual environment a model or representation of the Eiffel Tower that would map directly to the physical monument that dominates the Paris skyline. Were you to log into Second Life and visit the representation of the Eiffel Tower, you would immediately recognize its iconic iron beams, its frame-like architecture, and the distinct upward sweep of its design.

Other representative geographies abound in second life and include anything from the Globe Theater in London to the Taj Mahal. These project are impressive in the artistry of their construction and carry the cultural value of these locations into the medium of virtual environments.

But what about this idea of “abstract geographies.” Unlike the recreations of the Eiffel Tower or Globe Theater, abstract geographies don’t take as their model anything that can be found in the physical world. Instead they are the product of the designer’s imagination. It is worth emphasizing here that all geographies in Second Life are constructed; they are meticulously designed (if you saw the film Inception, you might think of the role of the “architect” that Ellen Page plays). So, even the most representative geography is still a fabrication of the imagination, but the designer of an abstract geography moves beyond the need to rearticulate places found in the physical world to the places found only in the mind. William Gibson famously described cyberspace as a “collective hallucination.” If that is true, it is nowhere better articulated, in my view, than in non-representative geographies of Second Life because of their deliberate and conscious break with realism.

Almost by design such geographies are difficult to describe in text, so to give you a demonstration of what I mean, I’ve created a number of videos that take you on a tour of three abstract geographies: Immersiva, Two Fish, and Centus.

I should take a minute to explain the title of this post. “Invisible Islands” is a term I’m borrowing from a writer named Italo Calvino who, in the early 1970s, wrote a book titled Invisible Cities. Set in the 13th century palace of Kublai Khan, the book consists of a series of descriptions in which the traveler Marco Polo describes for Kublai Khan the various cities that comprise his empire. But as each city is described, it quickly becomes apparent that these cities are not to be found in the physical world, but rather in the shared, collective imaginations of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, with each city more abstract and fantastical than the last. These cities that Marco Polo describes are non-referential in that they don’t correspond to any city that actually exists outside of Marco Polo and Khan’s imaginations. They are therefore ‘invisible cities,’ because they can’t be seen with the usual visual tools, meaning the human eye; they can only be apprehended in the ephemeral space between Marco Polo’s oration and Khan’s hearing and imagination.

Likewise in Second Life we have invisible islands (the geography of Second Life as a whole is that of an archipelago, seen here: World Map of Second Life) that do not exist outside of imagination. Yes, we can see them with our eyes, but not without the mediating technologies of 3D graphics and the Second Life engine.

Check out the videos below and let me know what you think. (The first video is basically what you just read, so you can skip it if you’d like.)

Umm, wow. I heard from the University of Maryland today, my top school. I have been accepted! As those crazy enough to apply to graduate school know, typically you want to see a thick envelope since a thin envelope means that all you were sent was the rejection letter. Well, I got a thin envelope in the mail today from the U of Maryland. Obviously I thought the worst. Once again (as with MSU), I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had been accepted (graduate school official documents that normally make an acceptance letter a thick envelope to follow).

I also heard from the University of Florida today. The news from the swamp was not so good, which made the letter from Maryland all that much more exciting. Getting accepted to Maryland is doubly welcome because it is sufficiently prestigious that I might actually get a job teaching college somewhere when I graduate.

All is not set, however. I was accepted, but I am on a waiting list for funding. I hope to find out soon if that means I just have to wait and I will be funded, or if there’s a chance I won’t be offered funding at all. The University of Maryland is halfway between Washington DC and Baltimore, so it’s an expensive place to live. I might be able to get a job off campus to keep things afloat family wise, but at $9k a semester, there’s no way I’d be able to cover out-of-state tuition. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me. Still, I can’t believe I was accepted there–I really did think that Maryland was above my proverbial pay grade. Here’s hoping that everything works out and I can actually attend.

The pumpkins are out on the front porch and the cold air drops orange hued leaves incessantly onto my driveway, so it must be getting close to Halloween. In the spirit of the season, let me invite you to share some of your favorite tales of the strange and terrible. Here, dusted off from the back shelf where the unsuspecting and innocent won’t accidentally peruse them, are some of mine.

The Masque of the Red Death
Of all Poe’s stories, I find The Masque of the Red Death most frightening. I’m not sure why, exactly, though I suspect it has to do with how the Prince and his fellow revelers are victims of their own making–the hedonists were the true sickness in the land, and thus had locked the Red Death in with them from the very beginning.

Young Goodman Brown
I recently picked up a collection of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. The author of the introduction, correctly, compared Lovecraft to Poe. However, as I read Lovecraft’s stories, I feel like he is better compared to Hawthorne. Though Lovecraft shares Poe’s sense of the macabre, the way he uses place is to my mind more reflective of Hawthorne. Not simply because they both situate their stories in New England, but because the history of that place figures so prominently into ethos of their work.

Manfred
First, it’s by Byron. Second, it’s by Byron. And third, it’s by Byron. Seriously though, this is a great epic poem in the tradition of Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein. I particularly enjoy the strength of the title character, which is reflected in the way he stands firm against the spirits of the underworld (Act II, Scene 4). I also enjoy the exchange with the abbot (Act III, Scene 1)

The Philosophy of Composition
Though this is not a story, fans of the above (and Lovecraft) may find it a very interesting read. Poe was asked repeatedly to write an interpretation of his most famous work, The Raven. As an artist of quality, he bristled at this notion and instead wrote the following essay on the nature of writing, particularly horror writing. As I say above, fans of Lovecraft may find this essay particularly enlightening. Consider especially how Poe discusses the “effect.”