Within the last days there have been quite a few very interesting and valuable discussions going on … all regarding ethnology, the actual purpose of this blog. Although I won’t make a great fuss out of it, I just would like to let you know and welcome you to join. So here is No. 1:
„At the city of Munich’s southern fringe, bordering to the rich people’s pseudo-gated-community Grünwald, there is a quite remarkable location to be found right at the river Isar’s shore. In between the forest’s majestic trees there is a literal chaos of ramps, ridges, holes, rootwork, and hillocks. There you can see youngsters (…) speeding and jumping havoc on mountain-, downhill-, and BMX-bikes.„
My dear friend and colleague Zephyin_Xirdal [1], somehow I could understand him as one of my mentors as well, at least my source of critical long- discussed ethnological and everyday-life resemblance for some time now (as you can see I cannot describe him right), found out that there is a close connection to „Meatspace hardcore bike-tricking (…) with practices stemming from computer- and online-culture„. As part of his research he soon came up with a theory on how to sort this example into the whole object of cyberculture and cyberpunk.
He argues (in my own words):
„that bikers at the Bombenkrater use computer-based images and ideas to transform the way of use of the environment and of technology vice-versa use the environment and their doings-with-it to fit into the computer-based representation. In each case definitely a kind of appropriation, either way. The difference between ‚real‘ and ‚virtual‘ actually is not that much of a difference but ‚aspects of the same Lebenswelten‘. Because of this type of appropriation we can call the crystallising lifestyle … cyberculture.„
I figured, because I wanted to draw his example on a higher level of ethnological theory, that
„On a higher level this lifestyle, the manifestations of cyberculture, could then be a conscious othering in the real world to escape from a homogenised global world, but on the other hand a conscious assimilation into the homogenised virtual world to bridge heterogeneous barriers.„
Well now, as I said, I do not want get into a serious discussion on my own blog. To read my own and others thoughts on the topic, just go to the Bombenkrater [2]at Zeph’s place [3]. He told me today, he has about one page and more of an answer to all my questions… personally, I am desperate.
