Prefiguring cyberculture : an intellectual history / senior editor, Darren Tofts ; editors, Annemarie Jonson and Alessio Cavallaro.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Tofts, Darren.

Jonson, Annemarie.

Cavallaro, Alessio.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Technological innovations--History.

Technological innovations.

History.

Information technology--Social aspects.

Information technology.

Technology and civilization.

Physical Description:

xiv, 322 pages : color illustrations ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press ; Sydney : Power Publications, 2002.

Summary:

The vast social apparatus of the computer network has aligned people with technology in unprecedented ways. The intimacy of the human-computer interface has made it impossible to distinguish technology from the social and cultural business of being human. Cyberculture is the broader name given to this process of becoming through technological means. This book shows that cyberculture has been a long time coming. In Prefiguring Cyberculture, media critics and theorists, philosophers, and historians of science explore the antecedents of such aspects of contemporary technological culture as the Internet, the World Wide Web, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, virtual reality, and the cyborg. The contributors examine key texts that anticipate cybercultural practice and theory, including Plato's "Simile of the Cave;" the Renalssance Ars Memoria; Descartes' Meditations (on the mind-body spilt) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Alan Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," Philip K. Dick's "Man, Androld, and Machine," William Gibson's Neuromancer; and Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future. A number of recognized new media artists also explore how cybercultural themes have been taken up and critiqued in the electronic arts.

Contents:

Introduction: On Mutability 2

Section 1 I. Robot: Al, Alife and Cyborgs 7

On Rene Descartes' Meditations

Synthetic Meditations: Cogito in the Matrix / Erik Davis 12

On Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

The Instruments of Life: Frankenstein and Cyberculture / Catherine Waldby 28

On Alan Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"

Imaginable Computers: Affects and Intelligence in Alan Turing / Elizabeth Wilson 38

On Norbert Wiener and Cybernetics

Marrying the Premodern to the Postmodern: Computers and Organisms After WWII / Evelyn Fox Keller 52

On Philip K. Dick's "Man, Android and Machine"

Cassandra Among the Cyborgs, or, the Silicon Termination Notice / Samuel J. Umland, Karl Wessel 66

On Donna Haraway's "Manifesto for Cyborgs"

Cyberquake: Haraway's Manifesto / Zoe Sofoulis 84

Section 2 Virtuality: Webworlds and Cyberspaces 105

On Plato's "Simile of the Cave" From The Republic

Reality Tables: Virtual Furniture / Gregory L. Ulmer 110

On the Renaissance Ars Memoria

Porous Memory and the Cognitive Life of Things / John Sutton 130

On Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man

Becoming Immedia: The Involution of Digital Convergence / Donald F. Theall 142

On Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" From The Illustrated Man

Too Real / McKenzie Wark 154

On William Gibson's Neuromancer

Space for Rent in the Last Suburb / Scott McQuire 166

Section 3 Visible Unrealities: Artists' Statements 181

Rapt / Justine Cooper 188

Softly From the Ruins ... / Francesca da Rimini 190

Espaces Entrelaces: Vr As Poiesis / Char Davies 192

Mapping the Digital Realm / Troy Innocent 194

Self Portraits From the Inside / Stephen Jones 196

Turbulence: An Interactive Museum of Unnatural History / Jon McCormack 198

Traces / Simon Penny 200

Life in the Media Landscape / Patricia Piccinini 202

Avatars and the Internet: Alternate, Intimate and Involuntary Experiences / Stelarc 204

VNS Matrix / Josephine Starrs, Francesca da Rimini, Julianne Pierce, Virginia Barratt 206

Section 4 Futuropolis: Postmillennial Speculations 209

On Thomas More's Utopia and Francis Bacon's New Atlantis

Internet Dreaming: A Utopia for All Seasons / Margaret Wertheim 216

On Samuel Butler's Erewhon

Butler's Brainstorm / Bruce Mazlish 228

On F.T. Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto

Nowhereseville: Utopia is No-Place / John Potts 240

On Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future

Stranger Than You Think: Arthur C. Clarke's "Profiles of the Future" / Russell Blackford 252

On Alvin Toffler's Future Shock

From Future Shock to Social Foresight: Re-Contextualizing Cyberculture / Richard A. Slaughter 264

On Vernor Vinge's Notion of the "Spike"

Racing Toward the Spike / Damien Broderick 278

Memories of the Future: Excavating the Jet Age at the Twa Terminal / Mark Dery 294.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0262201453

OCLC:

50155493