The Dissertation: Presence and the Design of Trust

When is it appropriate to use email, chat or videoconference and when should one take the trouble to travel en meet in real life? In the dissertation “Presence and the Design of Trust” Caroline Nevejan explores the effects of mediating presence and of witnessing each other both in natural presence as well as in mediated presence. She analyzed two networked events, The Galactic Hacker Party and the Seropositive Ball, which both happened in 1989 and 1990 in Paradiso, a musical venue in the centre of Amsterdam. At the time the technology was relatively raw and issues of trust and truth surfaced rather easily since interfaces were not as elaborate as they are today. As a result of this research Nevejan argues that natural presence is distinct, because the sense for what is good for survival and well-being can be more profound in natural presence than in mediated presence. However, mediated presence contributes significantly to the language people share and the concepts they use. Mediated presence can generate significant vital information. Witnessed presence has the potential to function as a catalyst both in natural as well as in mediated presence. Especially when facing issues of ethical nature, as happens in processes of innovation and evaluation, the gathering in natural presence is indispensable because the sense of presence can be maximized and will positively influence ideas and solutions that will nurture survival and well-being. As a result of her research Nevejan developed a 4 dimensional model, YUTPA, in which the relations between time, place, action and the other person can be analyzed. This model shows how the different configurations of presence include and exclude the potential building up or breaking down of trust.

www.nevejan.org: to download the dissertation
nev01.test.mediamatic.nl: experimental environment for unfolding the PhD

Designing presence in environments in which technology plays a crucial role is critical in the current era when social systems like law, education, health and business all face major challenges about how to guarantee trustworthy, safe, reliable and efficient services in which people interact with, and via, technology. The speed and scale of the collection and distribution of information that is facilitated by technology today demands a new formulation of basic concepts for our modern societies in terms of property, copyright, privacy, liability, responsibility and so forth. The research question assumes that presence is a phenomenon that we have to understand much better than we currently do.

The title of this dissertation “Presence and the Design of Trust” reflects the inspiration as well as the outcome of the research that is presented here. The research itself was focused on the design of presence. The question that guided the study was “How can presence be designed in environments in which technology plays a crucial role?”. I argue that presence as a phenomenon is influenced by technology, and that social structures that rely on presence will therefore be affected by technology as well. One of the major findings is the fact that the design of presence relates to the design of trust in social interaction. This study does not elaborate on trust as such but it establishes the connection between the design of presence and the design of trust.

In this study presence is understood as a phenomenon that is part of human interaction. The nature of being with another person in a certain place, at a certain time, involved in a certain action is undergoing change because of the fact that technology mediates, contributes, accelerates, controls and/or facilitates communication. The broad spectrum of information and communication technologies that mediate presence facilitates acting, connecting, witnessing and being witnessed in other places at other times.

While conducting the research I found that I needed to make trust operational from the pragmatic and normative perspective of individual human beings. I have chosen to use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as it was was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 (United Nations, 1948). Even though the universality of the declaration has been contested since 1948, the text constitutes the only secular instrument that has functioned for over 50 years as a normative reference point for the quality of well-being of people around the world. It is part of the international political discourse as a mechanism of protection for human dignity as well as a tool of empowerment that helps people to realize their rights and articulate their suffering. Information and communication technologies have an impact on the realization of Human Rights (Hamelink 2000). I have taken the position that for trust to develop human rights have to be respected. The fact that human beings act to secure their survival and their well-being will prove to be crucial in constructing the argument that I present here. Therefore the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been chosen as the essential normative perspective for the quality of social interaction, and thus for the potential building or breaking down of trust.

AN ITERATIVE PROCESS (chapter 1)

“Presence and the Design of Trust” is based on the analysis of two exploratory case studies of networked events, the Galactic Hacker Party and the Seropositive Ball, which took place in Amsterdam in 1989 and 1990 respectively, and in which I was personally involved as initiator and producer. A networked event entails a gathering of people in a physical space, and also these people and others who are not actually present in the same physical space gather together in an online environment. This study draws upon multiple sources, and it uses literature and methodologies from a variety of disciplines, and in this regard this study has chosen social theory as its context (Giddens 1984).

When I commenced this academic study I had already conducted extensive research into the design of presence from a variety of non–academic perspectives and professional roles. I wanted to bring to the surface the implicit knowledge that I had acquired throughout the course of these experiences. I identified three research concepts that helped me to embed the earlier non–academic work into this academic study: parresia (Foucault 1983), text laboratory (Latour 2005) and techno–biography (Henwood et al 2001). Parresia, a concept that was elaborated upon by the Greeks in the classical era, involves the revealing of truth through a process of revealing truth to oneself. The text laboratory aims to contribute to social sciences by doing experiments through rigorous writing and describing, which triggers new writing and describing, to reveal unexpected links and connections. In a techno–biography the researcher analyses the former self, possibly with the help of original texts written by the former self and/or archives and artefacts from that time.

Both in the data gathering and in the analysis these three concepts, and the classical features of an exploratory case study (Yin 2003), have been interwoven into one iterative research design, which has facilitated my professionally acquired knowledge to contribute to the academic context of this study. As a result, this study proposes a conceptual framework to support the analysis and the design of presence in social interaction.

PRESENCE: A SCIENCE OF TRADE–OFFS (chapter 2)

The amazing acceptance of the variety of technologies that facilitate the mediation of presence and generate the multiple presences that people are confronted with in their day–to–day lives is taken as a starting point for this study. It appears that the ‘presence’ of the other person and the ‘presence’ of one self can be mediated in such a way that this is accepted or rejected as ‘real’ presence within the context of social interaction. After discussing the current research into presence in the military, in industry, in the commercial realm, in the arts and in European policy making, I have concluded that presence research is a science of trade–offs (IJsselteijn 2004), and presence design is characterized by trade–offs as well. In the trade–off of presence design I have identified three basic dynamics that interact, construct and confuse the sense of presence of the self and also the sense of presence of other human beings. Natural presence, mediated presence and witnessed presence (which occurs in natural and also mediated presence) each trigger certain dynamics and influence the perception and understanding of the other presences.

A communication process that uses multiple presences is not a linear process. Time, space, action and the meeting of other people continually alter the shape of the process. Through the different configurations an image of the situation emerges, upon which a person will base his, or her, next actions. Any perceived presence, mediated or not, can mark a moment of significance in a chain of events or in a communication process. Therefore, at the start of this study I harboured the assumption that all presences and their hybrids may be equally significant to a human being in orchestrating his or her life. This assumption has been severely challenged by the research I carried out. I first formulated these three presence dynamics more profoundly and these are summarized below.

Natural presence: the quest for well-being and the drive for survival
A human being’s body, which is present at a certain moment in a certain place, defines its natural presence and this is perceived by the body itself and/or its environment. Human beings strive for well–being and survival; they want to avoid pain. This process takes place on three levels of consciousness (proto, core and extended consciousness), from the level of the cell to the organism as a whole (Damasio 1999). The sense of presence is part of human evolution and plays a crucial role in helping people to survive; it helps to distinguish between the self and the environment, between the different relationships in the environment and between imaginary events and what is actually happening. On each level of consciousness the sense of presence operates. When all levels of consciousness collaborate a maximum sense of presence is the result (Riva, Waterworth and Waterworth 2004). People make a trade–off between the multiple presences they perceive when constructing the reality upon which they will act. The claim that technology enhances the quality of natural presence is as viable as the claim that it is threatened by technology. The ‘new’ confusion between perception and deception, between truth and lies, between real and unreal in societies where technology is embedded and media are everywhere influences people’s natural presence profoundly.

Mediated presence: transcending boundaries of time and place
Human beings have been mediating presence for as long as humankind has existed. When they are moving around people leave trails of footprints, shelters and other signs that they ‘have been here’. For centuries people have mediated presence consciously by telling stories, making drawings, sending messengers and writing books. Via technology people can now mediate their presence to other places in real time. Via radio, mobile phones, Internet and TV we perceive other people’s presence in a variety of ways. In this study I do not focus on the media–industry and the way it operates; I focus on social interaction between people from the perspective of an individual human being. Even when it is possible to meet in real life, people regularly choose the partial perception of another person that mediated presence offers. In mediated presence one does not have to use all senses and one does not have to address the cognitive, emotional and social structures that usually have to be confronted in a physical encounter.

Through using information and communication technologies people develop media schemata that help them to operate and understand the machines, help them to accept the mediated presence of other people and help them to distinguish the one ‘agreed’ reality from the other. Media schemata are particular to a certain time and place, to a certain generation of people and to different social groups. When involved in mediated presence, processes of attribution, synchronization and adaptation take place all the time (Steels 2006). Because the senses have limited input and output in mediated presence — it is not the context but generally the connection itself that matters — these processes of attribution, synchronization and adaptation can become very powerful.

Witnessed presence is a catalyst for good and bad
The perceived presence of other human beings plays a crucial role in the social organization of communities in natural presence as well as of communities in mediated presence. Witnessed presence influences natural presence and mediated presence. An action that is witnessed becomes a deed. That is why ‘witnessing’ is an important action in social life. Witnessing, being witnessed and witness reports are part of the negotiation of trust and truth between people in communities, organizations and societies. Throughout evolution people have changed shape in each other’s eyes. ‘The other’ has acquired more and more identities over time. In general terms it is clear that the variety of divisions of labour, the development of science and technology, urbanization and globalisation have changed how people perceive each other.

A crucial distinction in the diversity of other human beings we perceive is between those who we have a relationship with and those we do not know (Buber 1923). The relationship that we have, or do not have, with another person defines how we will orchestrate our own presence. I argue that witnessing the presence of other people, as well as being witnessed, influences the sense of presence of the self. Witnessed presence causes an acceleration in what occurs next; it can generate more that is ‘good’ and also more that is ‘bad’. It functions as a catalyst.

THE CASE STUDIES: THE GALACTIC HACKER PARTY (1989) AND THE SEROPOSTIVE BALL (1990) (Chapters 3 and 4 and 5)

The Galactic Hacker Party explored ‘The Computer as a Tool for Democracy’ and connected the international hacker practice to scientific and political debates about the evolving information society. The Seropositive Ball was about ‘Living with HIV and AIDS’ and aimed to shatter the silence and social exclusion surrounding people living with HIV and AIDS, for which there was not yet a cure at the time, while many young people were dying. The Seropositive Ball connected Dutch national and international political movements, self–help organizations, health institutions, policy makers, artists, scientists, people in hospitals and many who were touched by or concerned about AIDS. In the Galactic Hacker Party electronic networks that already existed and the fledgling Internet were used and demonstrated. The Seropositive Ball utilised a variety of media and created its own network, which was also linked to existing networks.

Both networked events were produced and staged by Paradiso, a music venue with a distinct international reputation located in the heart of Amsterdam. Over the years Paradiso has developed a methodology, which I will discuss in this study, whereby it nurtures the direct experience of the artist as well as that of the audience. When organizing a networked event, in which a new sense of place is meant to come into existence, dramaturgical laws not only have to be applied to performance elements of the show, but also to the possible contributions of participants in the networked event. They will influence what happens and invent things that cannot be foreseen.

The basic dynamic of both events was influenced by the experience of multiple presences in Paradiso and of mediated presence for people outside Paradiso. Natural presence and also mediated presence were witnessed. Natural presence, witnessed presence and mediated presence were perceived in connection with each other, and in the experience of the event these presences ‘merged’ and influenced the ‘reality’ of the other experienced presences.

ANALYSIS OF THE CASE STUDIES
By focusing on brief moments of perception and by drawing on my experience as the producer of these events, through acts of parresia and the writing in the text laboratory, which was then contrasted with the more than 2000 documents that were archived in a techno–biographical manner, I conducted an analysis from four different perspectives. A primary analysis consists of reflections in which I share and elaborate upon insights that I acquired as the producer of these events. A secondary analysis deals with the clash between intention and realization that every actor has to deal with. A third analysis concerns the collaboration between people of different disciplines, skills, interests and cultures. The fourth analysis focuses on what can be formulated about natural, mediated and witnessed presence given the research done.

1. Reflections
In the reflections on the Galactic Hacker Party the conveying of trust between people in natural presence and in mediated presence, and also the trust people have in the technology, was an issue both during the production and the execution of the event. To address this problem, the notion of the ‘social interface’ surfaced. This is a person who bridges different realms of time, place, relations and networks, and who is dramatically positioned to be able to convey trust. The fact that ‘words act’ in digital technology made me realize profounder questions about the influence of technology on identities. I realized that in the first instance human beings deal with technology as actors. The notion of the ‘thinking actor’, who will use whatever works, became crucial in the development of the argument I set out in this study.

In the reflections that evolved from the text laboratory on the Seropositive Ball, the idea of ‘vital information’ was elaborated upon. In this event technology was used without hesitation because the interface was easy and beautiful and the need to find good information was a matter of life and death at the time. Information is ‘vital’ only in the exact time–place configuration where the receiving person is physically located and it has to provide this person with the opportunity to act. A person will only do this when he or she rightly or wrongly trusts what he or she receives. One of the ways to create trustworthy vital information is to gather what I formulated as ‘the crucial network’: thus everyone and everything that has contributed to the state of affairs and everyone or everything that has the potential to change the status quo has to be present. Orchestrating the crucial network involves the shaping of the space between the different disciplines, skills, interests and cultures. Collaboration in a crucial network requires a perspective that is shared by all and which has the capacity to synchronize natural and mediated presence and provides the catalyst effect of witnessed presence with a direction (which in certain conditions can also cause counter–directions).

2. Thinking actors
Being involved in a networked event, and any day in our regular lives can be considered a networked event, creates an unavoidable clash between intention and realization. This clash occurs physically, emotionally and cognitively and this clash provokes our ‘thinking’ as actors. The word ‘thinking’ refers to the fact that people are confronted with a discrepancy, which evolves from the clash between intention and realization, and which they have to resolve. In mediated presence concepts of causality change because the connection provides the context. The context offered by a place with an embedded culture has disappeared. Context, and especially local and implicit knowledge, can hardly be mediated. Mediated presence does contribute information that influences the mental maps that people have of a certain situation and it can influence how people may adapt this map following such a clash.

The emotional clash between intention and realization appears to be much more profound and significant than I had realized before I conducted this study. Emotions, basic feelings of pain and pleasure, happiness and sadness, about what is good for life or bad, guide a human being towards well–being and survival on different levels of consciousness. This includes not harming others, which leads to the assumption that human ethics are grounded in emotions and the more elevated feelings like compassion, love and solidarity, which people acquire over time (Damasio 2003). In mediated presence the personal ethical experience is not as profound because mediation involves a limited sensorial experience. Strong feelings and emotions that may be triggered through mediating presence do not inform the body of how best to act to ensure well–being and survival. I conclude that when issues of an ethical nature are confronted, natural presence offers a better understanding upon which one can act towards ensuring well–being and survival because the sense of presence can be maximized.

3. On collaboration and incommensurability
For the accomplishment of an act, an actor is dependent of the work of other actors. When collaborating incommensurability (a fundamental not sharing of an understanding) between practices is a factor that has to be overcome for acts to be successful. Actors share terrains of incommensurability and terrains of commensurability. Project management, meta–cognitive skills, boundary objects and a shared perspective help in this. In communities of practice, taxonomies are built that represent conceptual schemes that define how actors act. In this context an act cannot be true or false. It is a result of the being–in the world that a taxonomy provides (Kuhn 2000). In the community that an actor operates in multiple mediated presences contribute to the evolving taxonomies, which influence and are a consequence of the way actors interact. Mediated presence contributes to the evolving taxonomies in communities in which witnessed presence plays a crucial role. I conclude that especially when vital information is generated mediated presence contributes significantly to the capacities that natural presence provides,
When actors have conversations about ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do it’, these also include the ‘what would be good to do’ and this is a question of an ethical nature (Pols 2004). I therefore argue that when questions arise, which also have ethical implications, people need to meet in natural presence. When people brainstorm, innovate, find solutions and evaluate, their personal ethical experience in natural presence, and the embodied presence of power positions, interests, disciplines and skills, contribute more significantly to the outcomes than a meeting via mediating presence could provide. Mediated presences add to taxonomies and these may reflect the shared ethics in a certain community, but they do not offer such a rich personal and collective ethical experience as natural presence does when having to invent or adapt to situations.

4. On presence
Natural presence is distinct and grounds ethical behaviour in one’s own, as well as other people’s, survival. Mediated presence can provide vital information and significant communication. Through social interaction, witnessed mediated presence may contribute to taxonomies of communities of practice. The dynamics of witnessed presence create grounds, rightly or wrongly, for trust to build up or to break down. Witnessed presence in mediated communication does not trigger a sense of responsibility and respect for human dignity in the way that this happens in natural presence.

Before analysing the case studies I was inclined to think that we, as human beings, were dealing with multiple presences that each have their own reality and are of equal importance because the experience of each presence can be very immersive. By carrying out this study I came to realize that all presences are ultimately rooted in natural presence. Without natural presence, no mediated presence or witnessed presence can be received or generated. To be able to partake in mediated presence one needs to have enough physical and psychological energy, access to financial and technological infrastructures and attention. It is the different natural presences that are mediated by mediated presences. Mediated presence has to be comprehensible and acceptable to the natural presence where it is received, and the mediator has to have confidence that what he/she mediates will convey what is intended. Competent intercultural communication between natural presence contexts is indispensable for mediated communication to succeed. Catharsis is bound to natural presence, to have spent time here, now and with you. The fact that in natural presence the personal ethical experience is most profound, makes natural presence distinct.

Through mediating presence one can reach out to another human being in different time/space configurations, which is often not possible in natural presence alone, and people really appreciate this. When connecting in mediated presence, only elements of the human being can be mediated. Input is not output; only bits are exchanged. People can handle this very well because they contextualize and attribute missing elements to the communication. Mediated presence is edited and framed by the technology and it is also edited and interpreted within these frameworks by people using the technology. Mediated environments that offer both information and communication facilities are attractive. The more layers of consciousness that can be addressed, the stronger the presence experience. Previous knowledge and opinions (including prejudices), media schemata and processes of attribution, synchronization and adaptation define how people receive and contextualize the mediated presences they perceive. Other media also influence the media schemata of a particular mediated presence. Mediated environments contribute to the taxonomies of communities. When mediated presence generates vital information, it can add elements to natural presence which natural presence otherwise would not have possessed. Vital information creates the bridge between mediated and natural presence in a very convincing way.

Through witnessing each other, in mediated and in natural presence, people construct shared realities. Witnessing in natural presence and witnessing in mediated presence have different effects. Witnessing in natural presence changes the situation because the witness can also decide to act on his or her behalf. Also, the witness can change the nature of an action by testifying about it. For an act to exist in natural presence it has to be witnessed because the act itself elapses. Being seen, having certain interests or shared feelings recognized (without the social judgment and/or limitations that may be part of natural presence) is a powerful trigger for contributing to mediated environments. In mediated presence, which can be endlessly stored and copied by the digital technologies, acts do not have to disappear, which diminishes the need to testify.
In natural presence, being a witness includes having a responsibility for what happens subsequently and people sense this. In mediated presence the responsibility for what happens next is more limited and often people do not sense that they can or need to influence what happens next, they just enjoy being seen.

YUTPA (chapter 6)
The question in all social interaction is whether people will treat each other with the respect that their human dignity requires. In natural presence this is already problematic. In mediated presence, where responsibility is much more difficult to sense and act upon, this is even more so. As a result people adopt a moral distance towards others, towards their own actions and even towards themselves. Adopting a moral distance ultimately diminishes the sense of presence, the quest for well–being and the survival of the self.

Because human beings are for the most part thinking actors in their relation to technology, I propose to analyse and design products and processes from a conceptual framework, which I have called YUTPA. YUTPA is the acronym for ‘being with You in Unity of Time, Place and Action’. You, time, place and action can be understood as dimensions that can have different values between You and not–You, Now and not–Now, Here and not–Here, Do and not–Do. The word unity refers to the specific set of relations between these four dimensions that is designed in a certain product or process, which makes certain interactions possible while it excludes others.

To be able to act and receive feedback, and to be able to contextualize how one relates to other human beings, is essential when living in a world full of multiple presences in which the respect for human dignity is at stake. Certain YUTPA configurations of presence design foster respect for human dignity and create a basis for trust to develop, while others clearly do not. In a communication process, in which multiple presences are enacted, a certain YUTPA configuration is built through the multiple presences, which informs the actor in which time/space configuration he relates, or does not relate, to certain people in a certain way, based upon which one can act or not. In the design of information and communication technologies — in its infrastructures, servers, hardware, software and interaction design — a YUTPA awareness that is founded on respect for human dignity should reflect this, for trust to be built up in social interaction.

The question "How to design presence in environments in which technology plays a crucial role?" is critical in the current era when social systems like law, education, health and business all face major challenges about how to guarantee trustworthy, safe, reliable and efficient services in which people interact with, and via, technology.

The speed and scale of the collection and distribution of information that is facilitated by technology today demands a new formulation for basic concepts for our modern societies like property, copyright, privacy, liability, responsibility and so forth. The research question assumes that presence is a phenomenon that we have to understand much better than we currently do, if we want to be able to formulate new concepts of design that will be capable of dealing with these new challenges. In this study, presence is understood as a phenomenon that is part of human interaction. Being with another person, at a certain place, at a certain time in a certain action is changing because of the fact that technology mediates, contributes, controls and/or facilitates communication. This study accepts all kinds of presences as a starting point. Generally I do not distinguish between the different technologies that facilitate mediation. My focus is on the effect of mediation itself.

“Presence and the Design of Trust” is a normative exploratory case study. I knew I wanted to explore presence because it had surfaced in my professional practice again and again, as I have previously explained. Because this is an exploratory study, the research design was established in an iterative manner; a step taken would inform the next step. The normative objective of the research informed the following steps as well. At first not even the choice of doing case studies had yet been made. It had been agreed that this would involve a PhD trajectory, so each step that was taken was discussed in the academic context that a dissertation provides. I will describe below the different phases that this research has gone through. These phases were not previously formulated, but evolved out of each other. They can be understood as a guideline for a text laboratory and as such they aim to contribute to the systematic articulation of this methodology.

Phase 1: The first proposal

Phase 2: Text Laboratory 1: stories art and technology

Phase 3: Literature: presence research

Phase 4: First sketches: theoretical context and conceptual framework

Phase 4: Text Laboratory II: stories on several networked events

Phase 5: Literature: STS and case study research

Phase 5: Text Laboratory III: thinking actor

Phase 6: Literature: Human Rights

Phase 7: Second Sketches: conclusion and conceptual framework

Phase 8: Writing chapter 2: Establishing theoretical framework

Phase 9: Writing chapter 3 and 4: Doing two case studies

Phase 10: Writing chapter 5: Analysis and conclusions from three perspectives

Phase 11: Writing chapter 6: Proposal YUTPA

With hindsight the research process of this study has been a consequent building of an understanding of presence as a phenomenon. The interaction between creative writing and analytic reading and writing has been fruitful. After Text Laboratory I and II, I decided to ground the research in two exploratory case studies. I chose to analyse the Galactic Hacker Party (GHP) and The Seropositive Ball (0+Ball), two networked events that took place in 1989 and 1990 (chapter 3 and 4). The choice of these two cases is grounded in the fact that they took place before the Internet became a commodity. No habits concerning the use of networks had been shaped, no shared understanding had yet been formulated. The technology was relatively ‘raw’, for which reason basic issues surfaced easily that in later days would become much harder to perceive. From a personal point of view I realised through the writing in Text Laboratory I and II that I had learned lessons from these events, which influenced my work in later years profoundly. But I never explicitly formulated or analysed what perceptions had triggered this understanding.

Together with other people, I conceptualised and produced the GHP and the 0+Ball from the context of Paradiso, a musical venue of international reputation that also hosts special conferences with a social and cultural agenda. During the production of these events I put all papers that passed over my desk into folders. This facilitated the collaboration between the different people who were involved in the production. In these folders many personal notes, contracts, reports of meetings, sketches, correspondence and financial details are to be found. In hindsight the twelve folders and two archive boxes, over 2000 documents all together, contain a rich source of original material. This is not a historical study though. I only used this material to shed more light on my research question.

When I eventually did the case studies, only in phase 9 after I had formulated the theoretical background of this study in chapter 2, it turned out to be a real adventure. In the archive boxes there were more than 2000 documents. The confrontation between the recollections that I recorded in the stories and the original material triggered many more insights than I had expected. I realise with hindsight that because I had previously formulated my memories and perceptions they had a pre–defined influence on the analysis of the original material, which also made the analysis surprising to me. For this reason, the researcher today has more distance from the actor I was at the time. By formulating my personal perceptions before analysing the data, my personal involvement had less influence because the stories from Text Laboratory I and II had become data as well. I had not previously realised the effect that the use of the methodology of techno–biography provides. The distance between the former self and the current researcher increased because the former self was properly addressed. Because it was addressed, the shape and colours of the former self were defined and therefore its influence was known and could be analysed. The stories from Text laboratory I and II inspired the “Reflections” that I wrote after every case in chapter 3 and 4 as well as having informed the proposal I make in chapter 6.

Text Laboratory III, on the thinking of the actor, had a different dynamic. In this Text Laboratory I focused on my understanding of myself as actor through the years and confronted this with literature. The two networked events that I analysed were highlights in my career and as a producer I have learned a lot from them. This Text laboratory inspired the perspectives of analysis of the cases that I present in chapter 5 as well as informing the proposal that I describe in chapter 6.

The very act of describing a case already includes analysis. As much as emergence is involved, what is described is of course determined by the research question. But because the ‘dense’ descriptions of the cases allow for many detailed insights, I decided to conduct a second round of analysis. In chapter 5 I consciously match patterns and confront different explorations and explanations with each other. I needed to do this to extract more clear conclusions, which would help to give me a better understanding of the research question. I needed to find out whether the theoretical framework I had built in chapter 2, would actually work when applied to the case studies. Because of the work in Text Laboratory III, I decided to undertake this analysis according to three perspectives: the perspective of presence, the perspective of collaboration and the perspective of the actor. The normative character of this study in particular was addressed through this analysis. It clarified the motivation as well as the implications for the proposal that I make in chapter 6 to be aware of the specific relationship between time, place, action and the person, people or systems that one is communicating with and consciously design the YUTPA, this specific relationship, in every product or process in such a way that the human dignity of all the human beings involved is respected.

Some conclusions may sound trivial to certain professionals who work in the field of information and communication technologies. I choose to include those conclusions because information and communication technologies have become so embedded in many areas of everyday life that we often do not realise the obvious. Presence as a phenomenon is easily taken for granted. Because I am concerned with the design of presence I also want to include the obvious, because choices are made ‘in the obvious’ too.

Communication processes between people are defined by a pattern of the presence and absence of their natural and mediated presences. The fact of whether natural or mediated presence is witnessed influences the way natural and mediated presences function. Natural presence is defined by being alive and being able to act. Following the work of Damasio (2000), and Riva, Waterworth and Waterworth (2004) we can distinguish between three layers of consciousness. Each layer of consciousness also uses the sense of presence to survive. The sense of presence helps to distinguish between what is real and what is not real.
But meanwhile we are developing technologies that intentionally confuse this sense of presence and affect the perception and range of action of a human being in his or her natural presence. Other ‘confusers’ like drugs, fraud and propaganda have been deconstructed, presence design has not yet been deconstructed in such a manner.

Before describing the cases I will first sketch the context in which they were conceived. Each case study is what I will call a networked event. A networked event is an event in which people gather physically in a place and in which online communication facilitated by Internet technology and other information and communication technologies play an important role. In the online environment other people who are not present in the physical location, can participate, and/or the people present can also connect in non-physical ways. Such environments became possible with the rise of the Internet. In the development of these new formats insights from art and technology, from entertainment and from the social sciences played an important role. Firstly, new collaborations evolved in art and technology and entertainment events, between artists and people who could make the technology work. Designers, programmers and hardware engineers have to collaborate to enable such work to be created. In the case studies that I present in this chapter and in chapter 4, these kinds of 'first-time collaborations' took place, in which art, technology and the individuals who presented the social agenda were required to work together. Both the Galactic Hacker Party and the Seropositive Ball took place within the cultural context of Amsterdam. These events were part of the public domain. They were produced and hosted by Paradiso, a musical venue in the centre of Amsterdam with an established international reputation.

The two events are well documented in the sense that the proceedings were made available based on the audio material (Riemens 1989, Riper et al. 1990). Paradiso and Hack-Tic published the first edition of the proceedings of the GHP in 1989. Village Design Inc. in San Francisco (USA) published the second edition of these proceedings, also in 1989 (Riemens 1989). An impression of the Seropositive Ball was published by the Centre for Innovation and Cooperative Technology at the University of Amsterdam (Riper et al 1990).

Around 1000 people took part in each of the events. Each event used on and offline communication in connection with one another. The two cases took place before the Internet became commercial, they occurred before the 'dotcom' hype, before millions of people went online. They were exploration events. On both occasions it was a first-time shared experience for many people present.

Because I have approached the case studies from the perspective of 'producing multiple presences', I have asked close collaborators of the time to review the work presented here. Key-informants for the Galactic Hacker Party, which will be discussed in this chapter, were Rop Gonggrijp, Patrice Riemens and Jan Dietvorst. Rop Gonggrijp and Patrice Riemens co-produced the event with me as external partners and I will introduce them later. Jan Dietvorst is the colleague from Paradiso who was specifically involved in the networked events to be discussed. Because I will also discuss Paradiso's methodology, I asked Jan Willem Sligting, a former colleague who at the time was, and still is, the musical artistic director, and also Pierre Ballings, the current executive director of Paradiso, to comment specifically on the section about Paradiso.

At the end of January 1989 the editors of the GHP, Rop Gonggrijp, Patrice Riemens, Marieke Nelissen^{note 99} and myself decided to go ahead and create a large computer show in the summer. Possible guests and partners were identified, possible sponsors as well. At the end of March two press releases were sent out into the world, one for the GHP and one for ICATA'89. On the 29th of March a first posting was done by Hack-Tic on NEABBS^{note 100} announcing the Galactic Hacker Party.

The language of the two announcements, including the "Force must be nurtured (... ) Spread the byte" and the "desk-top publishing of transactions", reflects the atmosphere of the time.

The 0+Ball was organized with many partners and it had a variety of issues it wanted to address, as will become clear later. The programme for the 0+Ball is included in appendix 4. The source material on which this case study is based consists of The Proceedings, published by the Center for Innovation and Cooperative Technology (CICT) at the University of Amsterdam, and 8 Personal Folders that were used by the organizers during the production of the 0+Ball. They are labelled: before the 1st of May, personal letters, correspondence IN/OUT, Caroline, 0+Network, Workshops and Debates, Fold and Follow UP and Documentation. The Personal Folders are rather chaotically archived and contain all kinds of material, which is no surprise because a number of people worked with them. Apart from all this written and printed documentation there is my own techno-biographical layer of perception because I was the producer of the event. An historical account that attempts to understand the significance of an event like the 0+Ball would also have to analyse the archives of all the partners involved and interview many people. Since I am exploring the design of presence in this case study I will only work with the above mentioned material. As a social scientist I will argue, in choosing this case study, that it was a moment of significance in the history of presence design. As Heleen Riper, one of the key-informants of this case study formulated it, the 0+Ball offered a multimedia mix 'avant la lettre'. Key-informants, who have reviewed this case study report, are Heleen Riper, David Garcia and Annette Verster. Both Heleen Riper, who was connected to the Centre for Collaborative Technology at the University of Amsterdam in 1990, and David Garcia, who was an independent visual artist in 1990, were co-producers of the 0+Ball. Annette Verster, who was connected to the GG&GD, the Health Service Amsterdam, collaborated with us as participating organization.^{note 132}

Today the AIDS crisis has reached a previously unthinkable scale. In the global Report UN AIDS 2006 it is stated that nearly 40 million people around the world carry the HIV virus (www.unaids.org). This is 50% more than was expected by the WHO in 1991. More than 3 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses in the year 2005, of which 500,000 were children. Since the outbreak of the epidemic at end of the 1970s over 25 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses. Over 15 million children have become orphans because one or both of their parents have died.^{note 135}

In 2006 there is still no cure, but when people use medication every day life expectancy should be normal. It has become a chronic condition. However, drugs cost money and poor people cannot afford them. The social disruption caused by so many young people dying of AIDS, and so many children becoming orphans, only seems to be getting worse.
"I feel angry, I feel distressed, I feel helpless to live in a world where we have the means, we have the resources, to be able to help all these patients what is lacking is the political will.(Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, 2003)."note 136

The programme as well as the proceedings bore the following text on the front page as an opening:
"The Seropositive Ball is presented by PARADISO Amsterdam in a continuous programme of 69 hours between June 21 17.00 hrs and June 24 14.00 hrs, in cooperation with TIME BASED ARTS, CICT/ University of Amsterdam, ACT UP Amsterdam / New York / San Francisco, HIV Vereniging NL, Schorerstichting, Buddy League, NCAB, Ministerie van WVC, AIDS info, ANTENNA, Mozeshuis, STEIM, Stichting Perdu, Filmtheatre Desmet, Bookshop Vrolijk, Academisch Medisch Centrum Amsterdam, Cornell Hospital New York, Simon Watson Project Space, Gay Men's Health Crisis, ACT NOW, 69 HOURS, VIth International Conference on AIDS. With the kind cooperation of Apple Computers BV."
In the reflection on the 'crucial network', I will discuss why such a broad spectrum of collaborations made sense to me in this case.^{note 185}

The actor experiences multiple presences, each of which plays their role in communication processes. The natural presence of the actor is the factor of distinction in these interaction processes, even when mediated presence offers a deep experience. It is in natural presence that catharsis takes place.

In mediated presence, processes of attribution and developed media schemata play a role in how actors understand what they experience. The psychological state that an actor is in influences these perceptions, just as in natural presence. But because in mediated presence the context of the interaction is defined by the connection, instead of by a surrounding culture that is embodied in place and time, the psychological influence has more impact. Social structures and the understanding of mediated presence, through the development of media schemata, influence how actors experience mediated presence socially. Witnessed presence functions as a catalyst in natural and also in mediated presence.

Through practices of contextual reflexivity actors improve and change their ways of operating. Contextual reflexivity requires the embodied presence of all actors involved. The gathering of the crucial network around a certain issue has to occur in natural presence when discussing 'What to do?', which implies 'What would be good to do?', because this requires ethical reflections, and for these physical presence is a prerequisite. In mediated presence only opinions are exchanged.

For the accomplishment of an act, an actor is dependent on the work of other actors. When collaborating, incommensurability between practices is a factor that has to be overcome for acts to be successful. Actors share terrains of incommensurability and terrains of commensurability. Project management, meta-cognitive skills, boundary objects and practices of contextual reflexivity help in this.

In communities of practice, taxonomies are built which represent conceptual schemes that define how actors act. The taxonomy shapes the actor and the actor shapes the taxonomy. Acting influences brain structures, which influence acting. Actors recognize other actors' conceptual schemes.

An act cannot be true or false. It is the result of the being-in-the-world that a taxonomy provides. Taxonomies evolve from, and are a fundament of, communities of practice. Taxonomies, including lexicon and conceptual schemes, cannot function outside this community; the community is the world. In the community the actor operates in, multiple mediated presences contribute to the evolving taxonomies, which influence and are a consequence of the way actors inter-act. Mediated presence contributes to the evolving taxonomies in communities in which witnessed presence plays a crucial role.

Consistency in an actor's behaviour is influenced by the clash between intention and realization. The effect of such clashes in natural presence have most impact because the conatus, the quest for well-being and survival, operates on all levels of the organism of the human being, who is trying to regulate constantly towards homeostasis. The brain constantly distinguishes between what is beneficial for life and what is detrimental to life. Physical and cognitive sensations and understanding are involved.

The 'conatus' triggers a human being to take care of him or herself, and it also triggers the human being to take care of 'other selves' to keep the environment healthy and safe. The individual's drive for survival is also the fundament for ethical behaviour towards others. Emotions and feelings are crucial indicators of where well-being and survival are to be found. People steer away from pain, trying to restore the homeostasis. People steer away from unhappiness, trying to make things better. Social conventions and ethical rules may be seen as extensions of the basic homeostatic arrangements at the level of society and culture (Damasio 2004). The UDHR can be seen as a tool for the well-being and survival of humankind.

In mediated presence concepts of causality change because the connection provides the context. The context that a place with an embedded culture offers has disappeared. Context, and especially local and implicit knowledge, can hardly be mediated. Consistency in identity requires special attention when in mediated presence. The question is how social emotions like compassion, empathy, shame, guilt and others, evolve in mediated presence. To be able to act upon emotions and feelings that are sensed, can be highly problematic in mediated presence because one is bound to the formats that the technology and the editorial design offer.

Because mediated presence offers limited sensorial input, limited mediation of context, and limited possibilities to act, it increases the moral distance between an actor and his or her acts. As a result a moral distance is adopted towards the well-being and survival of the self and it is adopted towards the well-being and survival of other people as well.

In the next chapter I will elaborate further upon how the different information and communication technologies facilitate the adoption of moral distance in order to formulate the initial sketches of a conceptual framework that will help to more consciously design respect for human dignity and the building of trust between people via the technologies they use.

In this section, I return to trust as such. In chapter 1 I wrote that the title of this dissertation "Presence and the Design of Trust" reflects the inspiration as well as the outcome of the research that is presented here. I focused on the design of presence and when writing stories in the text laboratory in an act of parresia, I found that trust and trustworthiness appeared to be an important issue in the experiences I had. Because I did not want to deal with two 'fuzzy' concepts, presence and trust, I decided to make trust operational by using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a normative point of reference for the quality of social interaction. In this study I argue that natural presence is a tool for well-being and survival. Information and communication technologies facilitate a transcending of time and place by mediating presence and permit a different scale of tracking and tracing and a different scale in collecting and distributing of information and communication than natural presence facilitates. Doing so, information and communication technologies also facilitate the taking of a moral distance, because of the way presence is designed through these technologies. As a result, I argued that when taking a moral distance, the care for well-being and survival is seriously jeopardized. This finding resonates with the fact with the insights in research about trust so far. Even though I do not elaborate on the research into trust as such, I shortly sketch some findings about trust hereunder to give an impression of the relation between well-being and trust as it is argued from a variety of perspectives in research about trust.

From a sociological perspective distinctions are made about how trust as s social phenomenon supports a variety of social structures. Fukuyama makes a distinction between high trust and low trust societies. He argues that in high trust societies with strong family structures and shared belief systems and religion, there is more well-being than in low trust societies (Fukuyama 1995).

With the Internet and the new technologies new issues about trust surface. Since the 6th framework was established in 2004 also the European Commission funds research into trust and several universities, including MIT and Stanford, have established special research groups into trust. One of the participants in the EU program is the research group "Trust: Theory and Technology" (T3) of the Italian National Research Council in Rome. T3 is founded in 2003 and wants to develop a theory of trust because, as they write on their website, "Trust plays a great role in modelling interaction social concepts (such as commitment, delegation, conflicts, etc.) and macro-social concepts (such as dependence networks, market, organization, group, collaboration, etc.)." (Trust: Theory and Technology, 2006). On the website of this research group one can find a collection of publications presenting models and first explorations about trust as a socio-cognitive phenomenon that influences deeply how we interact.

In management theory and social network theory trust also surfaced as an issue of importance. "Trust serves to enhance effective communication and increase productivity within an organization. Relationships based on trust allow transaction costs go down because there is no need for either party to be wary of one another", as is argued by Karen Stephenson and cited in an article written by Art Kleiner about Stephenson's "Quantum Theory of Trust" (Kleiner 2002). According to Kleiner Stephenson has developed measuring models and algorithms with which she analyzes how an organization operates, specifically from the perspective of trust. " "People have at their very fingertips, at the tips of their brains, tremendous amounts of tacit knowledge, which are not captured in our computer systems or on paper," says Professor Stephenson. "Trust is the utility through which this knowledge flows." " (Kleiner 2002).

With this study I contribute to the research about trust by arguing that the design of presence influences the way trust potentially builds or breaks down. Because we have created and are creating new configurations of time and place in social interaction, we are also creating new configurations for the design of trust and distrust as well. When I translate the findings of this study to the design of trust, I argue that there are two other dimensions, next to time and place, that are distinct in social interaction and the way these dimensions relate is a factor of significance for the building up or the breaking down of trust.

You / not-You
The way I relate to the person, organization or system that I communicate with defines how I will understand what happens. In natural presence this relation is influenced by the context that a certain place at a certain time provides. In mediated presence, the context is provided by the connection itself. The relation between the interacting actors defines the context for the understanding of a social interaction. Witnessed presence is catalyst both in natural as well as in mediated presence. Trust builds or breaks down in series of moments of social interaction. Trust influences how the relation will evolve as well as that the relation influences how trust evolves over time. In chapter 2 I distinguished between You and not-You, between people we are in relation with (family, neighbours, colleagues etc.) and the people we are not in relation with. The You/not-You dimension is a qualifying factor for trust. Not only it determines whether and how people socially interact, it also defines what trust can build up or break down as became clear in both the case studies that I describe. I suspect that the processes of attribution, synchronization and adaptation, that makes mediated presence acceptable, influence how trust and delegations of trust develop as well.

Do / not-Do
Through analyzing the effect of taking a moral distance I became aware of the fact that being able to act, to do or not to do, and to receive feedback on these actions, is crucial for being able to take care of one self and others. I suspect that the capacity to act is crucial for the building up or breaking down of trust as well. When discussing the larger technological structures that millions of people use every day, delegation of trust is an important issue. How such delegation becomes trustworthy I will not discuss here. This study, that took the variety of presences as its starting point, clearly concluded that natural presence is distinct. Natural presence needs trustworthy vital information upon which it will be possible to act. Also larger structures for delegation of trust will have to honour this strive for well-being and survival and in this strive the possibility to act and receive feedback upon one's actions is distinct. Therefore I argue that a fourth dimension is crucial for the design of presence and for the design of trust. This is the dimension of Do/not-Do. I call this possibility to act a dimension because the new technologies create new ways of acting as well. Especially when delegating trust, it is possible to act in other times and at other places. The issue of what qualifies as a deed (are words deeds?) and how deeds that are the result of a delegation of trust to other people or technology can be related to the actor who started a series of events, is beyond this study and requires a lot of further research. When designing presence and when designing trustworthy interactions, the possibility to act, to do or not-do and to receive feedback upon one's actions is a factor of distinction for an actor involved.

The design of presence, which at the first glance facilitates a transcending of time and place, also influences how we relate to others and how we can act. Through this study I realize that dimensions of You/not-You and Do/not-Do are as significant, when designing presences in social interaction, as dimensions of time and place. As a result of the four dimensions of time, place, action and the other, create certain trust configurations while they exclude others. How these four dimensions relate creates the ground on which trust can be build or not.