Jonathan Bell at The Morning News describes his postmodern geography of London. Here's a snip:
There are several Londons, a set of different cities rippling out from a central point, layering and overlapping as they go. There are the Londons of the imagination, fictional or cinematic cities, and the towns where people live and work—many interpretations, yet rarely the same place. At times, some districts slip seamlessly into each other, helped by the shifty cartography of the city’s more creative realtors, while other boundaries remain fixed and immutable, hard lines on the map that also show a social divide on the ground. In particular, the 20th- century penchant for razing and rebuilding has redrawn large swaths of the city in the modernist idiom, striking out centuries-old street patterns in places, while abutting classic terraces in others. Old and new, large and small, rich and poor still sit cheek-by-jowl, in a relationship that isn’t always harmonious. In London, you can make your own city, choosing which overlaps suit and which do not, imposing your own boundaries and no-go areas, your own favored vistas, routes, and neighborhoods. Perhaps this is the same for any city; yet, although, the modern metropolis is typically characterized by its relentless pace—be it Asian, American, African, or European—London’s constant shifting isn’t especially comparable to an all-hours construction site, spotlit in the tropical night, or to the bobbing masses, compressed into abstraction by a telephoto viewpoint. It’s not even symbolized by sprawling street markets—although it has a few—or the rigid grandeur of historical sites. No, London is about zones and spaces, perceptions and projections, places, not people.
Virtual pets and other simulations always seemed, to me at least, to occupy a space somewhere between "real" situations and novels. You can lose yourself in them, briefly at least, but eventually the boundary conditions start to show: Eliza keeps repeating, "Tell me more..." or the Sims person you created walks into a corner and can't get out. Which isn't really a diss on the simulation--if it seems real even temporarily, it's interesting. But, like following a character or story in a novel, there are boundary conditions. Which is both good and bad. That's why, for example, you can (as Spork frequently did to me) fire a grenade at me in Marathon and shout, "Dad! Catch this!")--at this stage in the development at least, virtual pets are somewhat like real pets, but they've had much of the responsibility stripped away, making them amenable to fitting into our schedules and workloads.
Posted by johndanseven at December 2, 2005 04:01 PM