All houses were connected to networks: Roads, Gas, Electricity, Water, Postal Service, Central Urban Heating, Subway, Garbage Collection. Modern support networks that turn the house into a safe, comfortable and practical spot. Almost simultaneously, the house was connected to the networks of the media. Telephone, Radio, Television and Computer networks turn the house into an even more effective base of operations.
 

But they also rupture the safe walls of the house radically. Of course, media have always done that. One who loses himself in a book teleports out of his or her physical environment. Newspapers, radio and television possess that same quality. They are windows onto another world. Often so absorbing that the window metaphor no longer applies. One becomes mentally connected to the media space and consciousness of one's own body and home is temporarily suspended. We have become used to having a couple of channels to media space open simultaneously. Reading the newspaper with the TV on; enjoying a book while a CD plays. Or we mix up home and media: eating in front of the television, vacuuming with the radio on, making love while music is playing.
 

The telephone is another story, as we are not completely displaced into media space. We make contact through it; we speak to others who are absent. And, as opposed to prayer (see the next issue of Mediamatic) we get a clearly audible answer. The other speaks to us and we feel obligated to answer in our turn. Telephone is more engaging than other media, and not so easy to combine with radio or television. We're there in person. When the telephone rings, it's (usually) for us and we have a place of our own in the telephone net. That place corresponds with home. If I don't pick up the telephone, the conclusion at the other end of the line is: He's not home. Or even: He's not there. Many answering machines state that their owner is not at home. At home means my end of the telephone line.
 

We are becoming increasingly connected to interactive networks comparable to the telephone net. Besides my telephone number, I have an e-mail address and a home page on the Web. And a room in a MOO. The MOO is the limit: if I'm not there and someone drops in, I appear to be there. The system says: Willem is asleep.
 

The difference between the old mass media and the new many-to-many networks is that it matters whether the individual participant exists or not. Increasingly, users are forming a virtual spot of their own. An electronic home that supplements our old home: it's a spot that is very closely connected to our identity. A spot where we can be found and which serves as a base of operations. A space we arrange ourselves, where we receive visitors and collect our electronic possessions.
 

At the last Doors of Perception conference, many speakers declared that their laptop computers are their only homes. Today's laptops may be the first primitively fashioned dwellings in cyberspace: for the moment, that kind of avant-garde comments can only be expected of toy-crazy telenomads. But Mediamatic found reason enough to devote this issue to exploration of the theme of home.