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Abstract The text develops the theme of the existence non-existence
in the Web. Our intent, before dealing with our ideas about the binomial
Life-Science, is to begin from a statement made by Paul Virilio, "existing
means to exist in the Web site, hic et nunc" (1). Now, what is this virtual existence everybody talks a
lot about and is worried ? And again, do we exist only virtually or,
becuase of our virtuality we do not exist at all? All these are legitimate questions, and probably analysing
them closer, as it is done systematically by many scholars during these
last years, one would realize that a little bit of truth lies on both
sides, (we wouldn't be so explicit as Virilio is). It is unluckily, most of the times, a dull language, sometimes only for publicity, quite often anxious, flat, so monotonous that the bluish light of the screen is unable to galvanize. We have to face a language "incapable of holding up", and therefore "also the contents don't hold up". All that happens from the commercial sites to those pornos, just to mention two opposite examples, avoiding to speak about the huge amount of sillnesses carried daily by the electronic mail, shameful debasement of a medium which should raise the quality of life and not to decrease. That is, just to come back to our writer Bachmann, the so called "chat-language" (4). Maybe, all that is due to the incapability of the users
to exploit at its maximum level an apparatus which only apparently has
got the aspect of a great democracy everybody can take advantage of,
but in the reality of the current events, they are still forced to a
status of counterproductive passivity. The same can be stated for the
system Web programmers, they are so wholly caught by their own problems
of being visible in Internet, that they take care much more of the images
than of the contents. Hence the necessity of a neutral language, which
does not disturb too much consciences and, aboveall, does not change
the status quo. A standard, harmless language good for multiples uses. A site is similar to a virtual book, a hypertext with
inclusion of images, of course one way is to strip the pages of a book,
another one is to click on the mouse the opening of a html page. The
same difference existing between the reading of typographical lines
and video-written ones. The medium sends out its influences, it is perfectly
able to change us, as the researches made by de Kerkhove (5) have rightly
emphasized. The medium can change us, but we can also ourselves change
the message or the contents of the Web pages. That has been especially
done with the interactive CD-Rom or, also with the downloaded sites,
whose pages can easily be altered by our operative softwares, by our
ideas, by our opinions, by our feeling and re-connected to the Web.
We like to check that the old holiness or better the old privilege of
being untouchable belonged to the written pages, it is no longer true
for the virtual ones. This is, perhaps, the real revolution or the most
considerable aspect from a democratical point of view, as it involves
actively the user and it does not emarginate him inside a circle of
passivity which was clearly evident, before the virtual era, and only
formally mitigated afterwards. It assumes an overwhelming meaning the
fact that a Web page can become a sort of work-in-progress, where really
everybody has the right to formulate their opinion. Bibliographical references: ************************ |