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Book Review.

Author; William Gibson ‘Neuromancer’ 1984

Publisher; Ace Books, New York

Set in a dystopia future. The main character Chase is an internet hacker, who makes a living breaking into the internet system, stealing money, information or whatever is wanted. He steals from his employer who makes sure he will never be connected to the internet again.

He is then poached for his talents and lands a new employer who reconnects chase back into the system. He also added a slow release chemical to his system that will kill him, but is told that if he completes the task this will be reversed. Chase doesn’t even know if this is true, yet he has no choice to go song with it regardless.

It is believed to be the premise for the film ‘The Matrix’ by the Wachowski brother. The story is not especially exciting to me, though very interesting in its concepts. It is completely fascinating that William Gibson could have predicted how some the future would turn out in 1984 before mobile phones and the World Wide Web. He coined the term Cyberspace. As Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. I can only imagine that the web must have been being developed and his inspiration sparked from this information.

 

It seems that information technology has become the fastest growing market. It is hard to believe that the mobile phone has been around such a short time and google search has only been around since 1997. I remember going on Google search and having no idea what to look for, and often I could not find any information I wanted.

Now at our finger tips information has become instantaneous.  There are certain obvious dangers in new technology, some will not see it and some will see it, they will be concerned or not, but it seems the theme has been talked about for thousands of years if not more, since writings such as Plato’s ‘Allegory of the cave’ (380 and 360 B.C)

What I wonder through reading this material and producing my own art along similar themes, is do we really have free will? Or do we appear to have free will? It seems obvious when you watch a colony of bees or ants that there is a structure that works on its own, the Queen didn’t appoint herself queen, nor did the workers, or the soldiers choose their occupation. Is it the same with humans and could we even survive without the structure that appears to control who we are?