The Solidity of Space: Tensions between control and emancipation within interactive media

Abstract

The emancipatory potential of interactive media is often heralded. This thesis offers a critical interrogation of such “cyber-optimism”. It considers the extent to which interactive media can be read as an architecture of control. Theories of architecture and space are drawn upon as ways of tracing the physical manifestations of power. The virtual is here analysed as an extension of the physical world: both are real and both are decisively shaped by the machinations of capitalism. If interactive media are seen to be architectures of control, what scope is there for human agency? The question grows ever more pertinent as social/ interactive media use is being developed in new and powerful ways. As consumers, citizens, users and even creators, we may not be fully aware of the true power of the technologies that we use. No attempt is made to legislate a definitive “end” to the technology. Instead, the technologies are analysed more broadly. Interactive media can be used both by the powerful; corporations, governments, celebrities – and by the relatively powerless; the rest of us – in ways that perpetuate, create, challenge and change the structures and flows of power. The necessity of doing so is vital. The current system is failing the majority of the planet’s population, and the ecosystems that support us all. Keywords: interactive media; architectures of control; infrastructures; virtual; digital; media; space; democracy; inequality; access; emancipation; status quo.