The image displayed on a radar screen may be highly abstract, but it offers us very specific information about something in real time. Radar is really nothing more than a video camera with a minimal signal, we could almost say only just enough signal; a yes or no without explanations, a here without how, a where ... and a when: now.
But despite transmitting information in real time, the image that we find between ourselves and that space, the image that makes up part of the interface, is a representation of (),an interpretation which leaves out a lot of data or which only retains two items out of the huge amount that it could reflect.
Throughout history, the power of representation has been centred on two principle concepts: one, to fool the spectator by creating avatars of things that are, in fact, inexistent, and the other, to enable manipulation of things by means of their representation. There are also representations that actually provide us with more information than we can see with a simple first glimpse at the reference under observation, as is the case with perspective, maps, x-rays and so on.
When representations are used to work on that "something" that lies behind they become tools, handy operators that enable us to play a part in a highly specific reality, even while not sharing the same space. This "something" may be something real or may be nothing. It may be a representation with no reference, a piece of fiction in a virtual space, or it could be your neighbour's dog pissing on the wheel of your bike every day.
Telepresence can encompass two different situations: being "present" in a computer-created synthetic environment (popularly known as virtual reality) and being "present" (acting) somewhere remote, through a video image in real time.

From the point of view of simulation technology history, telepresence is a far more radical technology than virtual reality or any other computer-generated simulation in general and there is, in fact, a significant difference between the two: like other falsification technologies that preceded it (fashion and make up, painting, audio-slide projection, scenery, fiction films and so on), virtual reality provides the subject with the illusion of being present in a fictitious world and in addition allows the subject to have control over a false reality. In contrast, telepresence offers the chance to physically manipulate the reality of a space in real time, from a remote site. The operator's body is linked, in real time, with another physical space where it is able to act: repair a space station, heal a damaged organ or get rid of the aforementioned dog.
Thus we could claim that the essence of telepresence is “antipresence”, or the non-presence of the subject or subjects who physically intervene in the reality of the place; to be there without “being there” in real time.
"Today, from thousands of miles away (as was demonstrated during the Gulf War) we can launch a missile equipped with a television camera to get close enough to tell the difference between a target and a decoy. We can direct the flight of the missile using the image transmitted by its camera, carefully fly toward the target and, using the same image, blow the target away. All that is needed is to position the cursor over the right place in the computer image and press a button." (1)
That is the part we like best: the button. The greatest thing about technology is that it lets us do really complicated things simply by pressing a button. Would you like to launch a missile directly against subject 31047D (that damned dog), destroying all the houses in a radius of 250 metres and mutilating Frank Jones, the unfortunate neighbour from number 3 who was just passing by, and leaving the little girl who popped out to buy some bread completely blind, destroying the life of Mary, her mother, who was watching her from the window, at the same time injuring the entire poker team from the local bar who were hanging around together as usual, and a few other things too numerous to mention?
a) Send
b) Leave and send. The truth is that dog breaks my balls every day.


(1)Lev Manovich. En The Robot in the Garden. Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the age of Internet. Edited by Ken Goldberg. The MIT press. Cambridge, Massachusetts ©1999

In the global neighbourhood in which we live, the interface that we like most is the simplest one, the one that does not make us fill out loathsome questionnaires, the one that does not let us choose and with which we can make mistakes on a huge scale with just a click of the mouse button. We no longer have our brains up our arse, nor in our dick, now, and since some time ago, they are in our finger. That silly finger we used to use to pick our nose we now use to get everything we need, want, feel like or do not feel like. With my finger I go to the bank, and it is my finger that gives me the money and with this finger I carry out a highly complex operation in the Bahamas and it is this finger which has enabled me to save the company from bankruptcy....
Basically, that's why I never leave home without it.



It is curious that another word for finger is digit, which comes from the Latin word digitus.
We wait, counting on our digits and end up controlling digits with digits.

Tele-dígitus is an attempt to emphasise the fact that we press too many buttons without thinking, without reading the warning messages, without bearing in mind what lies beyond this action: that behind an interface there is something more than just digits, that some buttons prick and do certain other things..

   
 
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