YK2

T r o e l s D e g n J o h a n s s o n

W H Y K 2 ?

Troels Degn Johansson, iIllustrations by Rune Nielsen.

Note:

This paper presents my experiences and critical considerations concerning my work with contemporary Danish art group Superflex and their concept for the Karlskrona2 project -- a 3D Multi-User Domain based on a virtual model of the minor Swedish city, Karlskrona. As a "public participation" project Karlskrona2 is being developed in a peculiar co-operation involving a curator, a local art gallery, an architect, local public authorities, and others. However, Karlskrona2 has a (perhaps) separate life in the world of contemporary fine, or critical art to which Superflex primarily refers, namely as an "art work", or at least an "object" of documentation. Now, how is this possible, and what kind of positions does this situation offer me as a cyber-culture critic of this particular initiative? My point in this paper is that Superflex' unique tactics as a critical art group has managed to benefit from special characteristics of the Internet to open up a new field of possibilities, not only for art but also for criticism.

At first sight, Karlskrona2 makes out an excellent example for me since I am currenly envolved in a research programme on web-based visualization of landscape and urban space in the context of public planning communication. Here I am asked: How can we use web-based media to enrich a public debate on spatial planning issues, etc?As concept, Karlskrona2 stands for a now well-known trend in planning communication (or at least in the dream of it):That the user, or citizen should be able to retrieve and share that information that he/she finds relevant in an immersive 3D-environment and in accordance to his/her interests. Whereas it is true that this project has not yet been realized, the communication design, the the virtual environment (ActiveWorlds), and other factors are now given, so we do in a sense have an idea of what this system would be like when fully implemented.
As a work of art, or at least as part of the work done by this peculiar art group, Karlskrona2 is however more than "just" a concept for a public participation project in cyberspace. Karlskrona2 examplifies perfectly what Swedish curator Åsa Nacking has described as Superflex' general tactics as a critical art group: to intervene in various functions that are believed to have a strong impact upon society. In this manner, Superflex works perhaps mainly with processes as their primary material. However, so far Superflex has concentrated on those social functions that the web may facilitate. For me in turn, as a critic of geographical and planning communication in cyberspace, this tactics of processual intervention has made me try various positions, some of which have been quite traditional and some more unusual. I will argue that I have been involved in these positions by the intervening tactic of Superflex, that this tactic of intervention has enriched my work as a critic and a professional doing applied research, and that the tactics in a sense is inconceivable without what one could call a general experience pertaining particularly to Internet culture.

Further information on Superflex and the Karlskrona2 project on http://www.superflex.dk

Y K 2 ?

Why do we need second worlds? What is the point of having a second city, a Karlskrona2, modelled before us as a so-called 3D Multi-User Domain in a "second space" of communication, that is the virtual reality of the World Wide Web. Why can we not do with the ones we have got already? In the following paragraphs I would like to reflect briefly on these questions with address to communication, criticism, and art. Or should I say (in the German), to "Kommunikation2", "Kritik2", and "Kunst2"? For, when seen both as a communication environment and a work of art, Karlskrona2 seems distinctly different to what I know. Then again, I am actually not an art critic; I do applied reseach in media and planning communication for a national research centre. So, this is rather a "Kritik2".

K A R L S K R O N A 2

Art group Superflex and their ongoing project Karlskrona2 will be given to the public as a "free space" for the local citizens of the Swedish municipality of Karlskrona to inhabit and perhaps to use for a debate on the future of this old naval town from the golden age of the Swedish empire. Superflex' visions for this project concerns the important question of what will happen if the same individuals and groups of a given community were given a separate space to live in and "to start anew". What will happen? Will the new, virtual community develop entirely as the old one, or will this free space make them think and behave differently and perhaps implement the experiences of this social experiment to the original community?

Similar to Superflex' other current projects: Supergas, Superchannel etc, we are invited to use Karlskrona2 as a "tool" for certain processes, or functions in accordance with a given objective. As for Karlskrona2, Superflex was invited by the municipality of Karlskrona, a curator, and a local art gallery to develop a "tool" that would facilitate a public participation in the discussions of an important local issue in Karlskrona, namely the ambitions of making Karskrona a leading information technology development zone in Southern Sweden. As a Ph.D. Scholar, working for a research centre for urban and regional planning, I am myself approaching Karskrona2 as a tool that may fulfill neighbour country Denmark's strategic objectives of having IT used to attract public participation in the debate of planning issues pertaining to, e.g. the future land use of landscapes and urban space. Accordingly, although I do not live in Karskrona, I am invited to use this tool Karlskrona2 as well.

Superflex often refers to Karlskrona2 as an "ongoing project". Currently this mean that although Karlskrona2 has not yet been realized as a real 3D Multi-User Domain on the WWW, a process has long since been initiated; a process that has involved designers, local authorities, curators, galleries, reseachers, and still other parties. The project coordinators are currently about to buy a large piece of "land" on the immense plains of the ActiveWorlds, a 3D MUD-cummunity where the virtual representation of central Karlskrona will be built and made available for local citizens. Although in this sense, Karlskrona2 does not exist yet, I and many others are nevertheless making use of it as a tool to undertake some very concrete functions in our work. For instance, I am asking myself: Why do we need a "second Karlskrona", why do we need the WWW as a second space for communication. Of course, Karlskrona2 is much more than a 3D Multi-User Domain for social experiments. It is also art, and it is also in a broader sense about communication, that is beyond the specific, local context of Karskrona.

K O M M U N I K A T I O N 2 [:communication2]

Co-inventor of the so-called Virtual Reality Modeling Languge (VRML), Mark Pesche thought of this new 3D "computer language" standard as the foundation of a "second web". Pesche's vision of the VRML was to develop a new version of the WWW in three dimensions that would make it easier to use since one would have the space of communication grounded on a well-known geography. Whereas VRML has proven quite successful as a standard for interaction in 3D-models on the WWW (the Karlskrona2-demo is actually designed as a VRML-model although it may ultimately be realized in ActiveWorlds's own 3D-language), Pesche's vision for a "second web" seems no longer such an obvious solution to improve user-friendly communication design. And actually, I am quite sceptical as to whether 3D-communication designs are better in web-based planning communication than communication environments based on, say verbal language and simple maps in 2D. Pesche's notion of a second web seems more like the dream of pure interactivity than a set of applicable instructions for effective interactive web-design.

On the other hand, I admit that the VRML-vision as such has been of great importance for the development of a tenable theory of communication on the WWW. Reconsidering the criticism advanced from media and communication studies in these first years of the WWW, one could say that we have constantly been looking for an adequate metaphor for our understanding of web-based multi-use communication. The notion of "communication environment", or of "spaces of communication" has perhaps been the most evocative and lasting one in this respect, that is at least as concerns the study of geographical media and web-based Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Setting off from this perspective, one might say that whereas web-based communication environments may not necessarily be three-dimensional, the "second web" city Karlskrona2 is still a particularly suggestive visualization of this metaphor. This alone is in my view of great importance as for our realization of what the Internet is and for our perception of the "Internet experience" -- which perhaps not only pertains to the Internet as such but also is about us thinking differently about communication in general.

K Ö R P E R 2 [:Bodies2]

Karlskrona 2 offers me a "body", an avatar - supposedly in Sanskrit: avatãra: a god's descent and embodiment in a human form. Does this make me a god? Does this make a god out of me? I hope not! Rather than descending into something, I feel elevated - not by possessing this body, which in fact I do not do, but by imagining that I may transcend into one. These are "super-avatars"; they have got the very same color as the other superflex "things": The super-gas balloon, the Superflex web-page design, etc. -- even those "superflex fish": The fish that are always there when Superflex is around. Unlike other avatars, the super-avatars are plural, that is, precisely like the fish and the "things". In "real" virtual reality everybody seems to want to have their own avatar in a unique design. Still this is a paradox, for 3D-modelled avatars have nothing unique to them; they have no facial traits and they quite possibly lend themselves for simple copying. So, why do I rather want an orange super-avatar? Well, somehow because these avatars are more "real", or even more "natural" for me to mirror myself in. And why is that? Simply because I cannot think of a better image of those simple pronouns: "he" and "they": Those simple words that lend themselves for all my thoughts about the world. In fact I cannot think of any better visualization of "Man". I assume that it is a "he", i.e, that it is "masculine" (- still as far I can see a rather sexless one ...). These avatars are precisely as masculine as "Man" is; a concept that of course does not capture "men" but mankind: men and women and other gender altogether. That is why I want a super-avatar - they are not "real men" but real Man, and one may identify with "him" even though one happens to be a woman or something else. In this sense, the avatars of the K2 stands out as a representation of Man in the general world: they are the orange agents of Theory!

‘Don't play with ghosts - you risk ending up being one yourself!' So an ancient saying has it. The K2 super-avatars are the ghosts of Man. Leonardo da Vinci created the modern popular image of Man; Man which was either in the center of the world, or subjected to God's Grand Design. There is nothing of all this to the super-avatar - quite on the contrary. Although I take those avatars as representation of Man, they function in a special way: There are no connotations of essentialism here: They are not in this sense human beings, or human nature but beyond the essence of Man: they are Man beyond Man. These avatars may appear alien to the humanists who wants mirrors of human beings. I do not want all that. I am a post-humanist, and I want the oraange ghosts of Man to free my mind.

K U N S T 2 [:art2]

Karlskrona2 seems characteristic of Superflex' general approach as an art group: To intervene, or to facilitate various social functions by means of technology. In her interview with Superflex, art critic and curator Åsa Nacking concentrates on this intervening strategy which is compared by both parties with that of a virus; an intervening approach which in principle could work in all sorts of social systems, although Superflex seems to have been concentrating on those of economy, energy, and communication. Doing research on web-based 3D-visualization of space and change for a national applied research centre I am myself from the outset tied up with one particular social system, namely that of public planning communication; a system which also involves citizens, interest groups, public sector authorities, politicians, etc. More specifically it is my professional duty in this position to develop and to support the system by identifying tools that may prove helpful for public debate and decision processes. This process has hitherto been conducted by means of hearings concerning concrete solutions to a given problem. However, whereas this system is often characterized by a strong and, in a certain sense, rigid opposition between the public sector authorities (that "knows" everything and "decides" nothing) and interest groups/individual citizens (that "decides" everything and "knows" nothing) I am delighted about the idea to have a third, neutral and in an sense fully "absorbed" partner from the field of art to intervene in this process. One notes that as a decision support system, Karlskrona2 emphasizes not on the hearing of concrete plans but on the analytical development of strategies. So, although in a sense one might say that Superflex and Karlskrona2 seem to be aiming at overtaking the part traditionally played by the civil servant in the bureaucracy, the Karlskrona2 agenda is still distinctly different to that of the hearing.

However, although thus playing "civil servants" in Karlskrona2 we should of course not forget that Superflex is also intervening in another social system, namely that of art. This aspect becomes emphasized for me when reflecting on Karlskrona2 inasmuch as K2 as a tool is still "only" an idea and not yet an actual 3D MUD decision support system. Whereas Superflex, in social systems outside the world of art, has developed a distinct neutral, obliging, and almost innocent approach, this art group's position within the system of art seems perhaps even more modest and totally lacking the (monstrous) distance that we usually associate with critical, or conceptual art. Superflex' intervening approach certainly also applies to art but perhaps so in an even more radical manner which ends up stressing the peculiarity of their approach to other fields. As a "mental" tool" and a work of art, Karskrona2 stresses in this sense a perhaps more important and underlying practice of doubling, namely that of "Kunst2" (art2). This is then not a virtualization of art - just as Karlskrona should not be though of as a social virtualization -- but a doubling that makes us think of both art, planning communication, and perhaps even the social in a refreshing and revitalizing new way.

K R I T I K 2 [:Criticism2]

So, K2 made a critic out of me, still I am not a real critic. It just made me think like one. This is how critical art works in our minds. Yet, how am I to think of the K2 as an object, that is, as an objet d'art? For me, this is no no longer a pertinent question. Rather I prefer to ask myself: How am I to think of myself as an object before critical art? Superflex' K2 provides us with a peculiar tool that makes us think critically about the world by means of doubling. We do not identify ourselves fully with those avatars of another world; we do not seek full immersion in that virtual world. This is all pure ideology. What we are given as a tool is the "2", the double, the double that doubles no simple, nothing at least that is not itself already double, as the philosopher has it. Is it not what the "2" of the K2 amounts to? The 2 is given before us as a tool to double, and this is precisely what elevates me. I am forming part of it by doubling it. What a paradox this is: To truly concentrate on the world I have to distance myself from it. To see the world as it really is, I have to contemplate its doubling. To obtain a sense of authenticity I have to think in terms of doubling. 2 is the tool. Just think of it.

[add to this that I did write these lines at the turn of the millenium, at the Y2K. By coincidence (1 +1), I did set off from the doubling of a chronology. There never was a Y1K but a Y2K. Thus I set off from doubling. And I only knew of one bug; the 2].

Troels Degn Johansson, MA in Film & Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen and a Ph.D. Scholar at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute, Ministry of Environment and Energy. TDJ is currently envolved in a research project on web-cased 3D-visualization of landscapes and scenarios for future land use in the context of public planning communication.