8.1.1 I believe that the triangle has always had, and always will have, angles the sum of which equals two right angles . . . because I have had the experience of the real triangle, and because, as a physical thing, it necessarily has within itself everything it has ever been able, or ever will be able to display . . . What I call the essence of the triangle is nothing but this presumption of a completed synthesis, in terms of which we have defined the thing. (Merleu-Ponty, 1962, pg. 388)

8.1.2 In the first three chapters of this thesis, I created a triangle of the network artist identity, the context of the practising net artist, linking to science and humanities, and the emergence of telematic art. The second triangle looked at the networked identity, database aesthetic, and networked (nomadic) communities in relation to commerce and time. In the third triangle, chapter 7 addressed principles that have an impact on our perception of information architecture. The final two chapters, which complete the tetrahedron, are laying the foundation for the practical application of issues raised-the construction of the Information Personae (IP). The IP links out to all seven points (chapters) brought up previously:

8.1.3 Chapter 1: Net Artist: The Information Personae, a mobile agent software is a conceptual piece. Based on research of Buckminster Fuller, it is my belief that he would have been interested in pursuing a project dealing with online community building using agent technologies. Indeed, shortly before he passed on, he approached Roxanne Hiltz, author of Networked Nation, at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, asking if it would be possible to program a being that could live on after his death. She said that at the time they had no idea what he meant, but later when developing agent technologies they realised that it could have been what he was referring to. [1]

8.1.4 Chapter 2: Art & Science: The IP is inspired and is being developed in dialogue with colleagues in the humanities and the sciences. It is a truly interdisciplinary project that seeks input from scholars in many fields. The testbeds which are planned to emerge once the software is stable, will be a true testament to this claim. In the last chapter I will discuss these.

8.1.5 Chapter 3: Telematic Culture: The IP is a natural consequence and contribution of the emerging telematic culture. It promotes and realises many philosophies and practices that artists working with networks early on have propagated.

8.1.6 Chapter 4: Net Identity: The IP shifts the relationship to the idea of online identity by the way it is constructed. As I will discuss later in this chapter, the agent is envisioned and designed to function as a truly distributed and multiplitous identity.

8.1.7 Chapter 5: Database Aesthetics: The IP is essentially a database aesthetic. One of the fundamental beliefs of this project is that content is not separate from the 'container' and that information is not separate from the people who carry and disseminate it on the networks. Thus databases are not simply ways to store data but are the basis of an aesthetics that emerges in a person or community or multiple communities that have an interrelationship.

8.1.8 Chapter 6: Net Communities: The IP provides a foundation for new ways of approaching e-community and electronic commerce. Just as Fuller was proposing living spaces that were more efficient and humane and economic systems that were running counter to the predominant economic models, so the IP is an proposal for an alternative way to look at community formation and commerce on the networks.

8.1.9 Chapter 7: Information Architecture: The IP utilises the principles of life's architecture as predicted by Buckminster Fuller and proved by the scientific community. One of the core conclusions of this thesis is that if Fuller has proved in physical space that the principles of tensegrity work and intuited that these laws are much deeper as was proven by the discovery of the Buckminsterfullerene, it only follows naturally to put these same principles to work on the net through the design of an agent system.

8.1.10 Chapter 8: What follows is a brief overview of various agent technologies being developed at the present time, followed by a prototype for the Information Personae, an online mobile agent. [top]