Hybrid Urbanscapes of PC Bangs and Their Socio-Spatial Effects on Human Bodies

Abstract

This paper suggests an inquiry into the characteristics and implications of urbanscapes produced by Internet cafes, widely called PC Bangs in Korea, and their effects on the motions and boundaries of human bodies as cyborgs which exist in between actual and virtual spaces or between human and machine spaces in PC Bangs. The paper, which is organised into two main sections, first investigates the streetscapes of PC Bangs as electronic architectural spaces and suggests the urban electronic space of PC Bangs in terms of hypertext space. Then, it looks at the effects of PC Bangs on human bodies which exist as human-machine hybrids or cyborgs in PC Bangs. The paradoxical sociospatial characteristics of PC Bangs as third, liminal or hybrid spaces between actual and virtual spaces or between human and machine spaces can be explained as follows. Firstly, there appear both nomadic and sedentary landscapes in that people in PC Bangs move in virtual spaces on the one hand, and are static in actual spaces on the other hand. Secondly, both open and closed spaces are shaped in that although PC Bangs act as open or public electronic spaces, they involve invisible social boundaries, forming the gendered space of masculinism. Thirdly, the boundaries of the human body are extended and are shrunk at the same time in that while the sensory boundaries of the body in PC Bangs are extended through electronic networks, its social boundaries are shrunk through the imaginary space of solipsism. Thus and finally, PC Bangs can be characterised not only as social spaces entailing embodied and gendered landscapes, but also as non-places involving the cyborg landscapes of human-machine connections.

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