The juxtaposition of the work of Greg Lynn and Maciej Wisniewski provides an interesting contrast as well as insight on the future (and past) of the so-called new media arts.

Lynn is an architect and uses the computer to explore new geometries (in the sense of "real" human spaces) whereas Wisniewski is an artist who is searching topological spaces (in the virtual internet) to find new conjunctions and meanings.

Both are pushing the boundaries of the metamedium (Alan Kay's wonderful name for the new computational processes). However Lynn, perhaps as an architect with clients who desire comfort and meaning in a real world, is firmly anchored in his discipline.

Some years ago I visited Frank Gehry's studio in Los Angeles. I was surprised to discover that Gehry (at least back in 1993) was not interested in any hands-on experience with the computer. He worked with card and paper and only once the design was relatively complete did he bring in his (large) team of computer experts who's sole responsibility was to find out how to actually make the building (using real materials, deadlines and budgets).

Lynn goes beyond this use of the computer as a tool for amplification of an existing disciple paradigm or computer assisted architecture and involves emergent processes to "evolve" new geometric spaces and dialogues -or- computational architecture.

For several years now I have argued that we are in the developing hiatus of a new creative paradigm and that the computational metamedium is the catalyst that is forcing this change. (Interested readers may like to visit my web pages at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~artek/ -or- soon http://www.paul-brown.com to read more).

In this sense of emergence I believe that the work of Wisniewski is closer to the future if only because, unlike the architect Lynn, Wisniewski is not anchored by either physics or clients!. Although the work exhibited - SCANLINK - is an interesting exploration of the strange new relationships of the telecommunications network infrastructure I find the earlier piece Turnstile part II (http://stadiumweb.com/turnstile/) more interesting and accessible.

It's a never ending poem of random fragments culled from automated dialogue across the internet. Like the strings of text sent to search-engines from across the world this work illustrates human nature in a way that is only possible in a real-time networked dialogue.

Strange new juxtapositions appear and disappear as you watch. Wisniewski is mapping human space in the symbolic topology of the internet much as Lynn maps human space in the real world of geometric habitat. However their use of the computational metamedium and both geometric form and symbolic form is quite distinctly different.