Geography Paradise Lost

Video & Videogame, 2018

#Digital Map
#Virtuel Net? Real Net?
#Numbness as a defensive reaction

Today, along with the development of information technology, navigation technology is part of our daily life, the boundary between its reality and virtuality has become increasingly blurred. According to media sci- entist Marshall McLuhan, any invention or technology is an extension or self-cutting of the human body, and due to the self-regulating function of the human nervous system, the penetration of digital map causes dis- placement and numbness in our perceptions. A high-resolution, accurate description of the world will make us more willing to believe that this is a accurate description of the object. In other words, we are obsessed with the medium we useband like Narcissus enter this closed system.

On the interface of the navigation software, the user’s position is at the center and the world “turns” around us. The digital map also allows us to be in two spaces at the same time. For example, you can share the location of a restaurant with friends. Virtuality is a desire, the po- tential of human creation, and virtuality is also cultural cognition, that is, material is also permeated by information patterns. Not only are users using new media, new media also changing users.

Imagine you are in a dark forest, there is no signal, you can not send location to your friends, then you no longer exist in the context of this contemporary medium. In an era when everyone uses navigation technology, without navigation, we lack a sense of security, or we numbly follow the navigation and drive the car into the ditch. All these are manifestations of the continuous penetration of virtual media in our way of thinking.