William Gibson explains the locative dimensions of computer art practice in Chapter 13 of Spook Country. The main character Hollis interviews Bobby Chombo, a recluse GPS hacker and programmer who never sleeps in the same square of the GPS grid twice. Gibson explores the effects of the 2D screen that shapes mankind’s perceptions and interactions. Gibson’s novel is not so much a work of fiction, but a mirror to the reality that is unfolding with the virtual space of the Internet. Hyperlinks are the foundation of a unilateral and non hierarchical structure for the Architecture of the Internet, similar to the grid created by GPS technologies.
Bobby Chombo to Hollis:
But when you look at blogs, where you’re most likely to find the real info is in the links. It’s contextual, and not only who the blog’s linked to, but who’s linked to the blog (Gibson, 2007, chap. 13).
We’re all doing VR, every time we look at the screen. We have been for decades now. We just do it. We didn’t need the goggles, the gloves… The locative, though, lots of us are already doing it. But you can’t just do the locative with your nervous system. One day, you will. We’ll have internalized the interface. It’ll have evolved to the point where we forget about it (Gibson, 2007, chap. 13).
Gibson, William. (2007). Spook Country. London: Penguin Group.
