This page contains materials
intended to facilitate class discussion
(excerpts from readings, outlines of issues,
links to resources, etc.). The materials
are not necessarily the same as the instructor's
teaching notes and are not designed to represent
a full exposition or argument. This page
is subject to revision as the instructor
finalizes preparation. (Last revised
3/1/04
)
Neuromancer:
How to Survive Postindustrialism
(An Interpretation of the Novel) (continued
from last lecture)
The novel's examples of how not
to live in the postindustrial age: people
who do not hold together as individuals—
"the
sarariman" or "organization
man" (they do not have individuality;
they have positions)
Armitage/Corto, the ultimate organization
man who either has no individual
identity or only a schizo identity
(cf., Pierce Inverarity, Mucho Maas,
or Dr. Hiliarius in Crying of Lot
49)
Tessier-Ashpool clones, who either
have no individual identity or (as in
the case of the senior Ashpool or Lady
3Jane) only perverse individuality (cf.,
Peter Riviera, p. 219)
Wasp
nest as symbol of corporate identity
(p. 126; cf., pods
in The Matrix) vs. the shuriken
as symbol of focused identity
How to be an individual in the postindustrial
age?
Choice. The characters in the
novel who are deficient in individuality
exercise no choice in the face
of the system in which they live, or they
flaunt gratuitous, trivial choice. True
individuality in the novel means making
a "choice" (pp. 51, 79, 167,
192, 244)
Commitment. But also, true
individuality means accepting that one's
freedom is limited. Choice is not unlimited
freedom but commitment. (Cf., role-playing
games)
The Temptation of Pure
Virtuality ("transhuman"
or "posthuman")
Case's initial views on the
"meat" (pp. 6, 52).
Cf., Molly as "meat puppet"
(pp. 147-48).
The
Way of the Meat
from
Dan Josefsson's
interview
with William Gibson
(Nov. 1994), sect.
2:
DJ: The
Internet is one
way to communicate
with lots of people
without using the
body, you just use
your mind. Is cyberspace
a better place to
be than this physical
world?
Gibson: Well,
I don't think so.
There is a tendency
in our culture,
in a broader sense
the western civilization,
to reject the body
in favor of an idea
of the spirit or
the soul. I have
never been entirely
sure that that's
such a good thing,
and in an interesting
way this technology
is pointing in that
direction. One could
imagine a very ascetic
sort of life growing
out of this, where
the body is ignored.
This is something
I've played with
in my books, where
people hate to be
reminded sometimes
that they have bodies,
they find it very
slow and tedious.
But I've never presented
that as a desirable
state, always as
something almost
pathological growing
out of this technology.
Case's sensei of the Meat:
Molly's body sense (pp.
56, 213), her sense of the
way she is "wired"
(pp. 25, 50)
Hideo's zen body sense
(an alternative techno-orientalism)
Case's journey of self-discovery
(pp. 152, 239-40, 262-63)
Neuromancer:
A Redemption of the Postindustrial Corporation?
"corporate"
[Latin corporatus, past participle
of corporareto, make into a body,
from corpus body]
"corporation"
"A body that is granted a charter
legally recognizing it as a separate legal
entity having its own rights, privileges,
and liabilities distinct from those of
its members" (American Heritage
Dictionary)
Gibson's fundamentalist
view of the corporation: a regrounding
of corporate existence in the individual
human body?
A review of the novel's meditations on
the corporate form:
The atavistic clan-corporation using
a technology of computers and cyrogenics:
(pp. 203, 173)
Marie-France Tessier's vision of
a new kind of corporation using a technology
of computers and cloning: (pp. 217,
229)
A review of the "dance" metaphor
in the novel: (pp. 16, 44, 116, 249, 262)
Networked
identity: individuals as nodes in
a networked whole
Postindustrial business,
knowledge work, "Biz"
Ashpool vision of
future corporations
Anti-networking,
ICE
Incestuous, inward
turning identity of the Straylight
Villa
(None)
Tessier vision of
future corporations
Wintermute + Neuromancer
= meta-matrix
Transcendence of
the individual
?
?
Hacking
Zen identity
that includes elements of networked
identity (oneness with others),
incestuous identity (centered),
& transcendent identity. A virus
identity (like Kuang virus).
"Dance of biz"
or "art" of biz (e.g., Hideo,
Case, Molly). Case as "artiste."
Artistic Responses
to Postindustrialism
One
view of the role of art (specifically,
information art) in the postindustrial
age:
From the section
on "The Rebirth of the
Modern" at the end of
Richard Barbrook and Andy
Cameron's "The Californian
Ideology":
"As pioneers of the
new, digital artisans need
to reconnect themselves with
the theory and practice of
productive art. They are not
just employees of others—or
even would-be cybernetic entrepreneurs.
They are also artist-engineers—designers
of the next stage of modernity."
cf., Bauhaus (1
| 2)
and Modernist art and
literature, Ezra Pound's
"make
it new"
In short, artists are creative.
Another
view of the role of art (specifically,
information art) in the postindustrial
age:
The "kung-fu"
hacker:
Case in Neuromancer
(an "artiste"
of "biz" whose
art is hacking and mental
martial arts, p. 262)
"in the 1980s
there emerges into popular
culture the figure of
cyberpunk hacker. I
read the cyberpunk hacker
made popular by novels
like Gibson's Neuromancer
and Stephenson's Snow
Crash, as one who
finds a way to participate
in the design,
disruption and redirection
of the software environment,
even though he or she
has been excluded from
the design team."
In short, not "make it
new" (innovation, creation)
but destruction: break it
open, break it apart. Avant-garde
art as critique.
What is the rationale of contemporary
art and literature? The problem is that
mainstream society in the form of postindustrial
business has taken over the "make
it new" ideology. Postindustrialism
is about "creative destruction,"
with the emphasis on "creativity"
and "innovation"
(Gates
on innovation). (The "chief
innovation officer")
One major option being explored by contemporary
art: "destructive creativity."
Destructive Creativity:
The Case of Viral or Hacker Art
(1) Contemporary digital example: Joseph
Nechvatal's Virus Art
Nechvatal's work in
the 1980s:
Physical-media works that
recombined and recomposed
"found" media
images: "intimately
scaled graphite drawings
comprising saturated, interwoven
line tracings of pictures
culled from newspapers and
magazines" (Barry Blinderman)
Conceptually destructive:"I
tend to degenerate archetypal
media images," Nechvatal
said in 1984. "I rip
off images from the media
. . . then destroy/transform
them in the interests of
unintelligible beauty"
(quoted in Carlo McCormick).
Alluded to the general
destructivity of contemporary
technologies usually feted
for their innovation and
creativity. Nechvatal:
"Images of mass annihilation
wrought by technology now
provide the major context
for our art and our lives.
With profoundly disturbed
psyches, modern people encounter
their existential fear in
the atom, for when technology
relieved much of man's fear
of nature it replaced that
fear with one of technology
itself" (quoted
in Frank Popper).
>Do
you see electronic media
as obscuring communication?
jodi yes/no
ill.communication is ok
,makes good noise
^$%&$%^$%^$^&*&$%$&^(&$^247
(Mark Napier, interview
with Jodi; quoted in Sandra
Fauconnier)
Information art is "hackerly"
"When
a viewer looks at our work,
we are inside his computer.
There is this hacker slogan:
"We love your computer."
We also get inside people's
computers. And we are honored
to be in somebody's computer.
You are very close to a
person when you are on his
desktop. I think the computer
is a device to get into
someone's mind. We replace
this mythological notion
of a virtual society on
the net or whatever with
our own work. We put our
own personality there."
(Baumgärtel, "
'We love your computer'
")
(4) Beyond Auto-Destructive Art:
Critical Art Ensemble
from "Electronic Civil
Disobedience":
"The strategy and tactics
of ECD should not be a mystery
to any activists. They are the
same as traditional CD. ECD
is a nonviolent activity by
its very nature, since the oppositional
forces never physically confront
one another. As
in CD, the primary tactics in
ECD are trespass and blockage.
Exits, entrances, conduits,
and other key spaces must be
occupied by the contestational
force in order to bring pressure
on legitimized institutions
engaged in unethical or criminal
actions. Blocking information
conduits is analogous to blocking
physical locations; however,
electronic blockage can cause
financial stress that physical
blockage cannot, and it can
be used beyond the local level.
ECD is CD reinvigorated. What
CD once was, ECD is now. Activists
must remember that ECD can easily
be abused. The sites for disturbance
must be carefully selected."
Gustav
Metzger (site includes texts
of his "Earth to Galaxies: On Destruction
and Destructivity," "Manifesto
Auto-Destructive Art," "Auto
Destructive Art - Machine Art - Auto
Creative Art," Entartete Kunst,
retrieved 17 Jan. 2001 [site now defunct]
