Assignment #2: Navigable Space

In Manovich’s Navigable Space, he postulates that the new form of navigating through space is motion simulation. Since the 1990’s, video games are a dominant force in 3-D motion simulation. At their creation they held no narrative direction thus giving them no purpose or potential progress for the users experience. Over time and through an adaptation to users needs, video games began to create worlds where progress could be made according to checkpoints, achievements, rewards, and even simply leisure. The only issue facing how the users navigated the space in these games was the parameters of the world in which they played. In essence, video games have opened up endless worlds where true virtual space has been created and revolutionized the way we, as people, navigate space. People are progressively moving to understand virtual space as an alternative to reality with the same type of control over their navigation.
In reality we have total control over how we navigate space at any point in time. In contrast, Manovich proposes that the newest forms of video games are representations of the earth, so what’s to say it’s any different to navigate the virtual representation of our earth versus doing so in reality? This illuminates a key difference over the control for navigating space. In virtual space, the parameters gauging how we navigate through the space is a result of the program. However, we as people are limited in our navigation ability. For example, the program Second Life is an endless virtual world based on the earth’s architectural form. A user doesn’t have to move about space in reality but can move throughout a similar virtual world with less restriction. The user can make themselves walk, run, and even fly throughout the virtual space. Furthermore, the user has more control over how they navigate space in the virtual world compared to reality. This poses a vital difference in our relation to space, both virtual and real. So, since humans have the ability to accomplish the same type of navigation with less restriction in virtual space then this can lead to a form of an alternative reality.
A program such as Second Life seriously complicates how we relate to space. More specifically, the space in Second Life dulls the distinction between the two types of space, namely virtual and real. The human-computer interface where we perceive the ability to navigate virtual space is the link between our reality and the virtual space itself. Although the user doesn’t move at all during this bond, the mind believes that it’s navigating itself through space because the human-computer interface presents it that way. The HCI controls our ability to navigate virtual space, so there’s no distinction whether or not the program or human is really in control.
Manovich goes on to uses examples such as architectural software as virtual space to exemplify how humans are slowly navigating two types of space without distinction. Before architects build any structure, they create a virtual rendition so that they understand what it would be like to navigate the space inside before it’s built. Therefore, although there is the ability to navigate with less restriction in virtual space, it still clearly presents the argument that people are understanding virtual space as an alternative to navigating real space.

Agent Smith: "Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its beauty, it's genius? Billions of people just living their lives, oblivious. Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world. Where non suffered. Where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world would dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you it really become our civilization which is of course what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution, like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time."

In the Wachowski Brothers film, The Matrix, Agent Smith, a program designed to hunt free humans inside the Matrix, explains how the confinements of the Matrix to the human race is merely an evolutionary stage. During the scene, the enigmatic Agent Smith tells Morpheus how the control over civilizations created the reasoning behind the matrix; control. However, Agent Smith uses the term "we" to refer to those who control the fate of the human civilization. (HER. - 1. structure of control) Does "we" refer to Agent Smith as an individual program, his complete program design, or the machine mainframe. Since the hierarchy of control among the machines is unclear, then do we conclude that the human race must stay within the boundaries of control?

Agent Smith explains how the first Matrix was designed to represent a human utopia. (HER. - 2. utopian matrix) Does this infer that a perfect human society can never be created even if it's a virtual reality where typical protocol can be rearranged? Or, did the human mind comprehend that a utopian society can't exist in reality so it rejected the possible reality and reset? In any case, Smith implies that the human mind couldn't comprehend the utopian society and began shutting down. (ACT. end of civilization) Does this mean that our civilization today is a reflection in the Matrix, but we're leading to our own demise through the creation of cerebral machines?
Smith acknowledges that the human mind cannot be controlled under a utopian society, but rather one where suffering and pain were a part of "life" (REF. impossibility of utopian society). The Matrix is a system of control over the human mind, but certain realities give back control to the human mind. Is this to say, referring back to evolution, that the society the machines created for the Matrix is a repeat of history to come? In other words, since human's dominated and created machines that ultimately take control create the matrix as a system to control them, but we have a way of reversing the effect?

Agent Smith encapsulates the entirety of his purpose in the Matrix - Control humanity. However, he refers to it as a form of evolution (SYM. evolution of machines), where the human race once dominanated and now the time of the machines has emerged. He affirms his symbolic reference when he explains to Morpheus that his time has ended, and the future is "our" world (ACT. end of humanity, SEM. machines as first-person). In essence, Agent Smith uses this idea of evolution to engage the rise of the machines. In doing so, the machines must have control over all of humanity to beg a new era, thus we have a conclusion to our first enigma; the machines wage war on the entire human race.