We’re about to be submerged in the hype surrounding Virtual Reality, but it’s important to remember that we’re witnessing the second coming of VR which began its life as a cultural artifact/technological prophecy in the 1980′s and early 1990′s. Fiction authors like William Gibson, films like Lawnmower Man and magazines like Mondo 2000, gave us the words and images we needed to understand what the new technology might be capable of and this charming 1991 BBC documentary reminds us of the aesthetics that defined VR’s debut.

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Today I have 1013 followers on Twitter, but last night I had 997. The milestone seemed like an opportunity to interact with some folks and get some help scrambling over the hump.

A while back, a literary journal I review books for was in a similar position: The folks in charge of their funding were coming to town and they wanted to show off 1K Facebook friends — they were already pretty close, but still 30 or so off the night before the big visit.

I took to Twitter and started messaging about the journal, linking to the Facebook page. For some reason, in the midst of my messaging, I thought “I should ask William Gibson to retweet this message to his followers. He’s a writer. He’ll get it. He’ll want to help.” There was no reason for William Gibson to help or even notice the message in his stream, but he did notice it, and he helped. Following Gibson’s RT the site’s Facebook page was well over the 1K mark by morning.

Yesterday night I messaged William Gibson again asking if he might give me a hand with an RT. He did. He’s a writer. He gets it.

Thanks again @GreatDismal!

Gibson’s latest book is The Peripheral Here’s the description on the Amazon page:

Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran’s benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC’s elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there’s a job he’s supposed to do—a job Flynne didn’t know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He’s supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That’s all there is to it. He’s offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn’t what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.

And in keeping with recent posts, here’s Gibson at the Chicago Humanities Festival last November discussing “Technology, Science Fiction & the Apocalypse.”

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Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.

Which way to the Sprawl?

We’ve been enjoying this endearing flick for some time, but are just now getting around to posting about it.

Cyberpunk is a 60 minute documentary from 1990 that serves as a charming bookend to the William Gibson documentary No Maps for These Territories. While Gibson is featured prominently in this doc, it also expands out to illuminate an entire slice of the late 80′s/early 90′s culture that used to be featured in the late, great Mondo 2000 magazine.

Cyberpunk Review offers these insights:

Cyberpunk is a documentary that looks back at the 80s cyberpunk movement, and more specifically, how this has led to a trend in the “real” world where people were starting to refer to themselves as “cyberpunk.” The documentary sees “cyberpunks” as being synonymous with hackers. A number of writers, artists, musicians and scientists are interviewed to provide context to this movement. The guiding meme, as told by Gibson, is that information “wants” to be free. 60s counter-culture drug philosopher, Timothy Leary, provides a prediction that cyberpunks will “decentralize knowledge,” which will serve to remove power from those “in power” and bring it back to the masses. Many different potential technologies are discussed, including “smart drugs,” sentient machines, advanced prosthetics – all of which serve to give context to the idea of post-humanity and its imminent arrival on the world stage.

As an added bonus, here is a contemporary interview with Mr. Gibson in which he discusses the current state of Cyberspace!

Joe Nolan <3