William Gibson & the Birth (& Death?) of Cyberspace

William Gibson & Cyberspace

According to Dr. Stewart’s notes (found at Blackboard Academic Suite):

“The term cyberspace was originally used in a short story (entitled “Burning Chrome”) by the Science Fiction writer William Gibson. In the 1984 novel Neuromancer he develops this idea by describing it as:

“A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts...A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..."

Peltola notes that Gibsonian cyberspace has been identified as having four features:

1. It is described with familiar spatial images like cities, buildings etc used as metaphors of social structures;
2. It is made of information, offering great power to those who can manipulate information;
3. Bodiless consciousnesses live there; and
4. It is possible to attain immortality in cyberspace, because there everything is data only.

The classic archetype of Gibson's fiction is the' cowboy'. A cowboy is kind of technologically capable loner-hero who can move about the information of cyberspace as an act of will. This image of pure information and of the lone explorer seem somewhat idealised compared to the current realisations of network computing. However, it is important to note when critically analysing Gibson's description that it was penned in the early 1980s and that it is not a historical account of cyberspace but a work of dystopian fiction.

Barlovian Cyberspace

“In contrast to Gibsonian cyberspace, other commentators have noted another more socially-based model of cyberspace that has come to be known as Barlovian cyberspace. Barlovian cyberspace is name after John Perry Barlow ( the lyricist with the band the Grateful Dead). Barlow is the founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation. In 1996, he issued 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' - mainly in response to the censorship debate surrounding the US's Communication Decency Act - and in this tract he describes a vision of cyberspace in which:

"We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth, We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence of conformity. In our world, whatever human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts. We will create a civilization of the Mind in cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before"

Barlovian cyberspace has been characterised as a free, frontier zone with images that suggest a group of settlers moving into empty, virgin lands much in the image of the films depicting the American Wild West...The Barlovian model is a more social characterisation of cyberspace based on interaction between individuals, in contrast to the informational ideas of Gibsonian cyberspace. Both, however, share the use of spatial metaphors. What Barlow seems to be envisioning is a place with a community with particular and different values existing in cyberspace; not necessarily a nation, but certainly a community.”

A very interesting opinion about the relationship between society and technology is expressed by Neil Postman here:

Myths Of Cyberspace

According to Dr. Stewart’s notes (found at Blackboard Academic Suite):

“Richard Wise noted in 2000 that many of the pioneers of computing made the claim that the widespread adoption of the technology was “an irreversible advance for democracy, community and a decentralised society” (Wise, 2000:38). These claims can be thought of a series of interlocking myths that help to shape society's ideas of the Internet and 'cyberspace'.

The following list is my understanding of these myths.

1. Cyberspace is a place apart, and so not subject to rules that apply to the 'real' world;
2. The technology of the Internet makes it free from control by governments and other non-cyberspace institution so that the internet is borderless and free of constraining factors;
3. The technology of the Internet makes it possible to be anonymous and so free to adopt any identity that you chose on-line;
4. The technology of the Internet will bring about the demise of the nation state;
5. The widespread adoption of the Internet will result in the 'de-massification' of the media;
6. The technology of the Internet is making us more social and helping to foster a new kind of community;
7. The technology of the Internet is bringing about prosperity and well-being based solely on a weightless, 'knowledge-based' economy;
8. We are on the verge of a new political era of computer-mediated democracy;
9. The development of the internet is unique and exceptional in human history and not subject to social forces that characterised the adoption of other important technologies”

The Death of Cyberspace

What do we mean by “Death”? By “Death of Cyberspace” we mean the mix of the boundaries between reality and cyberspace. Nowadays, it is getting more and more difficult to distinguish a real activity from a virtual one. Before now, entering cyberspace was a totally immersive and emotional experience. Nowadays, cyberspace has become a part of our real life and vice versa. As a result of this, the immersive elements of cyberspace are getting lost, so according to Dion Hinchcliffe, the “death of cyberspace” is an emerging term.

On the one hand, I agree with this term, because cyberspace is a part of our everyday life and we use it as an extension of reality but on the other hand, I think that there are many activities inside the cyberspace that can offer an immersive experience. My first thought has to do with virtual communities. Second Life is a wide-spread virtual community and people can participate in a fictional world that offers emotional experiences. So, although virtual communities, such as Second Life, present a completely different environment than the real one and although the user can experience bodiless consciousness, in the end, the illusion of being a part of a real world is created. So, the user starts his “journey” from the real life and ends up to experiencing the illusion of real life, because of the immersive procedure. I don’t know if you would call that “the death of cyberspace” but I would call it the circle of life of cyberspace.

To conclude, the “death of cyberspace”, is, according to my opinion, an existing phenomenon but I think that we have to recognize the fact that technology plays a very important role in our lives, so it may have different forms and shapes that we are not familiar with and that we, still, cannot explain. Virtuality and bodiless consciousness are elements of the cyberspace and, I think, they will always be. It’s for sure that some things will be changing, but there will, always be some functions of cyberspace that will distinguish reality from cyberspace itself and that is happening because cyberspace is reality’s support tool. Cyberspace can imitate reality, it can be incorporated to real life and it can be separated from reality, but it can’t replace reality (but who am I to judge?) .

The Matrix

The movie called “The Matrix” deals with the boundaries between reality and cyberspace. In the movie the reality is the cyberspace and people live in an illusionary, non-existent, fake world, controlled by machines. This movie is a very good example of crossing the boundaries between reality and cyberculture and you can watch a short sample here:

Bodiless consciousness and virtuality

When someone is logged into Second Life or he is talking on the phone or he is reading a book, does he experience the separation between his mind and his body? I believe yes. I know it is not a diplomatic answer but that’s what I believe. I think that, in all these occasions, the user of the media is experiencing virtuality because each image, each spoken word and each written word lead to a virtual environment, different from the one that surrounds us. Imagination helps us “escape” and by “escape” I mean separating the mind from the body and living, just for a while, somewhere else. When we talk on the phone we find it very difficult to control our moves, when we read a book we “escape” to an imaginary world, when we log into Second Life we “live” a second life. So, virtuality and bodiless consciousness have, also, to do with very common things (such as a mobile phone, a TV, a newspaper, a book etc.) and it’s clear that we do not find these two characteristics only in cyberspace, but also in the items we use in our everyday life.

Cheers!