Prison of Infinite Space

Re-creation of multimedia installation on CD-Rom, 640×480
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 1996

An exploration of cognitive mapping in cyberspace. Combining images of containers and connectors, one must find their way through, back to the exit, if you can. Journeys within the internet are a series of bounded ‘non-spaces’ and invisible passages ‘hyperlinks’ which instill a predominantly segmented spatial cognition, where it is impossible to construct a cognitive route-map. Thus we find ourselves lost in a matrix of cages dispersed within a labyrinthine prison. Without an elemental exit, we are cognitively trapped.

Essay: “Passages of the Cyber-Flanuer” © By Gaylene Barnes, Otago University, 1997.