Gibson’s fiction both embraces the potential of technology for undermining traditional categories and, at the same time, encodes a nostalgic longing for the stable identities produced by these very categories. This study will show how William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy blends high-tech and myth in order to articulate an oxymoronic tension between possessed and possessive individualism. This oxymoronic tension is expressed through Gibson's literary production of two particular technologies: the cyborg and the net. This study will interrogate these two literary constructs in Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy in order to show how they impinge on ideas of signification, subjectivity, and identity.
At a glance
- Applies Žižek’s reading of Lacan and Baudrillard’s theories of simulation
- Examines holography, simstim and the matrix as interconnected fictional technologies
- Examines Case and Molly’s one-way simstim link in Neuromancer
- 35 sources in the bibliography
Table of Contents
1. ABSTRACT
2. INTRODUCTION
2.1 TECHNOLOGICAL MYTHS AND MYTHICAL TECHNOLOGIES
2.2 MYTHS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL SUBJECT: THE CYBORG AND THE NET
3. VIRTUAL REALITIES AND MYTHS OF THE HUMAN SUBJECT
3.1 POSSESSED INDIVIDUALS AND POSSESSIVE TECHNOLOGIES
3.2 THREE FACETS OF ONE NET: HOLOGRAPHY, SIMSTIM, AND THE MATRIX
4. CYBORGS AS POSSESSED OR POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALS?
5. CONCLUSION
Aims and Themes
This dissertation investigates how William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy combines mythology and technology to explore human and posthuman subjectivity. It asks how the cyborg and the net challenge established categories of identity while sustaining a tension between individual control over technology and technological control over the individual.
- Myth and technological culture in cyberpunk fiction
- Virtual reality, simulation and the symbolic order
- Holography, simstim and cyberspace
- Cyborg bodies, commodities and gender
- Possessive and possessed individualism
- Science fiction, horror and narrative form
Excerpt from the Book
Possessed Individuals and Possessive Technologies
Gibson’s work registers many of the contemporary anxieties about a self that loses its grip on technology and thereby falls under its sway. These fears, also prevalent in contemporary theory, centre around what Arthur Kroker calls “the possessed individual” – the individual that is possessed by technology:
[A]n invasive power where life is enfolded within the dynamic technological language of virtual reality. Virtual reality? That is the recoding of human experience by the algorithmic codes of computer wetware. No longer alienation, reification or simulation as stages in a technological dialectic of social emancipation and human domination, but virtuality now as the dominant sign of contemporary technological society. Indeed, virtual reality – the world of digital dreams come alive – is what the possessed individual is possessed by (Kroker 1992:2).
The word “possessed” is quite telling for it alludes to the notion of the possessive individual which underlies the Western liberal conception of subjectivity that hinges on ownership of the self. In her How we became Posthuman N. Katherine Hayles shows how recent developments in cybernetics, AI, and cognitive science undermine notions of the liberal humanist subject and give rise to new posthuman forms of subjectivity:
The posthuman subject is an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction. [...] [T]he presumption that there is an agency, desire, or will belonging to the self and clearly distinguished from the ‘wills of others’ is undercut in the posthuman [...] (Hayles 1999:3).
The shift from human to posthuman subjectivity also corresponds to the shift from modernity to postmodernity. Gibson maps these shifts onto his narratives. His fiction seems to oscillate between the depiction of individuals possessed by technology and the reassertion of the traditional notion of the possessive individual that exerts control over technology. His narratives code the tension between the possessed and the possessive individual, or between the human and the posthuman, as two different forms of myth: the myth of individuals “controlling their destiny, fighting for sovereignty in a world of technology and giant corporations” and the myth of a ubiquitous simulational space that becomes conscious and seeks to exert full control over human beings (Kellner 1995:308, 314). Ultimately, these two fantasies only serve to mask the maybe altogether more disconcerting fact that there is no “real self” behind the fleeting appearances generated by simulation technologies – that the subject of enunciation is the void. Or, on the other hand, might this deconstruction of the fiction of a “real self” not also open up new configurations of identities – identities that are no longer embedded in and generated by rigid dichotomies. As will become clear in the course of this study, Gibson’s fiction enacts a sort of oxymoronic tension between an enthusiastic embrace of technology’s potential for emancipatory practices and a kind of nostalgia for a time when there still was such a thing as a stable sense of self.
Chapter Summaries
ABSTRACT: The abstract presents the study’s focus on myth, technology and the tension between possessed and possessive individualism.
INTRODUCTION: The introduction situates Gibson’s trilogy within cyberpunk and establishes the theoretical framework for examining myth, technology, the net and the cyborg.
VIRTUAL REALITIES AND MYTHS OF THE HUMAN SUBJECT: This chapter examines holography, simstim and the matrix through questions of simulation, identity and control. It also considers the mythical entities that inhabit Gibson’s cyberspace.
CYBORGS AS POSSESSED OR POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALS?: This chapter explores technologically altered bodies, commodity culture and the cyborg as a figure of both empowerment and vulnerability.
CONCLUSION: The conclusion considers the trilogy’s mixture of science fiction, horror and detective fiction alongside its narrative techniques and representations of technology.
Keywords
William Gibson, Sprawl Trilogy, cyberpunk, mythology, technology, posthumanism, subjectivity, cyborgs, cyberspace, virtual reality, simulation, possessive individualism, possessed individualism, narrative form
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the dissertation about?
It examines the relationship between myth, technology and subjectivity in William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy.
What are its central themes?
Its central themes include cyborg bodies, virtual realities, simulation, identity and the tension between human agency and technological control.
What is the primary research question?
The study asks how Gibson’s representations of the cyborg and the net affect ideas of signification, subjectivity and identity.
What scholarly method does the author use?
The author uses theoretical literary analysis, reading the novels alongside psychoanalytic and cultural theory, particularly Žižek’s interpretation of Lacan and Baudrillard’s ideas about simulation.
What does the main analysis cover?
It examines virtual technologies and their mythical associations before turning to cyborg bodies, commodity culture and individual agency.
Which keywords characterize the work?
Key terms include cyberpunk, posthumanism, mythology, cyberspace, cyborgs, simulation and subjectivity.
Which technologies are discussed in the chapter on virtual realities?
The chapter considers holography, simulated stimulation or simstim, and the matrix as interconnected forms of virtual experience.
How does the dissertation approach the cyborg?
It treats the cyborg as a hybrid figure through which to examine the boundaries between bodies and machines, as well as competing ideas of control and vulnerability.
What role does genre play in the discussion?
The conclusion considers how Gibson combines features of science fiction, horror and detective fiction, drawing in part on Timo Siivonen’s concept of generic oxymoronism.
- Quote paper
- M.A. Markus Kienscherf (Author), 2004, Myth, Technology, and the (Post)Human Subject in William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/47020
