It is true that computer science has a very limited set of choices and is in a phase where it has to abide by the dictates of market. Not yet it has seen its creative artist who can detect new avenues of expression and take us towards new worlds of experience. Now a computer programmer has to employ his skill towards the achievement of a goal that is quite pragmatic in nature. The basic idea of all computer programming and web designing is that how to make things useful and how to provide information about a certain product or entity to the end user.
We switch from one page to another by doing a simple act and the one who has programmed that for us knew certain realities and facts about our demand. That is why the first age of web designing is the age of pragmatic attitude in which the basic idea is of utility and usefulness. Till now computer language, being limited, knows only how to develop a page on which everything, which a user can demand to satisfy a certain want can be provided. This kind of programming presumes a certain specific kind of user who has a certain purpose in his mind and who has certain definite goals to achieve. The first age of web designing is for those end users who are using internet for a certain purpose say for accessing a certain class of data; yet still the creative artists along with his own creative goals has not entered this field.
However the persistent use of computers and Internet and web surfing have changed the psyche of user and now there is a different class of users emerging out of the previous class. These people have the experience that IT technology has not provided sufficient results and is not yet capable of delivering promised success. That IT is a part of an effort towards practical goals and it is not something independent of the economic demand and supply law; it is not an artistic activity. The experience provided by the Internet is not a full experience and it is still lacking dimension of physical interaction. That the world of Internet is not yet completed and it is still a half world that has its complement in the physical world.
Why we should use the word virtual experience for the experience that we have on Internet? Why we don’t call it a real experience? The reason is we want to communicate with our body and that we cannot do on Internet. We cannot communicate physically on Internet that’s why we call this experience virtual .An experience that is not full and inferior to the real experience. Now the question is whether it is possible to experience something that is as real as the real world on Internet, something that we can call real and not virtual? Yes, the answer to the above question is yes, but it requires a serious effort in a new direction. We should have to decipher the meaning and reality of what we experience on the Internet and we should analyze our experience in this new region.
We can only pursue the goals of market and set traditions. There is no freedom in the world of Internet and it is still in its infancy and hence unable to communicate artistically. No one has yet experienced beyond the limits of market goals. What we are aiming at is a comprehensive experience that might be considered as a full and heightened experience .Is it possible for us to do that? Can we experience something on Internet that can be called a higher realization?
What we experience on the net is devoid of physical presence; we can have relations, in fact, long lasting relations that are not capable of becoming real. Is it not an enough reason for creating pessimism in us that the object we are looking at or the person we are communicating with is not in our reach and that the final goal is to reach at the object physically? And obviously this tells us that Internet cannot fully satisfy us and we have to complement our experience through adding a physical non web based dimension to it.
In order to experience something intense, satisfying and heightened on Internet we should know what does it mean to have an intense experience and who can have such an experience. We have to decide one more thing; whether we have to view this problem from the perspective of a web user or from that of designer? For if we view it from the perspective of user then we will not be able to know its proper meaning, because each and every user has his own peculiar choices and his own way to satisfy himself and to experience his reality.
This problem should be viewed from the perspective of the creator. And let us partially answer this question that only those who have the potential and ability to create can experience the real on Internet. Internet is a medium on which we can create something longer lasting and beautiful, something that is complete and final that does not need a complement in the external world, and we can overcome the dichotomy of virtual and real on internet.
This is not romanticism, but it is a kind of thinking that enables us to have a great addition in our artistic efforts. Let us now consider the problem of creator and let us first consider the way a programmer acts and works in present day situation. A programmer is bound to follow his client and the needs of user who are view the web page created by him to fulfill certain ends. This web designer is not yet free and doesn’t think freely that’s why he cannot be considered as a creative artist.
Moreover the language known to this programmer is the language of utility. The way of thinking that looms under this type of creation is pragmatic and always directed towards certain practical goal. Nowhere the freedom, with which an artist creates, betrays its presence in these web sites.
The way of thinking is of significant importance .A web designer thinks while focusing the experience of user, what a user may have in mind when he opens a site and what he wants to see and look at. This creator is always bound to present his product the way he asked to do by the entrepreneur and the way the end user would like to have it. The creator is completely missing in this process, for he works and creates not according to his own free will but according to the will of his beneficiaries.
This bondage is a hindrance in artistic creation. The one who doesn’t create with freedom cannot be considered as an artist. To be an artist freedom is necessary which is completely missing in this case. This pragmatic attitude has restricted the way an artist communicates through this medium. In fact, it has reduced the possibilities of his thought process.
What is the basic stuff of creation? Creation is an experience and like all other human experiences it has a certain configuration.
Let us consider what Heidegger has said about human experience. According to Heidegger all human experience can be understood in three basic and inseparable from each other categories. All human experience can be finally reduced in to these three generalized categories. These categories are,
BEFUNLECHKEIT (MOOD),
VERSTEHEN (UNDERSTANDING),
REDE (LANGUAGE).
Whatever we experience we experience in a certain mood with a certain understanding and a thought expressing itself in language. In fact these three components, the mood with which we confront our own situation, the process of thinking that clarifies our future possibilities to us and hence gives us an understanding regarding our future in a given situation and the language utilized to communicate this understanding to us, can never be separated from each other.
Heidegger defines man as Dasein. Whereas Dasein stands for “being there”. Man, according to Heidegger is a being that essentially is a “being- in -the world”. Now Heidegger takes his analysis a step ahead and says that the term being- in- the world can be further analyzed. The basic structure of being in the world comprises the person who is in the world, the world itself and the way or manner in which that person is in the world. Let us consider these three components of being -in-the world, one by one.
THE WORLD
The world as found by the person who is in the world is not constitutive of things and places, rather it’s a world of ones own care and concern. In this world all things and objects can be arranged in a hierarchy of significance, i.e., in an order in which these things are important for the person. These objects and places are nothing neutral but to be conceived as aspects of person. Objects are utensils because the person as directed towards the achievement of some goal always understands these objects as tools at hand, ready to serve a purpose. A hammer does not have an objective meaning but it’s meaning depends on the situation in which a person has confronted it. A tree means some thing different for a botanist and for a person who has reared a tree in his backyard has a different notion of this tree. Hence things do not have absolute meanings. Places can also be described in the similar fashion. The world represented by the globe is nothing but an object in a person’s world of concern and care.
BEING-IN
Heidegger analyses the being-in of a person, that is, the way a person is in this world. Heidegger says that man is a thrown project who does not know any thing about his “where from” and “where to”. The only thing a person knows is the way he “is” in a given situation. The person confronts his own situation and the objects in a given situation and this situation discloses it self to him in certain mood. Heidegger termed this way as Befundlichkeit and characterizes it as the mood with which a person encounters his situation. In a given situation a person realizes about his future possibilities. This future is revealed to him through his understanding. A person, in a certain given situation, realizes that what will become of him in his future. Hence the first dimension of time a person encounters is the future. A person travels in to his future possibilities and then he comes back to his situation. This coming back indicates that the second dimension of time is pasta Peron comes across his past and this past is not the historical past but it should be considered as the existential past of the person. Now this man makes a resolve and acts and his act joins him to his present. This structure of time is termed as temporality by Heidegger.
HISTORY
History too has an existential significance. The common past that a man shares with others is an object of his concern that may have more or less significance for him. Existential history is the history of the person; it is the way he experienced his life. Existential history means the history of a certain project. Heidegger considers world as a project for the person who is in this world and from whose perspective this world we are looking at, has projects to accomplish. In all situation man has intentions and all consciousness is intentional. Heidegger describes person’s relation ship with others. He says that man in certain aspects is a being like others and shares social values and other aspects of social life. But the reality of a person is personal to him and he cannot share that reality with others. In the similar fashion,a person cannot share his past his history with others because this past and this history is some thing special to him and different from any other persons history.
THE REALITY OF PERSON
Heidegger, like Soren Kierkegaard, believes that a person's reality is his subjectivity. Soren Kierkegaard maintained that the truth of individual is subjectivity. Hegel who was the most influential thinker of Kierkegaard's time described truth of an entity as the complete agreement of that thing with its notion. A soldier is a true soldier if his existence is in complete agreement with the notion of a soldier. Hegel considered this notion as a universal idea. Following his definition of truth Hegel proceeds to describe the reality of individual. A person’s reality lies in the complete agreement of his existence with the universal notion of a person. This notion according to Hegel has nothing to do with subjectivity and it is completely objective. Hegel wants an individual to surrender his differences and consequently, his individuality to become a mimic of a universal ideal and this universal ideal is a law abiding, conventional person who lives a life that is in complete accord with the social norms and the dictates of state. Hegel idealized the Prussian state and his notion that history had reached its end was actually an attempt to glorify the Prussian State.
In contradistinction to Hegel Kierkegaard maintains that an individual’s reality lies in his subjectivity, i.e., the extent to which an individual is different from others. He says that an individual is different from others and his salvation and truth both depend on his acceptance of this difference. This difference manifests itself to an individual when he confronts the possibility of his death. Death, according to Heidegger is a phenomenon that tells a man the the utmost potential of his existence. No one can share his death with others.
AUTHENTIC AND INAUTHENTIC EXISTENCE
A person confronts the possibility of his own death as some thing very private. The mood with which this understanding comes to a man is of DREAD. It is dread that discloses persons ut-most potential to him. As dread is some thing hard to bear , therefore people escape from this mood; this escape takes them to the general class of people and they identify themselves as one like many. This identification of a person with one like many devoid him of his individuality and his own reality. Thus, an individual after losing his reality goes to a very lower wretched state where he does not have the true realization of his own possibilities. In this state of fallenness a person becomes inauthentic and he exists in-authentically in the world. The authentic being is the one who never escapes his reality and lives with the realization of his possibilities.
Heidegger differentiates between the two above-mentioned modes of existence. The difference is made on the basis of the way these two modes encounter their own situation. Since the inauthentic person has escaped his potential, therefore he cannot have a true understanding neither of his project in this world nor of his future. That’s why his understanding becomes ambiguous and his language becomes a mere chatter that has no significant meaning and direction. He always feels anxiety because he has forsaken his own reality, and such a person always tries to escape this anxiety , to enhance his inauthenticity and to lessen his clarity of understanding. The mood that usually regulates this person is of ambiguity.
On the other hand an authentic person has a true realization of his projects and his future possibilities .His understanding reveals truth and his language creates meaning and discovers the meaning of being for him. In this way authentic person's language becomes a means of creation. It discloses Being and creates new meaning. Heidegger has a very significant contribution to human psychology and his analysis of human existence has produced many significant results especially he successfully revealed many human states and moods and categories that were previously not known.
MARXIST PERSPECTIVE
Those who are working in this field are no exceptions and are facing the same contradictions that are entailed by the structure and limitations of a capitalist economy. Here, as anywhere else, the idea of a divided labor is playing its part. A programmer follows the dictates of market and the fallacious attitude lies not in the psyche of creator but in the requirements of the market itself. It is the market that tends to generate products that are demanded by the consumer. However this relationship reverses at times and market forces start shaping the needs of consumer. By divided labor we mean that the people who decide what to produce are different and the people who actually produce are different and those who send this product to the market are different. Now as far as market is concerned this perhaps is a necessity and it can not be stopped. Divided labor is necessary for production at a bulk level and to compete in a modern market, but it is not a supportive fact if we want to have a creative ideal to sustain. For creation requires solitude, as Nietzsche has said and this solitude is not ensured in the market environment. In market place one has to follow the necessities entailed by the competition.
The creative process is hindered by a lack of freedom to choose. However, since the creation never bears the name of creator and a creator knows it, the labor knows that his product will become something alien to him and he is doing the job to satisfy some one else's but not his own mind, therefore, he never thinks freely. That is why he does whatever is required by the person who has hired his capabilities. He works for the satisfaction for a common taste and commonality or banal taste is not authentic.
The categories used by Heidegger and Marx are not so disjoint and can be considered as same and pointing to a similar set of realities. Das mann or common man who is characterized by Heidegger as a class of people, the large number of people who live a life of anxiety,for they have escaped their reality and then can no more live a life of authenticity in which they have a true realization of their goals and projects and their own situation. Heidegger suggests an individualistic solution to these problems and exhorts individual to realize his truth. On the other hand Marx characterizes this kind of situation with the feeling of alienation. A laborer who becomes a part of divided labor is alienated from his essence that is labor. That’s why, proletariat needs revolution and change. This is similar to the anxiety of inauthentic being who feels anxiety because his reality calls for him.
That’s why the laborer who works for a certain organization in which his work is never attributed to him, but to the organization it self, always feels anxiety. Now it is this anxiety that finally alienates him from the main stream and asks him to gain freedom to create some thing of his own. Hence this dialectics finally brings a certain unidentified change in the market about which no knows any thing beforehand. There will be a class of people who will become so individualistic that they will not work for any organization and will live according to their own free will. People who will be capable of doing anything through their skills, for IT is such a field in which even an individual can become stronger than an institution.
IT industry will see its revolution and this revolution will be brought about by those who will decide to act according to an individualistic resolve. That’s why these possibilities should be addressed both at intellectual and practical levels. Now a days hacking phenomenon is growing and it represents the best case scenario for the above mentioned situation. Hackers are those IT people who don’t get enough reward or who are simply outcast or ignored by the market forces. Specially the third world IT experts who don’t get enough rewards for their efforts are more liable to fall victim to this situation. Moreover, the absence of laws and law enforcement is a reason for the rapid growth of this phenomenon.
The alienation caused by the structure of capitalist economy can easily be translated in to a big nasty revolution .And this is a very serious problem. These revolution can be of more significance than the revolutions brought by Soviet Union in the nineteenth century. Hence creativity and creative expression should be given a positive form as soon as possible. For right now market determinism is very strong and market forces are relying on a set pattern and convention which does not allow creative efforts.
Freud, gave the idea that all artistic creation is a result of repression and is a part of sublimation process. Now this sublimation process can acquire any form .The repressed part of human psyche can express it self in any form even in ambiguity .The need is that it should not express itself in terrorism. Terrorism arises when communication breaks and dialogue ends. When an individual or a class of people feels that they can no more communicate with the powerful. That is why the first measure that we can take is this that we should make acceptable many forms of expression that are not acceptable for market forces now. The set trend should be accompanied by unconventional ways. Till now we have only one way of thinking and expression that is acceptable to us.