Interviewed by Bruce Damer, June 5, 1995, Phillips Redhill,
U.K.
The Digital City is a virtual community based on the World Wide
Web. It was one of the first "Webworlds" using the (then
revolutionary) Webchat and server push technologies. The city
was modeled after Amsterdam and was started by Dutch hackers living
in a tent city. The project grew, got a new Web interface and
great interest from the media, corporate sponsors and many subscribers.
The city is organized around themed town squares having cafes,
chat areas and residential neighborhoods. The neighborhoods and
cafes are filled with people, who represent themselves as icons.
Peculiarly Dutch social issues such as squatting in precious unused
housing are wrapped into the culture. Currently, there are 30,000
subscribed residents, 4,000 visitors a day and 300 people in the
city at a given time. Find and explore the Digital City at http://www.dds.nl
(it is in Dutch but the visual layout will give English readers
a good idea of how a Webworld city is done).
Bruce Damer
Did you start out with the conception of making a virtual copy
of Amsterdam?
Rob van der Haar
It was started as a kind of discussion platform between the local
politics and the public. When it was introduced it was kind of
novel. It was an eye opener for a lot of people. In the first
week it was introduced all the modems in Amsterdam were sold out.
Bruce Damer
Who backed it?
Rob van der Haar
Initially it was going to be a 10 week project and it was to be
abandoned but it was continued. All the subsidies were eventually
stopped and we had to think commercially, so now it is self supporting,
we don't get any subsidies. [ads for Rabobank and IBM can be seen
on the town squares]
Bruce Damer
So you have created a sustained community, Using available simple
technology artfully put together?
Rob van der Haar
Yep
Rob van der Haar
We generated a set of icons [avatars in Webworld terms] and then people started to design their own. People use their icons to identify themselves and link to their own web pages we might generate for them.
[We then look at a digital neighborhood where there is an icon
of Beaker (a character from the TV series "The Muppets")]
Rob van der Haar
Every character I have created has a different text description
with it.
Bruce Damer
What is the Beaker icon for?
Rob van der Haar
Beaker is quite interesting, he was one of the first characters
I created. In the beginning we were experimenting with cafes,
web cafes where you could have different icons for different things
you said. You could type in text and have different icons with
the text. I created about 20 different Beakers doing different
things, one was coming in saying hi, one was leaving saying bye,
Beakers that smiled, Beakers that looked sad. You could enter
your text and then select the icon you wanted.
You can disguise yourself and be anonymous and enter cafes but
cannot post to a newsgroup in your virtual identity. At that time,
webchat was high technology. It is possible in this structure
to have voice chat and 3D.
Bruce Damer
You mentioned that you find an emergent digital archaeology, people
collecting old objects.
Rob van der Haar
Yes, old icons are still being used, the ones we generated automatically.
Bruce Damer
You were talking to us earlier about some of the social events
that have happened, some of the things that surprised you.
Rob van der Haar
The only thing we did was provide a space where you can build
your own house, like your own homepage, and a mechanism where
you could actually "squat" houses that are already inhabited
by other people but they haven't used their house for a long time.
Bruce Damer
Like the Dutch problems with squatters?
Rob van der Haar
Yes, in the old system there wasn't a limit on the number of houses,
but now because we have a graphical net, there was a limit, but
this was for us an interesting mechanism for getting rid of old
information.
Bruce Damer
Like the "ghost town" effect of 3D worlds, where people
build and abandon. Interesting, you have used the social mechanism
of squatting, found in the Netherlands, to solve your problem
of abandoned houses.
Rob van der Haar
Yes, and around the Gay square there are four residential areas
and people have built houses there. But maybe if I am gay I want
to have a house right on the Gay square. I could actually contact
someone living there, and there was a mechanism where you could
actually change houses.
There are gay information services on the square and a kind of
taxi that takes you to other gay information on the web. There
is a webchat café, and gay discussion groups. There are
many other squares like this.
In the beginning the taxis, cafes and discussion groups were owned
by the digital city. But because slowly communities around different
themes emerged, people wanted to have their own café. They
actually had somebody who took care of the design of the interior
and kept the conversation going. This also meant less work for
the organization, all volunteers, running the digital city.
If you have a residential area, there is a local mail system,
everyone can mail to each other on the city square.
Bruce Damer
We have used mailboxes to inform neighbors about loud MIDI music
or an ugly sites in AlphaWorld.
Rob van der Haar
We used the same mechanisms in here. A person had to organize
people around the town square to be able to do their own café.
Bruce Damer
Have any people met in real life?
Rob van der Haar
Moos and IRC channels have sprung up around the digital city to
improve communications.
Bruce Damer
Any closing thought, Rob?
Rob van der Haar
What I sometimes want to happen is that we get rid of all this
technology and we just live more in the real world. The other
theory I have is from the War of the Worlds, where aliens come
to this earth and their technology is so advanced that they don't
have their bodies anymore they just are this brain inside a machine.
If these things continue to happen that might actually happen..
we won't need our physical space anymore and will just end up
a brain inside a machine.
We might need virtual missionaries who show slides about the real
world to bring people back.
Bruce Damer
In the next century, there might be whole schools of social psychology
to help people deprogram.
Rob van der Haar
I think we finally lost the net..
[server goes down at Philips]
end.