Rhizome Experiment, Fall 2015

Guattari's theory on Simulation Spaces

French theorist Felix Guattari helps put simulation spaces and their social implications in context. For Guattari, simulation spaces are a place where ethical assemblages are brought into crisis by human behaviors. Guattari explains the importance of human interaction among machinic assemblages, saying "the maintenance of a machinic assemblage's consistency demands that the element of human action and intelligence involved in its composition must also be renewed" (Guattari 41). Because human action occurs in unique ways, fragmentation and resultant creation occurs from every intersection of humans and the simulation space (the machinic assemblage). In Boellstroff, Guattari's theory is seen in old assemblages (social, ethical, moral ideologies) intersecting with a new desire for humans to interact in the Second Life. For example, people are able to care for the family and also be socializing in another country, perhaps at an hour when most people are asleep (Boellstorff). As always, Guattari's theory leaves us with more questions than answers. Broader questions emerge about how technology is going to impact the sanctity of a space that it is introduced to. Existing social norms in that space are put into question. It's important to keep in mind that Guattari's theory is contained within the idea that its not the technology itself that liberates people (not tech determinism). Radical social shifts aren’t ingrained in the technology. Instead, technology provides the conditions for new social behaviors. Rather than controlling or limiting society, the emergence of technology in the simulation space becomes a point of rupture and difference explodes and proliferates across the virtual and real world. However, the old doesn’t simply disappear. Old ideologies and old ways of socializing are still ever-present. They are just twisted and shifted to be given new meaning and are incorporated into our every-day lives in unprecedented ways. Guattari's theory attests to this, as his central notion is asking us to question in ways that we haven’t before, and to misuse tools at our disposal to give ideologies new meaning (Guatarri).

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