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AsherNet

Feb
7
2010
AsherNet By Asher | No comments yet

Constructs

The Art of Building

A construct is a constructed space. For example, any building is a construct.

Buildings are built on certain dimensions, defined by a certain architecture, and consist of certain rules, which are the basic mathematics of their existence.

Some constructs are merely physical places. Others are any combination of physical, temporal, virtual, intellectual, emotional, volitional, social, personal, consensual, mythic, literary, and artistic places.

The Tavern, for instance, is obviously a virtual space, since it exists here on the web. It is also a social space, since it exists in certain social interactions, some of which are virtual and some of which are not. Written in a story or painting, it might also be an artistic space, involving an interaction between artist, art, and audience. It might, at the same time, if an actual building were purchased for it (e.g. The Office), be a physical space. It is, however, already physical in that you can find it physically on the web, or see it in physical interactions, or find it in physical art, or find it contained within a person.

A construct is a consensual reality, requiring one or more persons to create or identify it. Constructs, then, are necessarily personal.

Constructs are given reality by their builders; they are created by the decision to build and treat them as real. They have the same kinds of impact upon persons as any other reality. They affect the mind, will, emotions, and body, just as the local coffee shop might. Constructs, then, are the intersection of what is commonly called reality and what is usually called perception. Again, they have the same kinds of effects (and usually some additional ones) on a person as anything else they take as real.

Feb
7
2004
AsherNet By Asher | No comments yet

An Online Story

In a previous version of AsherNet, I answered the question, “What the Hell is this?”

This is an online story, an endlessly developing one. It is also an interactive story, one involving a community as well as a personality. In some ways this is close to the tradition of the online journal (see links). It can also be likened to a kind of open-air expressionism. The ‘notes’ for this story, in all their various forms… poems, tales, letters, jottings, virtual books, rooms, doors, corridors, icons, colors, fonts, layout, structure, reveal the plot, the setting, the theme, and the characters – including the protagonist. You’ve heard it said that the medium is the message. The form of speech communicates as much as speech per se. Every aspect of this multiverse of personality is a contribution to the story. The reactions to these notes, as they take shape, have ranged from praise to ridicule to bewilderment. These reactions too, are sometimes part of the story.

Feb
7
2003
AsherNet By Asher | No comments yet

What the Hell is This

The AsherNet, besides being obviously structures for expression, information, interaction, is also a collection of stories. The Arena is, in part, a story as well as a construct or metaphor. The Haunt is a story, as well as a homely house. And the Office is a story, though a more private one. There are other stories at the AsherNet, and even other people telling stories.

I’ve been asked to justify all this, to explain why the site should be of interest, or how it fits conventional notions of what a web site should be. I can only respond that nowhere did I ever claim that the AsherNet is what these questions presume it to be. In fact, most of the responses I’ve received have indicated that the depth (by which I mean, the layers of meaning and activity) and character of the construct (I do not refer to it as merely a “site” of which there are many) are too discreet to be readily perceived. Some symbols are part of a language that only a few who are “in the loop”, so to speak, may easily read. When I have replied that this is so, just as when I originally spoke aloud about alienation, the critics have become detractors even more disenchanted with the so-called “obscure” or “meaninglness” symbology. So be it.

Again, I never offered to explain or to justify what I’m doing. I never invited anyone to understand. And those who do, who speak the same language, those residents of the Haunt, the Arena, the Office, the OverState, and the other places, are more than a sufficient community; they are those to whom I need offer no explanation or justification.