EYE SEE

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Written words are seen and not (aurally) heard: vision rules the sensual field of reading and writing. This is especially true of on-line typography, which often incorporates graphics, animation and color into the copy. Though I acknowledge how my ears, arms, fingers, spine and tongue all collaborate in this communication mode (physically and/or psychically), I am most aware of my informant eyes. Without a determined cognizance of these non-visual inputs, I almost completely forget their contribution to the writing process.
According to Walter Ong, vision is the most highly regarded sense in Western literary cultures and is often used as a metaphor for knowledge (see “Visual Analogues for Knowledge and Understanding”). In his essay, “’I See What You Say’: Sense Analogues for Intellect,” Ong examines how this seeing/knowing parallel disregards our full capacity for understanding:

Sight or vision is a limited analogue for intelligence for one reason that can be readily discovered: our sight or vision presents us optimally with surfaces. Basically this is so because vision is geared to diffusely reflected light… Because sight is thus keyed to surfaces, when knowledge is likened to sight it becomes pretty exclusively a matter of explanation or explication, a laying out on a surface, perhaps in chartlike form, or an unfolding, to present maximum exteriority. (Ong, Interfaces of the Word, (Cornell University: 1977)

Ong refers to seeing a page in his book as an optical example of “diffuse reflection:” light from my kitchen window bounces off the print into my eyes and I register the yellowed paper, the black letters, the underscoring of important passages in blue ballpoint pen. Opposite these optics, he states, the “specular reflection” of a mirror registers enigmatically, as “visually deceptive: requiring correction. ” When I peer at a mirror, I look into it. I do not rest my gaze on the glass but on the subjects seemingly beyond the surface. In comparison, when I navigate the desktop of my computer I do not see the surface glass or the reflection, I see the arrangement of my icons, my desktop background photo, the time and status of my wireless Internet connection. Furthermore, when I log onto the Net, I “go” to “spaces” and “enter sites.” I experience neither “diffuse” nor “specular reflection” but instead a type of specular absorption in the light emanating from my screen.
Ong writes, “The addiction to visualism which marks our technological culture has a history. ” The “diffuse reflection” of traditional media technologies, such as writing and print, have always appealed to our eyes. Still, they do not dazzle us in the same way new media does. Given the “specular absorption” induced by the luminescence of the screen and the window-like design of my operating system, I am continuously drawn in to the hyper reality of my digital experience. I notice my assimilation most within the virtual illusionistic space of on-line worlds, such as Second Life (secondife.com).
In Second Life, the eye informs and directs action that would be impossible in off-line reality. If I want to visit that exotic island I spy rezzing in the middle of the computer-generated sea, I can do so instantly without bothering to consider the mechanics of maneuvering my physical body. Point is: whatever I see, I can approach and explore. The Second Life logo refers to both hand and eye, but it is the eye that ultimately navigates. Though I use the agency of my hands to execute the desires informed by my vision, tactility merely backgrounds my visionary experience. Later*, I examine how this affects on-line relationships.

* By “later” I am assuming you will not skip ahead. (See “Text and Temporality”).