One of the common dissatisfactions with interactivity on the Web is that
telepresence is not, well, presence. Certainly some of the more
interesting new media projects have deconstructed our assumptions
concerning presence and the sense of "really" being there. But, when it
comes down to it, we are faced with the experience that you and I in our
separate computer-hovels chatting over CU-SeeMe, is not the same as you
and I having drinks in a cozy bar. This difference has prompted talk of
a qualitative difference between two essentially different modes of
communication and interaction, each contingent upon a variety of factors
(technology, class, cultural difference, race, geography, language,
etc.). The "noise" that often comes through is not just technical, but
can also be social.

Part of the problem of computer-mediated communication has to do with
the status of the body in the interaction–or rather, the state of
"embodiment." We all want our communication and interactions to be as
transparent as possible, and there is a sense in which physical presence
plays an important part in giving us that feeling of authenticity, of
transparency. But how do we address the importance of embodiment when
dealing with technologies such as the Web?

This is one of the main questions in Ken Goldberg's new anthology, "The
Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the
Internet" (MIT Press, 2000) Using the term "telepistemology" to talk
about how knowledge is transmitted, produced, and circulated on the net,
Goldberg has assembled a collection of different perspectives on tele-
robotics, as both a technological and a cultural issue. Roughly divided
into three sections (the philosophy of telepistemology, tele-robotic
art, and the engineering of tele-robotics), "The Robot in the Garden"
covers a wide range of material, from Thomas Campanella's essay on
webcams, to Martin Jay's essay on time-delay and light-speed, to art-
based "dialogical telepresence" (Eduardo Kac's term), to the engineering
of tele-robotics interfaces in the essay by Michael Idinopulos. Each
piece brings up, from its own perspective, the issue of how the
intersection of communication and control can produce forms of
knowledge, agency, authenticity, and meaningful interaction.

While the various essays are interesting on their own, "The Robot in the
Garden" is strongest when essays are linked together. For instance,
philosopher Hubert Dreyfus' accounts of phenomenological approaches to
cognition (opposed to Descartes' classical divide between mind and body)
forms a strong foundation for John Canny and Eric Paulos' essay on the
design of unique, "tele-embodied" systems for human-to-human tele-
robotic interaction. Similarly, artist and critic Marina Grzinic's
elaboration of net-based time-delay and Benjamin's notion of "aura"
forms an interesting dialogue to Albert Borgmann's sharp distinctions
between "promixal" or real space and "mediated" space.

Blake Hannaford's history of telerobotics is perhaps the most
fascinating piece in the collection. It supplements the book's
philosophical reflections with hard, technical details. Hannaford's
discussion of tele-robotics research in terms of energetics transfer,
time-delay, degree of control, and system stability takes on interesting
resonances when considered in political terms. Lev Manovich's essay is
similar, especially when he discusses telepresence not as image-
deception but as "acting over distance. In real time." For Manovich,
telepresence is actually about the negation of presence, or better, the
banalization of presence: "the essence of telepresence is that it is
antipresence. I don't have to be physically present in a location to
affect reality at this location."

Although "The Robot in the Garden" does not contain texts on specific
real-world uses of tele-robotic technology (for instance, the Mars
Sojourner, hazardous waste sites, deep-sea excavation, or tele-robotic
surgery; most of the examples come from art), it does provide important
epistemological questions for understanding this latest addition to Web
technology, showing how the cultural and the technological are both
implicated in the ambiguities surrounding computer-mediated
communication.