READING
in the Age of Media, Computers, and Internet
CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
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INTERNET: AGAINST THE SIGNATURE
Institution of signature turns into illegitimate in thzzse virtual reality. In case of need, password (a pet's name, for example) is what proves an identity, confirms a name in the Net.
The signature verifies through its visibility, whereas the password is effective through its invisibility.
The keyboard and the mouse can't reproduce the unique gesture of the hand establishing the relation between the name and its owner. We can write on the computer but we can't put our signature under the written text. Hence the disadvantage of the e-mail: it can't be used directly for sending official (endorsed) documents. In a sense, it is the line of the signature that marks the boundary between the virtual and the real.
Signature (according to Derrida) presupposes the previous or the empirical absence of the signed person (author). In the same time it keeps his/her past presence in the transcendental form of the present. Password remains valid only during the interval of staying on-line. It does not transcend the presence of the user.