The Burst of the Latent: Politics of mobile connectivity

In virtual reality the body is doomed to immobility, though it is connected to the wonderful world of the screen but it only means a static connectivity, an imprisonment of the physical body behind the screen. The advent of mobile connectivity marked a revolution in communication technology. With the new technologies of smart phones, the image has taken on a new dimension and the space changed from being an enclosed, cocooned space to the actual space of the real. The image that was latent in the virtual and trapped within the boundaries of the catatonic digital stationary of a desktop computer is now loose at large. The flux is so fast and omnipresent that the boundaries between the two entities of the virtual and the actual are blurry and inconsistent to the extent that the individual user of media augmentation cannot distinguish the difference. The latent image of the virtual exploded in the actual augmenting it to become an actual and physical space of hyperactivity and virtual flux. Manipulation of the image is becoming manipulation of life itself and thus the creation of an augmented space in the actual becomes a prerequisite.