ABSTRACT
The dominant metaphor of cyberspace is the matrix, the web, the net, the lattice and the field. It is a metaphor that includes the distribution of virtual matrices—the bifurcating and diverging of lines and links between points in time and space that define the internet. The periphery now denotes either the space between virtual and actual worlds or those left-over interstitial spaces between the nodes of the matrix, spaces pushed through the Net or left out of the Grid on which we focus. Elaborating on the analogy described in CyberCities: Visual Perception in the Age of Electronic Communication between the virtual space of the computer matrix and the material space of physical cities, this chapter will continue to explore the concatenated term of “CyberCities”—moving back and forth with the matrix between virtual and actual reality. CyberCities explores the relationship between the imaginary real space which users of computer-mediated information explore and the spatial and temporal experiences of city users. It asks how technological devices such as the computer and its representational metaphors such as the matrix alter perception and direct the formation of knowledge. The analogy between the computer matrix and the city relies on how users organize space, how they lay down routes by which to navigate this space, and build cognitive maps or models in their minds. There are differences to be stressed, however, for cyberspace has no way of treating boundaries, no way to enable users to cross over the threshold separating virtual from actual reality. This problem exists with any mathematicization of space and time, or the assumption that mathematics can model reality, for it always reduces to the formal applicability of these conceptual tools to model real space and time. 1
