Multidisciplinary explorations of the antecedents to cyberculture through examinations of key historical texts, from Plato to Arthur C. Clarke.
The vast social apparatus of the computer network has aligned people with technology in unprecedented ways. The intimacy of the human-computer interface has made it impossible to distinguish technology from the social and cultural business of being human. Cyberculture is the broader name given to this process of becoming through technological means. This book shows that cyberculture has been a long time coming. In Prefiguring Cyberculture, media critics and theorists, philosophers, and historians of science explore the antecedents of such aspects of contemporary technological culture as the Internet, the World Wide Web, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, virtual reality, and the cyborg. The contributors examine key texts that anticipate cybercultural practice and theory, including Plato's "Simile of the Cave"; the Renaissance Ars Memoria; Descartes's Meditations (on the mind-body split); Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Alan Turing's Computing Machinery and Intelligence; Philip K. Dick's Man, Android, and Machine; William Gibson's Neuromancer; and Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future. In the final section, a number of cyberculture artists explore how cybercultural themes have been taken up and critiqued in the electronic arts. This book is not for sale in Australia and New Zealand
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Darren Tofts is Chair of Media and Communications at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.
Cyberculture has a history, a deeply layered and non-teleological history, a history full of surprises both good and bad, a history replete with consequences for what it means to speak of the human in 'informatic' or 'post-human' idioms. This passionate, multi-lobed conviction is the generative organ of this wonderful book. The shapes of history matter here as much as its temporalities, as much as its subjectivities. Indeed, shape, time, and subject mutually reconfigure each other in the prefigurings in fiction, science, and technology that this book explores. Prefiguring Cyberculture explores what the editors call the 'continuous present tense.' That is the always unfinished time in which classifications of what may count as human and nonhuman morph within lived technologies that bear the stigmata of the signifying monster called information. Reading this book is an exercise in reconfiguring how we see how we are in this formation called cyberculture. In the process, readers enjoy what binds the authors and editors together―the capacity to be surprised in the belly of the monster.
(Donna Haraway, Professor, History of Consciousness Department, University of California, Santa Cruz and author of The Cyborg Manifesto and Modest Witness@Second_Millennium)Engaging, challenging, and rewarding....This collection is a considerable achievement.
(Mitchell Whitelaw, RealTime)Engaging, challenging, and rewarding... This collection is a considerable achievement.
(Mitchell Whitelaw, RealTime)"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 2248521-75
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Hardback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR008988811
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Irish Booksellers, Portland, ME, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. SHIPS FROM USA. Used books have different signs of use and do not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. All images are Stock Photos, not of the actual item. book. Seller Inventory # 4-0262201453-G
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 2.7. Seller Inventory # G0262201453I3N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books Ltd, Dunfermline, United Kingdom
Condition: Very Good. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 2248521-75
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Book Deals, Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any). 2.71. Seller Inventory # 353-0262201453-vrg
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Books Unplugged, Amherst, NY, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Buy with confidence! Book is in good condition with minor wear to the pages, binding, and minor marks within 2.71. Seller Inventory # bk0262201453xvz189zvxgdd
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: THE CROSS Art + Books, Sydney, NSW, Australia
26 x 21cm, 322pp, b&w and colour illust, hardcover in dustjacket, very good+ Collection of essays by media critics, theorists, philosophers and science historians. Seller Inventory # 156255
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: GfB, the Colchester Bookshop, Colchester, United Kingdom
Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. The MIT Press, 2003. Hardback, d/j, sq4to, xiv,322pp, illust. Pages slightly cockled, d/j a little bumped. A fair copy. 0262201453/1.2. Seller Inventory # 359211
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Basi6 International, Irving, TX, U.S.A.
Condition: Brand New. New. US edition. Expediting shipping for all USA and Europe orders excluding PO Box. Excellent Customer Service. Seller Inventory # ABEJUNE24-70020
Quantity: 1 available