Rhizomatic value in communications study

By using Aelyria.com as a media example to highlight the relevance of rhizomatics in academic studies of linguistic and communication theory in media representation, this article proposes that rhizomatics offers a valuable contribution towards understanding the political ways of being that empower human interactivity, and argues this evidence as demonstrating that there is a place for the multi layered ‘thousand plateaus’ of rhizomatic theory to be more widely academically acknowledged. An application of rhizomatics on media examples such as Aelyria.com and newer, more sophisticated examples such as Second Life and World of Warcraft , allow a deconstruction of human-machine interaction, enacted as the nomadic navigation of the internet by cyborgs, and recognition of the significance of collective individual movements as rebellions, as non linear non dichotomous nomadic actions beyond the confines of nationalist borders and state ideologies that lead to a better understanding of the internets functioning ideologies.

Rhizomatics and academia

The postmodern theory of rhizomatics has been touched on in many academic arenas from computer mediated technologies (Landow, 1994 and Wallmannsberger, J, 1994) to education and philosophy (Gough, N 2004) using the ideas of the rhizome to represent new ways of thinking, acting and functioning that challenge traditional linear hierarchical ways of being, particularly in todays online communication environment. An interview with Deleuze published just after he died quoted him as saying that A Thousand Plateaus is the best book he has ever written (Dominguez, R, Web Collaboration, Electronic Disturbance Theater) The theory existed in the minds of Deleuze and Guattari before the concept of web 2.0 and interconnectivity existed in the land of cyberspace. The insight that the theory of rhizomatics gives to the action of web 2.0 interactivity, without even touching on the more complicated and politically charged concept of the nomad and the abstract machine, shows an insight and depth well ahead of its time (Dominguez, R, Web Collaboration, Electronic Disturbance Theater).

Foucaults idyllic free subject

Through rhizomatic action, Michel Foucaults’ ideal of a subject free from subjectivity from the institution of the state exists, if only for a fleeting moment, in the action of rhizomatic nomadic navigation, creation, manipulation, penetration, destruction and regeneration (Foucault, M, 1983) (Carolli, L, 1997). The Aelyria.com rhizomatic creative world empowers the free subject by deleting binary opposition altogether with the introduction of a cyborg created species population. The myriad of unlimited options to create are spawned from rhizomatic action that takes place inside the rhizomatic action of travelling the never ending and constantly renewing horizontal highway along the map of the rhizomatic linguistic abstract machine, the internet. Foucaults’ theory suggests that one can never truly be free, and this is so with the internet even though rhizomatics offers many elements of nomadic freedom, as the abstract machine of the internet and its service providers inflict subjectivity onto the subject, the nomadic wanderer, within its virtual walls.

Rhizomatic power

The economic state power is annihilated and replaced with rhizomatic connectivity through the lack of fees to enter and create in the world of Aelyria.com. This concept of free to all supports the rhizomatic action approach, as it places no boundaries on the flow of where the lines can be followed, spawned or broken. The online world Aelyria.com represents a multiplicitious action, it gives the ability to move freely in many directions, to connect to the many lines of thinking, acting and being that exist in its virtual walls that can be broken at any point, but ultimately repair themselves, if they indeed suffer any damage at all when a cyborg decides no longer to partake.

Creating rhyzomatically in cyberspace

In 1989, only two short years after the publication of A Thousand Plateaus in English, a website came into existence, one of the first of its kind, called Aelyria.com. This new website was a portal to another world, an online world where the cyborg navigation, action and interaction could enter anonymously at any point, and not only peruse the website, but create within the website. It was one of the original user authored MMORPGS (massive multi-player online role playing games) websites, where the rhizomatic non-linear anarchic approach of travelling into an area and sprouting new roots took place (www.aelyria.com). This rhizomatic action alone challenges the linear arbolic ideology of hierarchical thinking. The online world Aelyria.com can be authored by anyone. A cyborg nomad wandering the horizontal highway of cyberspace can enter the Aelyria.com art hub and create a country, a language, a currency, a political system, and then populate this world with a species.

Eradicating Binary

Rhizomatics challenges the ideology of the state control of movement, identity, nationalism, place, space, and subjectivity by placing anonymous nomadic cyborgs, organless virtual bodies into (the abstract machine of) the internet and allowing the dichotomy of the state controlled ideology to be removed through the action of being able to enter anonymously at any point, exit at any point, to generate, regenerate and create in a combined public and private space simultaneously as an individual and a community without any political restriction on place and space. Nomadic cyborg activity on the internet removes the dichotomy of public/private by placing both concepts into the same domain (Carroli, 1997). The rhizomatic action identified shows the cyborg being able to penetrate the internet from any point, and navigating his/her way through various horizontal states of simultaneous private and public domains anonymously and independently, but at the same time with a virtual identity and amongst a community of other cyborgs, online users.

The war machine

The connectivity of web 2.0 represents rhizomatic embodiment. The complex theory of rhizomatics leads on from linguistics theorists Barthes and Foucault, and can be viewed through the lens of communication theorists such as McLuhan. If Marshall McLuhan’s medium is the message, then the internet is the medium facilitating the nomad, and rhizomatics is the message, conveying the power of the autonomous nomad as ‘the war machine’ that exists outside of the confinements of the state (Deleuze, Guattari, 1987, 351-423) (McLuhan, M, 1964). If a ‘rhizome is a map, not a tracing’, then the language of the internet facilitates that map, and the cyborg is the navigator of that map (Deleuze, G, Guattari, F, 1987, 12).

Asignifying rupture

Deleuze and Guattari’s theory determines rhizomatics as a map of interconnected pathways, a way of nomadic traveling through a system of non linear horizontal lines that facilitate growth and drop off points at any point. Within a rhizomatic arena the concept of binary opposition is devalued. The linear is replaced with the non-linear, hierarchic replaced with anarchic, territorialised replaced with deterritorialised, and binary replaced with multiplitous (Dominguez, R, Web Collaboration, Electronic Disturbance Theater). Rhizomatics is non-dichotomous due to its multiplicity of place space and time in the function of repetitive connectivity that can enter and exit at any point along lines that stem from and to other lines from any given point. Rhizomatics presents the principal of “‘asignifying rupture’- that a rhizome may be broken or shattered, but will start up again at either an old line, or begin a new line” (Deleuze, G, Guattari, F, 1987, 7-12).

Roots and webs

Rhizomatics literally has its roots in the botanic realm, as the word is derived from the term rhizome, indicating a plant that spreads its roots in a horizontal non linear fashion, regenerates itself and grows from any point. This essay takes the idea of rhizomatic action and places it in the context of web 2.0 interactivity. Before the breakdown and application of the theory can begin, the presentation of the theory is necessary to understand its applicable context. The article will then narrow down the media example of web 2.0 to focus on a specific website, aelyria.com, to show more specific application and timeliness of the theory. Within this media example, the focus will be to expose what assumptions the theory makes about web 2.0 as a rhizomatic concept, and the questions that arise in its application. At its conclusion, this article will highlight the validity of rhizomatics as a practical multiplicitious postmodern theory that examines the power relations of human autonomous action via web 2.0 as a deterritorialised non-linear function enabling the arbolic thinking of the state to be undermined (Dominguez, R, Web Collaboration, Electronic Disturbance Theater).

Botanic rhyzome

Rhizomatics comes from the term rhizome, a type of non-arbolic root system.

“In the botanical sense, a rhizome is a root system that some plants (like lilies and orchids and ginger and bamboo) use to spread themselves about. While the roots of most plants point generally downward, the rhizome is a horizontal root system that runs parallel to the surface of the ground. The plant sends shoots up from nodes in the rhizome, creating what look like many separate plants. These seemingly unrelated individuals are actually all connected, through a system that’s not immediately visible to the eye.”
The Rhizome Café (www.rhizomecafe.ca)