Space and Subjectivity in the Information Milieu

Cybernetics fundamentally questions the boundaries of embodiment by privileging pattern over presence and information over material embodiment. In Terranova's informational milieu, and specifically in 'internet space,' subjectivity fundamentally changes with the devolution of the individual into dividuals, or 'clouds' of subjectivity. According to Terranova, these redrawn boundaries of subjectivity are connected to the seeming boundlessness of the Internet. The shape and space of the Internet that redraws subjectivity also redraws the production of knowledge and its connection to labor and control. I’d like to explore the relationship of space and subjectivity in the Internet, and how shifting/multiple subjectivities influence the relationship of ontology and activity; in other words, which is more important in an informational milieu?

Unfortunately, most of the theorists we’ve read engage these questions, making it difficult to pick only one to relate to Terranova, but perhaps Hayles focuses most directly on these issues by tracing the construction of the posthuman. She equates the shift from presence to pattern with a disembodiment of subjectivity, or a disembodied ontology, which Terranova complicates by arguing that the material world and the informational milieu are not at all distinct, and the reimbodiment of information changes the production of knowledge in important ways.

With shifting notions of subjectivity comes a reconfiguration of space and systems of control. Apart from WeFeelFine.org, Google Zeitgeist, Technocrati, and Google homogenize the Internet as they search through it, emphasizing pattern above presence. The open architecture of the Internet and the shifting of 1-way linkages to a more collective structure (google pages) create a kind of global brain that privileges consensus. What are the implications in this construction of space and the transformation of the subject?