Dave McCall, MA Digital Cinema, Bradford Media School
The public space is a mass of cellspace activity. Numerous technologies are functioning in sync from bluetooth mobile devices and laptops to CCTV cameras and led screens. A virtual bombardment of the senses is in progress. These experiences bring our physical understanding of space to a whole new level. The internet is virtually accessible on any hand held device and our own physical perceptions are dominated by media saturated advertising and television screens.
These occurrences bring the physical ‘real’ world experience into question. The ever increasing cellspace technology at our disposal interrupts the nature of the real and pushes it towards the virtual or ‘unreal’ world. Realism, which has generally been associated with television and film now spreads to the pubic space. We now live our public lives on camera and our surroundings are now influenced by the virtual. The virtual is the screen and when we interact with the screen our physical awareness and realist behavior becomes questionable.