Neuromancer 'By Katherine Hayles Posthuman': An Analysis
1214 Words5 Pages
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” From this first line here in the book Neuromancer, it takes us into a metaphor comparing technology to something man made. Right from the beginning, it takes us into this technology world that we are surrounded by. We see this theme of Technology and human relationship run throughout the book, especially in the character Case. Case’s character is known for hacking into databases and other technological spaces. While Case is performing these activities, he feels like he is living, almost described as a high or an addiction. Eventually Case is caught with these illegal activities and is caught from his “high.” After this Case describes himself as incomplete without…show more content… As we see in Case, he is addicted to this hacking, and once it is taken from him, he is lost. Case revolved his life around his technology, and without it, he didn’t know how to live. Overall, technology can have great attributes, but on the other hand, it can be dangerous. We need to find a balance. Case’s hacking brings up another issue based on a reading assigned for class. In the reading “How we became Posthuman” by Katherine Hayles, is talking about how information value or so-called body is lost. As we see Case who is easily being able to hack into information, doesn’t this tie into the theme of Hayles work? If people are able to obtain secret information among the Internet, then why have it secret, why is it so important anymore? Hacking is becoming somewhat of normal phenomena among our time, especially in Neuromancer. Hacking is seen and performed among many people, then this dimness the information’s value, since so many people are able to obtain…show more content… Gibson shows us this way of life, one that is surviving off living in a cyberspace world. This world changes who you are, your health, and overall presents a destroyed society and dangerous self-characteristics. This world is based off of an idea of self-survival through in which technology creates this dangerous world. Maybe Gibson wrote this novel in a dystopian mind set to open our eyes about the future. It is a real possibility that technology will become this ruler, I believe it is already happening. This novel was produced in 1984; technologies were just becoming this hype of the time, but now think to 2015. We can see how much technology has grown and impacted our lives in just 31 years. This cyberspace world that Gibson is warning us, is slowly approaching us. This world is dangerous and filled with unhealthy people, a world in which no one wants to live in. We need to stop this formation of this world my decreasing the production new media. In the article “What is New Media” by Lev Manovich, it is presenting us with what new media is and how it is formed. Manovich states “A new media object is subject to algorithmic manipulation.” So in order to stop this formation of new media, we need to stop changing our current objects, which include people as well. Manovich states this act in the reading, “They should be considered not as absolute laws, but rather as general