barlowian insights

  The notion of ‘Barlowian cyberspace’ is no news, I know, but nevertheless worthwhile to clarify. ↑Jakub Macek summed it up nicely:  The term cyberspace was coined by the American writer ↑William Gibson at the beginning of the 1980s [mind how careful Jakub is with the dating—he doesn’t attribute the first appearance of the word in print to “Neuromancer” (↵Gibson 1984) as so many do. Actually, to my knowledge the word first appeared in “Burning Chrome” (↵Gibson 1987 [1982])]. Gibson described it as a shared data hallucination visualized as an imaginary space made up of computer processed data, accessible to … Continue reading

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neologic spasm

  ↑William Gibson‘s comment on academia’s appropriation of the word “cyberspace”:  Just a chance operator in the gasoline crack of history …    Assembled word cyberspace from small and readily available components of language. Neologic spasm: the primal act of pop poetics. Preceded any concept whatever. Slick and hollow—awaiting received meaning    All I did: folded words as taught. Now other words accrete in the interstices.    “Gentlemen, that is not now nor will it ever be my concern …”    Not what i do.    I work the angle of transit. Vectors of neon plaza, licensed consumers, acts primal … Continue reading

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