I Swear on my Cognitvely Mapped Honor, on my Network Name

Cognitive mapping is simulacra is art is media is video games is virtual reality? And there I go using the world ‘reality.’ Crap. (That’s one thing that cracked me up about Jameson: he decides to use a connotatively troubled word, ‘representation’ [p348], and even at one point ends a sentence with “… or whatever” (p349). Hilarious. What a rebel. Also, he goes on babbling in jargon and recognizes this in his repeated self-awareness and assures the reader that the ability to understand what he is saying isn’t at all likely because it requires a specific paradigm of knowledge and opinions. Once he finishes what it was he set out to say, he comes up with this gem, “In what has preceded I have infringed so many of the taboos and shibboleths of a faddish post-Marxism that it becomes necessary to discuss them more openly and directly before proceeding.” (p353) and goes on to do presumably just that, but seemingly makes no effort to simplify his language or recapitulate ideas.)

Anyway, Jameson is addressing cognitive mapping as a sort of misrepresentation of reality (if I can allow myself to be free to use such words,) and mentions art. I’m not quite sure what he means by it, but I take it to be to some extent a form of what I know to be artistic license and liberty.

Second Life, if applicable under the heading of cognitive mapping, is certainly a misrepresentation of reality, but posits the idea of alternate reality, one that can be seemingly as complex and intricate and consuming as the normal, original thing we’ve come to consider real reality. Characters can fly. Characters cannot drown.

This brings me to another point. I didn’t catch his name, but the fella who was a Second Life programmer/hacker who spoke in class on Wednesday, when asked about the value of this alternate reality, he responded that he had no idea why people bought his code, but that he did not question it. While I’m sure that he has questioned it, it’s a bizarre phenomenon that technology and new media can trick people into generating material, content, and product for which corporations can earn money. While he made money through Second Life, youtube users, no matter how many views they’ve got, don’t necessarily make any money. For video games in which knowledgeable, creative users can create ‘hacks,’ extensions, extra levels, etc. there is often times no monetary gain involved. Reputation is re-emerging in societal and cultural importance within the context of the internet. Being known for making the most entertaining levels, a user can earn honor and be recognized, which is in and of itself incentive to do these otherwise potentially thankless things. Sounds pretty retro to me. (Like family name and honor. Speaking of which, why the heck does Second Life impose a finite, pre-determined last name?! Maybe this too fits in with the idea of collective identity, reputation, and honor.)