Abstract
Science-Fiction is not only a resource for potentialities of possible futures, but also serves as an archive of past futures and their contemporary reflections on social changes. Within the estranged worlds of the narrations, the authors present the contemporary imaginaries of how society should (or should not) develop in the future. William Gibson’s Neuromancer is an important example of this archive. In a dizzyingly detailed description, Gibson depicts a dystopian future dominated by the prevailing irritations and common uncertainties about the future caused by the all-encompassing changes of the 1980s, a decade in which western societies were entering an era of late capitalism with new global market structures and the embedding of new technologies in the everyday life on a unprecedented scale. Within his world Gibson extrapolates the technological potentialities of new and emerging digital technologies like virtual reality, artificial intelligence and a digital Cyberspace, which is similar to what is today known as the internet, and lays out the implicit sociotechnical imaginaries of his generation. Reciprocally, his novel fostered and distributed the structure of feeling of the ‘80s on a larger scale, as it became one of the pioneer works of the emerging Cyberpunk movement—an influential vision of the future of outgoing twentieth century. This essay is exploring the sociotechnical imaginaries by analyzing the role of new technologies within the power structures of Neuromancers storyworld.
“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts … A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.” (Gibson 2016, p. 59)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
It was his debut novel and also the first novel that won each of the three major awards in SF (Hugo Award, Nebula Award & Philip K. Dick Award).
- 2.
The term was coined by Gibson and first introduced in a short story called “Burning Chrome” (Gibson 1982).
- 3.
Console Cowboys stands for an archetype of a hacker.
- 4.
Officially known as the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis; an urban area that developed along the east coast of the United States and merges all major cities between Boston and Atlanta. Geodetic domes cover parts of the Sprawl, which hinders the residents from experiencing the natural day-night cycle and the weather. As describe in the fandom glossary of the universe: “Before dawn the geodesics are lightening into gray and then pink” (“The Sprawl”), which also explains the famous first lines in the book: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” (Gibson 2016, p. 1).
- 5.
Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics is a spatial firewall that protects sensible data and computer systems: “Ice patterns formed and reformed on the screen as he probed for gaps, skirted the most obvious traps, and mapped the route he’d take through Sense/Net’s ice. It was good ice. Wonderful ice. … Its rainbow pixel maze was the first thing he saw when he woke. He’d go straight to the deck, not bothering to dress, and jack in. He was cutting it. He was working. He lost track of days.” (Gibson 2016, p. 67).
- 6.
The pages referenced are from the 2016 version of Neuromancer published with Gollancz.
- 7.
Cyberpunk emerged in the 1980s around authors like Lewis Shiner, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. The term itself stems from Bruce Bethke’s short story “Cyberpunk” (1983) and was used by Dozois, a science fiction publisher, to describe this collection of young authors. The label was highly controversial, as Suvin says: “Perhaps it might be more useful to say that there is the writer William Gibson, and then there are a couple of expert PR men (most prominently Sterling himself) who know full well the commercial value of an instantly recognizable label.” (Suvin 1991, p. 365).
- 8.
The first era started with “Blade Runner” (Scott 1982) and ended with “The Matrix” (Wachowskis 1999), which was the official moment where the movement became mainstream. In literature, this moment was reached with Stephenson’s ironic approach to the genre in his novel “Snow Crash” (Stephenson 1992). Afterwards the second era, called post-cyberpunk (Kelly and Kessel 2007b), began and created a vast number of different x-punk derivates (e.g. Steampunk, Biopunk, and others).
- 9.
- 10.
As for example the “Metaru Gia”-series by Hideo Kojima, first release in 1987.
- 11.
- 12.
Strauss (2006) says: “This means talking, not about ‘the imaginary of a society’, but of people’s imaginaries. This person-centered approach recognizes the importance of learned cultural understandings but does not take ‘culture’ to be a fixe entity assumed to be held in common by a geographically bounded or self-identified group” (Strauss 2006, p. 323).
- 13.
This also connects to the differentiation between “present futures” and “future presents” (Luhmann 1990). “Future presents” describes a specific state of affairs later than now, which for obvious reasons does not offer any empirical data to observe. On the other hand, “present futures” refers to current images of the future, which are part of the current social reality and by that can be observed in discourses and actions already in the present. This sociological turn towards future (in future studies also known as critical future studies) therefore shifts the focus from “Looking into the future” to “Looking at the future” (Brown, et al. 2000).
- 14.
Zero world meaning the contemporary context of the author at the time he/she wrote the story. Or as Suvin puts it: the “empirically verifiable properties around the author.” (Suvin 1972, p. 377).
- 15.
The term Transmedia Storytelling (Jenkins 2007) describes how the story world extends beyond a single story and spreads across different media formats. It also crosses the area between the fictional and the real. In reference to Stuart Hall, Jenkins points out that pop culture has power, i.e. it creates a public sphere of imagination from which actors can draw new narratives to feedback into the discourse. This happens not only in the NEST discourses, but also in socio-political struggles of minorities who want to define their status in a society (see Jenkins 2020). The recent examples of women marching in costumes from the Storyworld of Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” (1985) are illustrating this case.
- 16.
Understood here as the deliberate process of creating a storyworld.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
as in Atwoods “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Atwood 1985).
- 20.
as in climate fiction like “New York 2140” (Robinson 2018).
- 21.
Text is here understood beyond literature but rather as the content of media.
- 22.
There are different forms of worldbuilding, which I will explain in the following footnotes. The authorial worldbuilding defines the sequential, iterative, and segmental process of creating a storyworld through adding, changing, or develo** elements in a storyworld (Ekman and Taylor 2016, p. 10).
- 23.
A typical moment in SF is the connection to the Primary world. For example in form of a chronic or a historian, usually and old man, reminiscing of the past (the present of the reader) and explaining how the world has become the world we see. For example, in the movie Matrix (Wachowskis 1999) this is done by Morpheus, in Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973) it is the character Sol Roth who tells the audience how their world became his world. In Neuromancer, Gibson is not using those elements at all but leaving out almost anything that offers orientation.
- 24.
- 25.
“A first step in a critical world-building venture could be to determine how many fictional worlds are actually present, and how they relate to each other.” (Taylor and Ekman 2019, p. 21).
- 26.
Gibson himself created several entry points into the Neuromancer-Universe: the three novels Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). Additionally, there are three short stories that play in the same world: Johnny Mnemonic (1981), Burning Chrome (1982), and New Rose Hotel (1984). All published in the Sci-Fi magazine Omni. Beyond his own publications there is a graphic novel adaptation of Neuromancer (Haven and Jensen 1989), the Neuromancer Video game (1988), a comprehensive wiki-page on fandom.com created by fans of the universe (William Gibson Wiki—Sprawl trilogy) and several more media artifacts. However, as Gibson is the only author of this world, only the contributions coming from him are counting as canon. He alone already created an extremely dense and detailed world with a huge amount of elements to focus on and to write about. For the sake of this paper, I will mainly focus on the descriptions given in Neuromancer.
- 27.
We see examples in other Cyberpunk universes as well, like Weyland-Yutani in the Alien universe, Skynet in the Terminator-franchise or the Tyrell Cooperation from Blade Runner.
- 28.
This is one of the major tropes in Cyberpunk: “Cyberpunk worlds are not set in some far distant but in a near future world, in which technology and hypercapitalism have become dominant and the urban landscape has increasingly usurped nature. The worlds of cyberpunk deal with mega-corporations, which rule the planet, with a fierce form of capitalism and an increasing shear between rich and poor, leaving most of humanity down and out.” (Schmeink 2015, p. 222).
- 29.
Meat puppets are sex workers without their conscious mind.
- 30.
According to the Neuromancer fandom glossary, a pupper parlor is “a brothel where people loan out their bodies while maintained in a blanked-out state” (see “Molly Millions”).
- 31.
The other one is a short passage a few lines before within the same context: “The girl sat up in bed and said something in German. Her eyes were soft and unblinking. Automatic pilot. A neural cut-out.” (Gibson 2016, p. 161).
- 32.
References
Akira. Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. Japan: Toho, 1988.
Atwood, Margaret. 1985. The handmaid’s tale. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Bethke, Bruce. 1983. Cyberpunk. AMAZING Science Fiction Stories. https://project.cyberpunk.ru/lib/cyberpunk/. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Brown, Nik, B. Rappert, and A. Webster, eds. 2000. Contested futures: A sociology of prospective techno-science. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Construct. n.d. William Gibson Wiki. https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Construct. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan. 1991. Cyberpunk and neuromanticism. In Storming the reality studio: A casebook of cyberpunk & postmodern science fiction: A casebook of cyberpunk and postmodern science fiction, ed. Larry McCaffery, 182–193. Durham: Duke University Press.
Delany, Samuel R. 1987. The semiology of silence. Science Fiction Studies 14 (2): 134–164.
Dolezel, Lubomír. 2000. Heterocosmica: Fiction and possible worlds. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ekman, Stefan, and A.I. Taylor. 2016. Notes toward a critical approach to worlds and world-building. Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 3 (3): 7–18.
Eshun, Kodwo. 2003. Further considerations of afrofuturism. CR: The New Centennial Review. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2003.0021.
Fischer, Nele, and W. Mehnert. 2020. Building possible worlds. A speculation based research framework to reflect on images of the future. https://jfsdigital.org/building-possible-worlds-a-speculation-based-framework-to-reflect-on-images-of-the-future/. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Gatens, Moira. 2020. Imaginaries. In 50 Concepts for a critical phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy, and Gayle Salamon, 181–188. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Gibson, William. 1982. Burning chrome. Omni 7: 72–77.
Gibson, William. 2016. Neuromancer. London: Gollancz.
Grunwald, Armin. 2018. Technology assessment in practice and theory. London: Routledge.
Grzyb, Liz, and C. Sparks, eds. 2017. Ecopunk!: Speculative tales of radical futures. Greenwood: Ticonderoga Publications.
De Haven, Tom, and B. Jensen. 1989. William Gibson’s Neuromancer: The graphic novel—Volume 1. New York: Epic Graphic Novel.
Herman, David. 2004. Story logic: Problems and possibilities of narrative. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Herman, David. 2013. Cognitive narratology. The living handbook of narratology. https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/38.html. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism: Or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Duke University Press.
Jasanoff, Sheila. 2015a. Future imperfect: Science, technology, and the imaginations of modernity. In Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power, ed. S.-H. Kim and S. Jasanoff, 1–33. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jasanoff, Sheila. 2015b. Imagined and invented worlds. In Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power, ed. S.-H. Kim and S. Jasanoff, 321–341. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jasanoff, Sheila, and Sang-Hyun Kim, ed. 2015. Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power. 1 edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jenkins, Henry. 2007. Transmedia storytelling. https://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Jenkins, Henry, G. Peters-Lazaro, and S. Shresthova. 2020. Popular culture and the civic imagination: Case studies of creative social change. New York: New York University Press.
Kelly, James Patrick, and J. Kessel. 2007a. Introduction. In Rewired: The post-cyberpunk anthology, ed. J.P. Kelly and J. Kessel. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications.
Kelly, James Patrick, and J. Kessel, eds. 2007b. Rewired: The post-cyberpunk anthology. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications.
Kôkaku Kidôtai. Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Japan; United Kingdom: Shochiku; Manga Entertainment, 1995.
Lodi-Ribeiro, Gerson, et al. 2018. Solarpunk: Ecological and fantastical stories in a sustainable world. Oklahoma: World Weaver Press.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1990. Die Zukunft Kann Nicht Beginnen: Temporalstrukturen Der Modernen Gesellschaft. In Vor Der Jahrtausendwende: Berichte Zur Lage Der Zukunft 1. + 2. Band, Preis JE Buch, ed. Peter Sloterdijk. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
McCaffery, Larry. 1991. Introduction: The desert of the real. In Storming the reality studio: A casebook of cyberpunk & postmodern science fiction: A casebook of cyberpunk and postmodern science fiction, ed. Larry McCaffery. New Durham: DUKE UNIV PR.
Mehnert, Wenzel. 2019. Dystopische Möglichkeitsräume—Near Future Science Fiction Als Schnittstelle Zu Möglichen Zukünften. In Unheimliche Schnittstellen / Uncanny Interfaces Textem Verlag Hamburg, ed. K.D. Haensch, L. Nelke, and M. Planitzer. Hamburg: Textem Verlag.
Molly Millions. n.d. William Gibson Wiki. https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Molly_Millions. Accessed 11 Mar. 2020.
Olsen, Lance. 1992. William Gibson: Starmont Reader’s Guide, No 58, 1st ed. San Bernardino: Borgo Press.
Person, Lawrence. 1998. “Notes toward a postcyberpunk manifesto.” https://cyberpunk.asia/cp_project.php?txt=27&lng=fr. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Robinson, Kim Stanley. 2018. New York 2140. London: Orbit.
Roth, Christopher. 2015. HYPERSTITION Online Ansehen|Vimeo On Demand. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020
Ryan, Marie-Laure. 1991. Possible worlds, artificial intelligence and narrative theory. Indiana University Press.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2001. Narrative as virtual reality: Immersion and interactivity in literature and electronic media. New. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schmeink, Lars. 2015. Cyberpunk and Dystopia: William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984). In Dystopia, science fiction, post-apocalypse: Classics—New tendencies—Model interpretations, ed. E. Voigts and A. Boller. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
Schröter, Jens. 2004. Das Netz und die Virtuelle Realität: Zur Selbstprogrammierung der Gesellschaft durch die universelle Maschine. Bielefeld: transcript.
Scott, Ridley. 1982. Blade Runner.
Shiner, Lewis. 1991. “Confessions of an ex-cyberpunk.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/07/opinion/confessions-of-an-excyberpunk.html. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Green, Soylent. 1973. Directed by Richard Fleischer. USA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Spielberg, Steven. 2002. Minority Report.
Sprawl Trilogy. n.d. William Gibson Wiki. https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Stephenson, Neal. 1992. Snow crash. Barcelona: Ediciones Gigamesh.
Sterling, Bruce. 1986. Mirrorshades: The cyberpunk anthology. New York: Arbor House Pub Co.
Strauss, Claudia. 2006. The imaginary. Anthropological Theory 6 (3): 322–344. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499606066891.
Suvin, Darko. 1972. On the poetics of the science fiction genre. College English 34 (3): 372–382. https://doi.org/10.2307/375141.
Suvin, Darko. 1979. Poetik der Science-fiction. Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer literarischen Gattung. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Suvin, Darko. 1991. On Gibson and cyberpunk SF. In Storming the reality studio: A casebook of cyberpunk & postmodern science fiction: A casebook of cyberpunk and postmodern science fiction, ed. Larry McCaffery. New Durham: DUKE UNIV PR.
Taylor, Audrey Isabel, and S. Ekman. 2019. A practical application of critical world-building. Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 47.3 (131): 15–28.
Taylor, Charles. 2003. Modern social imaginaries. Durham: DUKE UNIV PR.
The Sprawl. n.d. William Gibson Wiki. https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sprawl. Accessed 27 Feb. 2020.
Trench, Marianne. 1990. Cyberpunk. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398910/. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020
Ulibarri, Sarena, D. K. Mok, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Holly Schofield, Jaymee Goh, Wendy Nikel, Gregory Scheckler, and Julia K. Patt. 2018. Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers. World Weaver Press.
von Stackelberg, Peter, and A. McDowell. 2015. What in the World? Storyworlds, Science Fiction, and Futures Studies. Journal of Futures Studies. https://jfsdigital.org/2015-2/vol-20-no-2-dec-2015/article/what-in-the-world-storyworlds-science-fiction-and-futures-studies/. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
Wachowski, Lana, and Wachowski, Lilly. 1999. The Matrix.
Waffender, Manfred. 1991. Cyberspace—Ausflüge in Virtuelle Wirklichkeiten. Reinbek: Rowohlt.
Wolf, Mark J. P. 2012. Building imaginary worlds. New York: Routledge.
Zaibatsu. n.d. William Gibson Wiki. https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Zaibatsu. Accessed 11 Mar. 2020.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mehnert, W. (2021). Deconstructing Cyberpunk Worlds—Technodystopian Imaginaries in the Storyworld of Gibson’s Neuromancer. In: Ernst, C., Schröter, J. (eds) (Re-)Imagining New Media. Neue Perspektiven der Medienästhetik. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32899-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32899-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-32898-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-32899-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)