My space, my place

My space, my place

By Markus Zuercher

I am finding reality through virtuality, but it is a long and perhaps never ending journey. Of course this statement does not apply to everyone. Many people construct virtual identities and alter egos in the form of an avatar. Travelling like Doctor Who, not in space but in cyberspace, replacing reality with virtuality, imposing meaning on; and claiming their place in a virtual world (Van Luyn, 2013, pp. 6,7). This is very self-empowering, creating and naming one’s own space, ‘to render the invisible visible’ as Tuan (1991, p. 688) argues.

Constructing a virtual “me”, was only a means to finding and defining my own place and space. To communicate and exchange information on cyber networks, everyone requires some sort of virtual identity. In my discussion forum, the virtual identity is used as protection against real identity theft, cybercrime, spammers etc. The forum is moderated and any sensitive information such as e-mail addresses or the like are removed . 

Every member of this Genealogy forum is part of a large cyber network to help find, research and exchange information relating to personal heritage and place of origin. The further back in time one travels, just like Doctor Who, the harder it is to decipher the information recorded in Church books. Entries are often made in Latin and with very bad handwriting. Some of our forum members are linguists and specialists in reading old script. This is very helpful in decoding documents such as this example of an 1859 Church book page. My Great-Grandfathers marriage is on this page.

Jegenstorf 1859 Marriage Book (CHURCHBOOKS of Kirchgemeinde JEGENSTORF, 2004, pp. 176,177)

  

Reference list

Tuan, Y.-F. (1991). Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 684-696. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1991.tb01715.x

Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, week 5 notes. [PowerPoint slides]   Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au

Picture credit

CHURCHBOOKS of Kirchgemeinde JEGENSTORF. (2004). Worb, Switzerland: Lewis Bunker Rohrbach.

 

Imagination, you and your space!

Imagination, you and your space!

The division of what your brain may be thinking. See where the imagination comes from?

Normally when you talk with your friends you have this language that you use where you and your friends know what you’re talking about, but anyone outside does not. When I first joined Tumblr at the start of the year, I had no clue what I was getting into. This new place to socialise on the internet opened my eyes to not only a wider, open view of the word but new words and phrases.

The idea that ‘pictures speak a thousand words’ is nothing new but a website that is almost entirely made up of pictures seems to speak sometimes more than words to fans. The ability for fans of just about anything to share and discuss just about anything that is happening or going to happen – sometimes even if it’s just fantasy. This week’s lecture on narratives and place Dr van Luyn (2013) opens the idea that place is created by space and that these spaces are filled with the story that we write. This ability to write our own story on social networks like Tumblr, allow us to distort our view on reality and virtually create our own world where anything is possible.

The ability to name things on our blogs including the blogs name also gives us the power over our own little world. I named my blog NoMercyfortheWarrior, after some of my favourite songs by a k-pop band. This page has allowed me to reach full ‘fangirl’ levels. The ability to name a lot of things and evoke the unseen into something that is visible (Tuan, 19691). On Tumblr, this gives us the ability to make it stand and get more followers with the attention grabbing names of our blogs.

Really, the only limitation is that of our imagination. If we do not have the mentality to write new stories of create stories with pictures, which is our failure to keep not only an open-mind but also allow the creative juices to flow. So maybe there is another way to keep our imagination alive and to create not only a space but also a place where our reality and virtuality mix to create something that is essentially us.

References

Tuan, Y. (1991). Introduction: Reading and writing essays, in Twenty-five great essays (pp. 1-30). New York, NY: Penguin Academics.

Van Luyn, A. (2013). Lecture 5: Narrative and place. Our space: networks, narratives, and the making of place. Retrieved from: http://www.learnjcu.edu.au

Image References

Benson, L. (2007). A map of my brain. Retrieved from: www.flickr.com