Memory Trade: A Prehistory of CybercultureThe notion of "culture" is changing at the speed of information itself. Computer technology is creating a new kind of public, a cyberculture with all its utopian & apocalyptic possibilities. But is it that new? Popular debate generally ignores cyberculture's historical context. The official history begins in the nineteenth century & tracks the evolution of telecommunications, the egalitarian dream of the global village, & the emergence of the military-industrial complex. However, this omits the deeper, prehistory of technological transformations of culture that are everywhere felt but nowhere seen in the telematic landscape of the late twentieth century. Cyberculture is an extension, rather than innovation, of human engagement with communication & information technologies. A work of archeology, Memory Trade scrapes away the surfaces of the contemporary world to detect the sedimentary traces of the past: a past that inflects the present with the echoes of ancient, unresolved philosophical questions about the relationships between humans & technology, creativity & artifice, reality & representations of reality. Memory Trade is an exploration, in text & image, of the unconscious of cyberculture, its silent, secret prehistory. From Plato's Cave to Borges' literary labyrinths, Freud's Mystic Writing-Pad, & Joyce's reinvention of language in Finnegans Wake, Memory Trade is a reflection of contemporary culture. |
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Contents
CyBERCULTURE | |
The End Of Print 36 | |
Writing Trauma In Ancient Athens 44 | |
Copyright | |
2 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
abstract actually alphabetic literacy apparatus argued art of memory artificial memory become Borges century classical communication complex concept contemporary context created critical cspace culture cyber cyberculture cybernetics cyberpunk cyberspace cyborg Deleuze Derrida described discourse dream ecology of sense electracy electronic environment experience fact feedback fiction Finnegans Wake Freud Gibson Havelock human hypertext idea imagination immersion interaction interface Joyce Joyce's Kroker language linguistic literate logic machine mation McLuhan meaning Memex metaphor metonymy mind mode Nelson networks Neuromancer nology notion oral perception Phaedrus Plato polysemy post-symbolic communication poststructuralism printed psyche reader reading reference representation rhetoric Rushkoff sensory simulation social Socrates speech Stelarc suggests tech Ted Nelson telematic television textuality Theall theater things tion Tralfamadorian ture Ulmer understanding virtual reality virtual space visual Wiener World Wide World Wide Web writing written word Xanadu Yates
Bibliographic information
| Title | Memory Trade: A Prehistory of Cyberculture An Interface book from 21. C |
| Author | Murray McKeich |
| Contributor | Darren Tofts |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Interface, 1998 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Nov 2, 2007 |
| ISBN | 9057041812, 9789057041815 |
| Length | 131 pages |
| Subjects | › Art / Conceptual |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |