Download Free Cyberspace Cowboy Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Cyberspace Cowboy and write the review.

In Hacking Cyberspace David J. Gunkel examines the metaphors applied to new technologies, and how those metaphors inform, shape, and drive the implementation of the technology in question. The author explores the metaphorical tropes that have been employed to describe and evaluate recent advances in computer technology, telecommunications systems, and interactive media. Taking the stance that no speech is value-neutral, Gunkel examines such metaphors as "the information superhighway" and "the electronic frontier" for their political and social content, and he develops a critical investigation that not only traces the metaphors' conceptual history, but explicates their implications and consequences for technological development. Through Hacking Cyberspace, David J. Gunkel develops a sophisticated understanding of new technology that takes into account the effect of technoculture's own discursive techniques and maneuvers on the actual form of technological development.
In Information Multiplicity, Johnston describes how fractalized realism has redefined thought itself - from the High Modernist "stream of consciousness" into what the machine philosopher Daniel Dennett refers to as "multiple drafts" or "circuits" operating concurrently in the human brain. In a series of close readings, Johnston traces how such a viral influx of information into human consciousness has been replicated in works by Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow and Vineland), Joseph McElroy (Lookout Cartridge), William Gaddis (JR), Don DeLillo (Libra), and William Gibson (Neuromancer).
An Introduction to Cybercultures provides an accessible guide to the major forms, practices and meanings of this rapidly-growing field. From the evolution of hardware and software to the emergence of cyberpunk film and fiction, David Bell introduces readers to the key aspects of cyberculture, including email, the internet, digital imaging technologies, computer games and digital special effects. Each chapter contains `hot links' to key articles in its companion volume, The Cybercultures Reader, suggestions for further reading, and details of relevant websites. Individual chapters examine: · Cybercultures: an introduction · Storying cyberspace · Cultural Studies in cyberspace · Community and cyberculture · Identities in cyberculture · Bodies in cyberculture · Cybersubcultures · Researching cybercultures
Why do Americans find it appealing to create and live in artificial worlds--whether in space, at Disneyland, in computer networks, or in our own minds?
The convergence of twentieth-century narrative and technology is one of the most important developments in current literary study. A decade after the founding of the Society for Literature and Science and the appearance of such influential books as Kathleen Woodward's Culture of Information and William Paulson's The Noise of Culture, Joseph Tabbi and Michael Wutz have edited a landmark volume to summarize this still-emerging field. Twelve original essays and the editors' introductory overview show how these theoretical concerns can contribute to the practical study of narrative. Reading Matters covers the range of contemporary literature, from the canonical novels of high modernism and postmodernism through subjects new to the academic agenda, such as cyberpunk and hypertext fiction. In an age that has proclaimed the death of the novel many times over, the contributors argue persuasively for the continued vitality of literary narrative. By responding in ingenious ways to the capabilities of other media, they assert, the novel has enlarged and redefined its territory of representation and its range of techniques and play, while maintaining its viability in the new media assemblage.
This collection of feminist essays from a variety of disciplines explores the idea of the body as a site for the production of political ideologies.
Science and technology have had a profound effect on the way humans perceive space and time. In this book, an international team of authors explore themes of depth and surface, of real and conceptual space and of human/machine interaction. The collection is organized around the concept of Technospace--the temporal realm where technology meets human practice. In exploring this intersection the contributors initiate debate on a number of important conceptual questions: Is there a clear distinction between the real spaces of the body or the city, and the conceptual space of virtual reality?How are real and metaphorical spaces of electronic cultures quantified and regulated? Is there an ethics of technospace?Historically, the reception of new technologies has been invested with romantic idealism on the one hand and panic on the other. The authors argue that in order for utopian dreams to be tempered by ethical, humanistic needs, we have an urgent need to reveal, reflect upon and evaluate technospace and our relationship to it.
The idea of virtual realities has a long and complex historical trajectory, spanning from Plato's concept of the cave and the simulacrum, to artistic styles such as Trompe L'oeil, and more recently developments in 3D film, television and gaming. However, this book will pay particular attention to the time between the 1980s to the 1990s when virtual reality and cyberspace were represented, particularly in fiction, as a wondrous technology that enabled transcendence from the limitations of physical embodiment. The purpose of this critical historical analysis of representations of virtual reality is to examine how they might deny, repress or overlook embodied experience. Specifically, the author will contend that embodiment is a fundamental aspect of immersion in virtual reality, rather than something which is to be transcended. In this way, the book aims to challenge distorted ideas about transcendence and productively contribute to debates about embodiment and technology.
Explores the idea that the future lies in its ability to articulate the consequences of an increasingly synthetic and virtual world.
Computers have dramatically altered life in the late twentieth century. Today we can draw on worldwide computer links, speeding up communications by radio, newspapers, and television. Ideas fly back and forth and circle the globe at the speed of electricity. And just around the corner lurks full-blown virtual reality, in which we will be able to immerse ourselves in a computer simulation not only of the actual physical world, but of any imagined world. As we begin to move in and out of a computer-generated world, Michael Heim asks, how will the way we perceive our world change? In The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Heim considers this and other philosophical issues of the Information Age. With an eye for the dark as well as the bright side of computer technology, he explores the logical and historical origins of our computer-generated world and speculates about the future direction of our computerized lives. He discusses such topics as the effect of word-processing on the English language (while word-processors have led to increased productivity, they have also led to physical hazards such as repetitive motion syndrome, which causes inflamed hand and arm tendons). Heim looks into the new kind of literacy promised by Hypertext (technology which allows the user to link audio and video elements, the disadvantages including disorientation and cognitive overload). And he also probes the notion of virtual reality, "cyberspace"--the computer-simulated environments that have captured the popular imagination and may ultimately change the way we define reality itself. Just as the definition of interface itself has evolved from the actual adapter plug used to connect electronic circuits into human entry into a self-contained cyberspace, so too will the notion of reality change with the current technological drive. Like the introduction of the automobile, the advent of virtual reality will change the whole context in which our knowledge and awareness of life are rooted. And along the way, Heim covers such intriguing topics as how computers have altered our thought habits, how we will be able to distinguish virtual from real reality, and the appearance of virtual reality in popular culture (as in Star Trek's holodeck, William Gibson's Neuromancer, and Stephen King's Lawnmower Man). Vividly and entertainingly written, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality opens a window on a fascinating world that promises--or threatens--to become an integral part of everyday life in the 21st century. As Heim writes, not only do we face a breakthrough in the technology of computer interface, but we face the challenge of knowing ourselves and determining how the technology should develop and ultimately affect the society in which it grows.