Abstract
This essay is an investigation into the social construction of agents and agency, linked directly to a cross-cultural predilection toward accumulation, categorization and data distribution in the interest, whether latent or manifest, of community formation. It is presented as a mediation on mediation, emerging out of ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration1 oriented around creative design of multiple interfaces into distributed information spaces, accessed through utilization of an agent technology called the “Information personae.” As such it is tenuously positioned at the nexus of art, computer science, engineering and cultural studies, sitting comfortably at home in none.
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The title of this research initiative is Online Public Spaces: Multidisciplinary Explorations in Multiuser Environments (OPS: MEME). It has been generously funded through UC Santa Barbara's Office of Research. Led by Victoria Vesna and Robert Nideffer, OPS:MEME is composed of an interdisciplinary group of faculty and researchers from such diverse fields as computer science and engineering, art studio, history of art and architecture and sociology, who began working together in the Autumn of 1997 to design a foundation for the creation of online communities engineered around content.