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Flying through Code/Space: The Real Virtuality of Air Travel

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  • Martin Dodge

    (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7HB, England)

  • Rob Kitchin

    (Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland)

Abstract

Commercial air travel is a key global industry facilitating the complex daily movements of planes, people, goods, and services across the world. In this paper we analyse contemporary air travel through the conceptualisation of a culture of real virtuality. We contend that air travel now consists of passage through ‘code/space’. Such code/space includes travel websites, check-in, security checkpoints, flight decks, air-traffic control, immigration, and customs checkpoints, which together form assemblages that define the practices and experiences of air travel. Code/space is qualitatively different to coded space, in which software influences the production of space, in that code and space are mutually constituted—produced through one another. This mutual constitution is dyadic so that if either the code or space ‘fail’, the production of space ‘fails’. Our formulation of code/space is non-deterministic and nonuniversal, and how code/space operates and is experienced is embodied through the performances and interactions of the people within the space (between people, and between people and code). In this sense, code/space is constantly in a state of becoming. We illustrate the nature of code/space, and the discursive regimes that support its production, and demonstrate how the code/spaces of an air travel are simultaneously local and global and induce Castells' notions of ‘space of flows’ and ‘timeless time’.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin, 2004. "Flying through Code/Space: The Real Virtuality of Air Travel," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(2), pages 195-211, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:36:y:2004:i:2:p:195-211
    DOI: 10.1068/a3698
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Yach, D. & Bettcher, D., 1998. "The globalization of public health, I: Threats and opportunities," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 88(5), pages 735-738.
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    Cited by:

    1. Paul Symonds & David H.K. Brown & Valeria Lo Iacono, 2017. "Exploring an Absent Presence: Wayfinding as an Embodied Sociocultural Experience," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 22(1), pages 48-67, February.
    2. S. Harris Ali & Roger Keil, 2006. "Global Cities and the Spread of Infectious Disease: The Case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Toronto, Canada," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(3), pages 491-509, March.
    3. Emma Uprichard & Roger Burrows & Simon Parker, 2009. "Geodemographic Code and the Production of Space," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(12), pages 2823-2835, December.
    4. Estair Van Wagner, 2008. "The Practice of Biosecurity in Canada: Public Health Legal Preparedness and Toronto's SARS Crisis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(7), pages 1647-1663, July.
    5. Kellerman, Aharon, 2011. "Mobility or mobilities: Terrestrial, virtual and aerial categories or entities?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 729-737.
    6. Julie Cidell, 2017. "Aero-automobility: getting there by ground and by air," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(5), pages 692-705, September.
    7. Sara Safransky, 2020. "Geographies of Algorithmic Violence: Redlining the Smart City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 200-218, March.
    8. Andrew Leyshon, 2009. "The Software Slump?: Digital Music, the Democratisation of Technology, and the Decline of the Recording Studio Sector within the Musical Economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(6), pages 1309-1331, June.
    9. Gilles Puel & Valérie Fernandez, 2012. "Socio-technical Systems, Public Space and Urban Fragmentation: The Case of ‘Cybercafés’ in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(6), pages 1297-1313, May.
    10. Ulysses Sengupta & Mahmud Tantoush & May Bassanino & Eric Cheung, 2020. "The Hybrid Space of Collaborative Location-Based Mobile Games and the City: A Case Study of Ingress," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(4), pages 358-370.
    11. Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin, 2009. "Software, Objects, and Home Space," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(6), pages 1344-1365, June.
    12. Krzysztof Janc, 2015. "Visibility and Connections among Cities in Digital Space," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 3-21, October.

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