SF gives the analogy, talking about dreams, of the facade of a Baroque church in Rome which includes stones taken from the ruins of Classical temples. He said 'There is no time in the unconscious' everything is simultaneously active and causality can act in 'reverse time'. One of the concepts in psychoanalysis that I've found most interesting is the concept of 'psychical space'. I think the concept has a lot to offer, both at the level of politics and of theory, in terms of issues of Diaspora, nationalism, racism and so on. I'm interested in the ways our relations to others, to 'the other', are played out in this space. It's a virtual environment, a virtual space, and I see the space of the computer screen - wafer thin and infinitely deep - as an analogue of that psychical space.(VB)

For example, I would have complained that while the phonograph was reproducing sounds, it was unable to represent the sound, say, of the fall of the Roman Empire. It can't record an eloquent silence, or the sound of rumours. In fact, as far as voices go, it is helpless to represent the voice of conscience. Can it record the voice of the blood? Or all those splendid sayings that are attributed to great men (sic)? It's helpless before the swan song, before unspoken innuendoes; can it record the song of the Milky Way? No? Ah, I go too far. In any case, I see clearly that to satisfy my peers I must invent a machine that replies before one has even addressed it or which, if the experiment says to it, "Good morning, how are you?" will answer "thank you, just fine, and yourself?". Or, if someone in the audience sneezes, it will cry out, "Gesundheit!".(AR)

- the range of computer software and increasing functions of this technology; what can and is to be encoded.

- the production of the 'virtual' and its representative effects.

comments cam@camwork.demon.co.uk