Abstract - The Information Society 18(4)

The Cyber Space-Time Continuum: Meaning And Metaphor

Adrian Mihalache

Various spatial metaphors related to cyberspace suffer from two major deficiencies. First, they do not take into account that cyberspace is not a pre-existent territory, but an entity that emerges in the process of its development. Second, cyberspace is not a metric space, so that most of the ready-made constructs, like the topologic spaces, cannot be of much use. An interpretation of the artist William Blake's works helps one to understand that cyberspace is not a purely spatial entity, it also involves time, but not in the sense of Einstein's special relativity theory. The cyber space-time continuum is not a void waiting to be filled, but an aggregation of places (sites) which, similarly to Blake's plates, are multimedia architectures resulting from the blend of space and time.

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