As Low explains, ‘anthropologists have been more concerned with everyday urban processes’ (1996: 384) than with the position of the city in anthropology. As a result ethnographic fieldwork tends to occur in cities, rather than being of cities. In addition, anthropologists tend to justify their fieldsite as a context for their study of what is ‘out there’, using the fieldsite as no more than a frame within which a study of other cultures is articulated. The city is only one of many places where everyday human interactions are studied by anthropologists. ‘In relation to the writer the composer is always mad (and the writer can never be so, for he is condemned to meaning).’ Barthes (1985:308)ĭuring my ethnographic fieldwork I have come to understand that the physical reality of the environment is often less important than the social interactions that are played out between the individuals who live within it. Rather, it is an attempt to stimulate discussion that will allow a movement towards new models of cities that are central to anthropological practices. By addressing these issues, my aim is not to represent some new model of the city. This in turn leads to questions about the enforcement of community ideals articulated through the control of both images and texts within the virtual city. Within this city, being a good citizen is organised around discourses of harmony and unity. Against a background that boasts the absence of a shared history of meaning, a new virtual community has been constructed in which human relationships appear to be organised more perfectly than in everyday life. However, while the virtual city as a general analytical category may richly fulfil its function as a focal point for cultural meanings, this role may also be problematic, as revealed by my own fieldsite, Cybercity. While raising questions about the position of the city in anthropological practice, much of the existing discourse has failed to acknowledge that there is a new kind of city out there, the virtual city. Cybertown was given back to the founders and was later sold.New locations: the virtual city by Denise Maia Carter New locations: the virtual cityĭenise Maia Carter (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Hull). Bitmanagement Software continued to develop the 3D client. Some assets were taken over by successor companies.īlaxxun Technologies continued to market the core server technologies. In early 2002, Blaxxun went out of business. In 2001, blaxxun became shortly profitable and succeeded in raising more funding, but then was also hit by collapsing Internet revenues. blaxxun's IPO consortium banks had a public disagreement about the cancellation, as the IPO was oversubscribed by a factor of 2.5 on the institutional side. The IPO was delayed and finally failed in August 2000, when the Internet boom turned into the dot-com bubble. In 2000, Blaxxun was scheduled for an IPO at Germany's Neuer Markt. ![]() blaxxun also established joint ventures with Germany's leading publisher Cornelsen (3D community Learnetix) and the soccer community SoccerCity (in collaboration with Kicker magazine). ![]() In 1996, Blaxxun acquired Cybertown, a US-based community and evolved it into a 3D community that attracted more than 1 million registered users by 2000. Customers included BMW ("3D Car Configurator"), Deutsche Bank ("Virtual Shareholder Meeting"), IBM (3D Notebook Demo), Canal+ ("Virtual Paris"), Siemens, Intel, and many other major brands. Later blaxxun investors included tbg and General Electric.īlaxxun developed various 3D browsers and multi-user server platforms. blaxxun was funded by the US venture capital company CMGI, in the same portfolio as leading Internet companies like GeoCities and Lycos. Blaxxun Interactive, originally named "Black Sun Interactive", was one of the first companies to develop a 3D community platform designed for the Internet using VRML and highly scalable multi-user server environments.īlaxxun was founded in August 1995 with its sales/marketing offices in San Francisco, CA and management/development in Munich, Germany.
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