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In his science fiction novels, William Gibson's
hallucinatory account of cyberspace provided the first social
and spatial blueprint for the digital frontier. In his 1984
novel Neuromancer – a colorful, disturbing account
of our emerging information society – he added the word
"cyberspace" to our vocabulary. His writings explore the implications
of a wired, digital culture, and have had tremendous influence
on the scientists, researchers, theorists, and artists working
with virtual reality. Gibson's notion of an inhabitable, immersive
terrain that exists in the connections between computer networks,
a fluid, architectural space that could expand endlessly –
an invitation to "jack in" to the "digital matrix" – has
opened the door to a new genre of literary and artistic forms,
and has shaped our expectations of what is possible in virtual
environments.
In Neuromancer, as well as his later novels
Count Zero (1987) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988),
Gibson's vision of cyberspace, with its anti-heroes who reside
in the void between the physical world and the network, helped
spark an age of the post-human. The cyborgian redefinition of
self has since been staged in such immersive cyber-habitats
as MUDs, virtual communities, and
on-line chat spaces, where identity has become malleable and
interchangeable. Gibson's strange, menacing virtual world meshed
perfectly with the detached, ironic stance of late 20th century
culture.
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