Disconnectivity Demonstrated

From THE FUTURIST, March-April 2008, Volume 42, Number 2

By Cynthia G. Wagner

Who we are and what we see are both becoming increasingly ambiguous in the digitally mediated world.

Students model their VCom helmets to show how “virtual existence communication” affects interactivity.

The rise of instant connectivity and community building through communications technologies may to some extent be keeping people farther apart. Instead of dropping by your cubicle to show you pictures of their own new puppy, your office mates will forward you the Halloween­-costumed dog pictures they (and a few thousand other people) received in their e-mail that day.

Social networking in the virtual world means you may never know what your “friends” really look like, but you’ll have up-to-the-minute details on their daily lives.

Is this disconnected connectivity so indispensable as many have come to believe? That’s one of the questions posed by Iain Carnegie of the University of Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. ­Carnegie designed a VCom (virtual existence communication) helmet for the university’s Masters Show “to make us think about how our communication is increasingly virtual, leading to a diminishing need for physical presence during communication.”

The consumer products industry has become increasingly opportunistic in adding functions to cameras and phones, for instance, giving many people the feeling that they must be able to watch movies or listen to their record collections on their phones. Carnegie believes we should be questioning that sense of urgency.

“What my project is looking at is to what extent all this new technology is now coming between us as a society, now that the need for a physical presence in the context of communicating with each other is diminishing rapidly.”

The VCom helmet includes a monitor that the wearer views and a screen that the rest of the world sees instead of the wearer’s face. This effectively shuts the user off from the outside world as he or she interacts virtually. The images of themselves that users project onto that screen may or may not be who they really are — an increasingly troublesome aspect of the digitally mediated culture, Carnegie notes.

About the Author: Cynthia G. Wagner is managing editor of THE FUTURIST.

For more information, contact: University of Dundee, Press Office, Dundee DD1 4HN, United Kingdom. Web site www.dundee.ac.uk.