Cyberarium's web site is large. Make no mistake, there is a lot to grasp. Cyberarium and its work are often difficult for people to understand, so here we provide a one shot clue of what it is and how all its elements hang together.

"We are no longer in the information age, we are in the communications age."

First off, it is important to understand that Cyberarium is a kind of place; it is a category for a physical place. Then, there are actual places in the world in the category Cyberarium. This website represents one single Cyberarium located in Syracuse, New York. As far as we know, since we came up with the idea, we are the only operating Cyberarium. If all goes well, our efforts will result in another Cyberarium in Malaysia.

Secondly, it is necesary to see that Cyberarium is about human-computer interface (HCI) research and prototyping for internet based communications technology; simply, an interface is what humans use to interact with a computer (e.g., keyboard, mouse). The purpose for our Cyberarium is to do work inside of it which improves how humans use communications technology, for any purposes. Our hope is to make the world a slightly better place through the unfettered creativity of users being completely and ongoingly involved in the process of conceptualizing, designing and building methods for humans to interact with computers in better, faster, cheaper and more diversely enabling ways; quadreplegic and physically impaired users, for example. Incorporating users with special needs into the work is the essential social dimension of our approach. Tailoring communications interfaces to specific humans with special needs requires that technology developers be in regular interaction with those users. Hence, Cyberarium space allows the social interfacing necessary to meet the needs of growing numbers of subcultures with special computer requirements. In this sense, think of Cyberarium as a technocultural prototyping lab. The lab endeavors to create forward looking, individual empowering ways for conceiving of and implementing cyberculture's future to give as many humans access to it as possible.

Summarizing, our focus on interfacing is two fold

• on the literal interfaces with which humans interact with communications technologies (e.g., keyboards, joysticks etc.)
• the social interfaces with which humans foster relationships to eachother in cyberculture (e.g., enivironments where cybernauts can collectively pose questions reflecting their desires about communications technologies and plan and implement solutions.)

OK. The way we make all of this happen is by putting at least the following elemets and all needed equipment inside of a Cyberarium.

Our mission is to create a workable and easily replicable model for how communications technologies and diverse social needs can be creatively fused in real time without limitations inherent to formal social institutions or technology companies.

In closing, throughout this site you are going to be encountering mainly three phenomena

• innovative interfaces for human computer interaction which are already in use
• applications of our thinking about interfaces to
  • disabled assistive technology
  • educational instruments
  • medical communications for the web
• spaces for work and for social interaction