Time and the Internet: an uncharacteristically personal post

Well, call me the comeback-kid, I've finally returned to this blog.

If I was raised in a Christian home, one might call the fact that I'm about to post this on Easter Sunday somewhat ironic. Perhaps it is anyway?...

I just did something I haven't done in ages: I googled my father. My father died when I was in college, but we were very close and most of what I have done since then in some way reflects the many lessons I learned from him before and during the experience of his passing.

But here's the funny thing about the internet! It's like he's still alive. There are lots of hits of his work (he was very active in local government, was a professor and writer, and also one of the first labor union negotiators). There are even more hits now than there were the last time I googled him, which was perhaps a year ago.

I'm reminded of a short story by English author Will Self, which can be found in his book "The Quanitity Theory of Insanity," though the exact name of the story escapes me at this moment. The protagonist is walking down the street and sees his dead mother. He follows her and is astounded to discover that she is living a totally new existence in a different neighborhood.

At any rate, among other things, a letter to the editor he wrote to TIME magazine appeared in my search. I could literally hear his voice as I read it. I never even knew he wrote it! Several of his articles, many written in conjunction with his colleagues, are now available via JSTOR. Some of his books are available on amazon.com. Is this for real??

The growth of the internet has somehow managed to merge the past and the present in a very strange way. As more articles become available, as more cites are developed, as more information joins the free and constant circulation of this virtual world, time as a linear continuum becomes obsolete.

We've talked about this a bit in class, but I must admit that until this moment the subject has seemed quite abstract and detached from my existence.

Now I wonder if in our I2 presentations, it might be possible to manipulate the experience of time in the same way we are experimenting with space. The subject of latency comes to mind-here of course we experience time in the delay, which is in itself a different way of considering time.

I also think about the upcoming concert-we've talked a lot about the experience for the audience-entering into a new world as they enter the theatre, using disorientation of the audience in order to re-orient them to the experience of our production. I wonder how the experience of time and the passage of time factors into this equation. We've all had the experience of attending a concert or movie and emerging, feeling strange as we re-adjust to reality, wondering what the time is as we blink uncomfortably in the sunshine, right? Is there a way to simulate this experience of adjustment before the production? Is that too jarring? Do we risk alienating the audience with such an exercise?

One thing is certain, it's *time* I started posting here again, so I'll welcome my*self* back. There's Dad again-we punsters always stuck together.