Free Write oct. 26

Mapping, I believe, is so important in science fiction novels because, in general, the reader is taken to a different place when reading a science fiction novels. Most science fiction novels involve some far off place, whether on Earth of not, that is normally exotic, magical, and above all different than anything we are used to. As humans, we relate so much to what our surroundings are and before we can truly understand something we must understand WHERE we are. So perhaps, even subconsiously, we begin to map out what the described sorroundings may be.

To understand a reading that involves geography so much, one must be able to picture some type of mental map in their head.

Mapping can become a way of close reading because the reader is taken an in depth look at the surroundings of the characters. So much about a person involves where they are from that by closing mapping out the location you can learn so much about your heroin or hero.

How people move through cities tells a lot about their character. How he body relates to a city tells a lot about the character. There is a connection between self and city.

Free Write- October 24th

What does social life look like in Rue Jules Verne? How are relationships structured? Mediated?

Rue Jules Verne, as described in the book is a resort place, well an artificial resort. The people who are visiting this city or who live her are of the wealthier group. Gibson writes of families, children, and teenagers all staying there. " Case went on to thteur balconey and watched a trio of tanned French teenagers ride simple hang gliders a few meters above the spray, triangles of nylon in bright primary colors."

However this seems to be more of a free city, or less conservative because Gibson writes if case spotting a teenager hang gliding naked as well. The impression I get of the city is somewhat like a european beach resort. There are grand hotels, wealthy families, and beaches, and many tourists.

"He rode up with an Italian girl in spotless whites, cheekbones and nose daubed with something black and non reflective." this quote gives insight into the way people dress, very sophisticated, clean, and above all expensive. Gibson speaks of visitors sunbathing on the rooftop.

FOLlOW UP QUESTIONS

Why do you thing Armitage took Case and Molly to this city when they so clearly don't fit in?

How are these people different from this in Chiba city?

Free Write - Chapter 8 ZION

Zion is a place of zero gravity.

I know Zion to be Ethiopa, but the book describes Zion as "founded by five workers who refused to return, who turned their back on the well and started  building."

Zion is about thirty years old and is a Colony filled with Rastafarians.

The people of Zion suffer calcium loss and heart shrinkage due to non gravity.

Geographical and Ageographical 

-in the center is a spindle that involves rotational gravity or no gravity at all. Hard to tell

-music pulses constantly through the "cluster." it was worship music

-"Zion smelled of cooked vegetables, humanity and ganja."Zion is a place of zero gravity.

I know Zion to be Ethiopa, but the book describes Zion as "founded by five workers who refused to return, who turned their back on the well and started  building."

Zion is about thirty years old and is a Colony filled with Rastafarians.

The people of Zion suffer calcium loss and heart shrinkage due to non gravity.

Geographical and Ageographical 

-in the center is a spindle that involves rotational gravity or no gravity at all. Hard to tell

-music pulses constantly through the "cluster." it was worship music

-"Zion smelled of cooked vegetables, humanity and ganja."

What does Zion mean, Zion means Holy land
So we know that Zion is a religious place
A city Built on a rebellion or revolt, by founders from Los Angelos.

Where is Zion?

They must travel through space to get to it, seems to be in a dome.

Mapping the Shopping expedition becomes difficult due to the fact that most of this section of the book takes place in the "matrix" or the "sprawl." While Molly recieves the shopping list she enters e spawl to buy the items and Case is abke to see what she is viewing ghrough simstim.

Before entering the spawn, in chapter 3, Case recalls making trips around the world. "He remembered Amsterdam, another room, in the Old City section of the Centrum, buildings centuries old." So the reader now knows from the text they are no longer just in Japan, non longer soley in Chiba City. They speak of traveling to Denmark, Paris, and Italy on shopping trips.

At the end of chapter 6 Armitage calls case and says "We're going to Istanbul."

 When Case and they crew make a trip to Zion, the story becomes much more interesting. Zion is some artificial world with zero gravity in space. In order to go to the city of Zion, Zion meaning "holy place" you must travel through space. Zion is in inhabited by Rastafarian's who built the city over the last 30 years.

Mapping this city is interesting as well and very challenging. The reader must make a lot of infrences when referring to the city because one is not entirely sure of how it looks. We know that there is zero gravity and the city seems to be built inside a bubble, or dome of some sorts. The city is pulsating with music at all times, a religious/ ceremonial music that runs through the "freefall corridor." The freefall corridor is a section of the city, in the center that has zero gravity and is filled with ropes and tubes to climb through with.

Another interesting city where Case and the crew visits is the "Rue Jules Verne." This is an artificial city, made from light and image projections. The sky isn't real, the sunlight is unreal, the sounds aren't real, the foliage, plants, flowers, and water all all computer generated images. "He knew that sunlight was pumped into Lado-Acheson system who two-millimeter armature ran the length of the spindle, that they generated a rotating library of sky effects around it..."

Rue Jules Vern is described as a resort spot, a place where the wealthy come to get tan and enjoy the computer generated sun. Hang gliders and hotel rooftops provide the atmosphere along with meadows, waterfalls, and beaches.

Mapping Chiba City

When reading about Chiba City in William Gibson’s novel, Nueromancer his words begin to paint a picture in your head. Chiba City is grimy, dingy, and rough yet a big city nonetheless. There are countless alleyways and back corners where illegal drug and weapon trades happen.

Chiba City is a port city in Japan, therefore when mapping the city it is important to remember the water and things affiliated with water. There would be many boats, water vehicles, and docks surrounding the city. Chiba City, because it is a greater metropolitan area, there would have many modern buildings and skyscrapers, but there would also be smaller, shack-like,  buildings in some of the poorer areas. Gibson writes of buildings with plastic roofs, so the reader knows that some building are decrepit and run down. As well as many buildings and shops, the city of Chiba would have a lot of street vendors selling food, electronics, gadgets, and clothes. It is important to add many bars

Imagine Tokyo meets Gotham city and I believe that would be an accurate depiction of how Chiba City looks.

Chiba City reminds me of Gotham City, dark and sinister yet still a metropolitan.

CHIBA CITY

Chiba city reminds me of Gotham City. An unsupervised urban area where "its a playground for technology itself." Chiba seems rough and grimy, definitely busy and bustling, but more of a slum area than anything. There seems to be little police supervision and there are many corrupt shops and people.

1) What does Gibson mean when he says, "cities cab be at thir experientially richest during periods of relative disjunction"?

Gibson means that cities that are somewhat disjunction or in a state of ruin can be extremely functional in other aspects. This disjunction allows for outbursts of creativity and randomization that can lead to many fantastic things, especially for young artists. Nobody wants to live in a "flat surface," a city needs to have depth and room to grow.

2) What according to Gibson, is the "risk of Disneylanding" that threatens the life of a city?

Gibson describes "Disneylanding" as a city "building themselves too permanently into a given day's vision of what they should be. There are cities that cease to provide choice and chance encounters that make cities interesting and exciting.

3) What does Gibson mean when he says "The future of cities will consist of two different modalities combined with the ageographical and largely unrecognized meat city that is the Internet"?

Gibson writes about how in this present day, technology allows people to master areas of expertise that previously required residence in a city. You no longer need to be in the actually city to be a part of it because of the Internet.

CYBERPUNK

"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body." – Lawrence Person

Life in the Meta City

In William Gibson’s essay “Life in the Meta City,” he explores the concept of a new type of city—the “meta city.” As a writer, Gibson is no stranger to the importance of a city in a story line and centers his stories primarily on or around fantastical and unusual cities.  However, in “Life in the Meta City” he discusses a city that is different than all other cites before; he discusses a city that is ageograpical. Since the invention of the Internet, it has become possible for people in all areas of the world to be connected at all times. “We all inhabit the meta city,” states Gibson, “regardless of physical address.” It is no longer necessary to be physically in a certain city to experience all the city has to offer and in doing so has changed how people live and view cities.

Gibson explores the different aspects of a city and what makes a city successful versus unsuccessful in his essay. As a child, Gibson lived in a small town in southwest Virginia and dreamed of living in a big city.  Through books, such as Sherlock Holmes, his imagination took him to London and he “reversed-engineered” a concept of urban life in his small town through his imagination. However, as Gibson got older, he realized large cities were more than just an increase in size; they were an increase in choices. “Cities afforded more choices than small towns, and constantly, by increasing the number and randomization of potential human and cultural contacts.” Through these random encounters of people, a city can than become bustling, thriving, and exciting by allowing the phenomena’s needed to create an interesting narrative. As a fiction writer, Gibson explains the importance of these phenomena’s in writing and if an author is unable to create a city in which these phenomena’s occur, than the city becomes a dead city.

Gibson warns about the effects of “Disney-landing” a city, or “ building themselves too permanently into a given days vision of what they should be.” Gibson, for example, writes that Paris has become an example of this and New York City is quickly following. These cities have become the cliché versions of themselves by over controlling and not allowing for periods of relative disjunction. The city then “looses their spark” and often perishes. A city must be ever changing and growing in order to continue into the future. But Gibson also writes that now, “The future of cities will consist of two different modalities combined within the ageographical and largely unrecognized meta city that is the Internet,” meaning cities must now take into account factors such as the Internet that allows people to master areas of expertise that previously required residence in a city.

             This essay can be related greatly to Willaim Gibson’s book Neuromancer because so much of Neuromancer is based around the dystopia city of Chiba City, Japan. In fact, the city creates the storyline for Neuromancer and this essay allows the reader to get a greater insight on the importance of cities and urban spaces in literature through the author’s point of view.

 

Technology Hypnosis (Final Draft)

“BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!”

What is that sound? Where am I? What’s going on?

“BEEP BEEP BEEP!”

There it is again! What in God’s name is that sound?

“BEEP BEEP BEEP!” It is relentless. It is piercing. It is brash.  The sound punctures through my unconscious sleep haze like a sharp knife slicing through butter over and over again until finally, I jolt into reality.

My alarm, perhaps the most dreaded sound in the world, is ringing near my head on my phone. Nails screeching against a chalkboard would be more welcomed at this point and I sleepily reach over to turn off the wretched thing, realizing I need to start my day. However, as I reach over to dismiss the alarm I see a blinking light in the corner of my BlackBerry.  This blinking, wonderful light full of promises is telling me I have a message on my phone. A message of what kind, I do not know but before I even wipe the sleep out of my eyes I hurriedly check to see whom it could be from as my eyes slowly adjust to the small text and bright screen. I haven’t even been awake for 60 seconds and I am already plugged in. My name is Alison Stewart and I, like many others, am addicted to my cellular phone. I use it everyday for matters concerning much more than just phone calls and even though I know nothing about it is crucial to my existence, I still cannot be a minute without it.  The cell phone has effected and altered the everyday lives of people living in the 21^st century more than any other invention in the last 300 years by changing the way people communicate, and as a result, the way people live through texts, e-mails, voice messages, and the internet.

It’s Monday morning, 7:30 am and upon sitting up I already have my cell phone in hand. Wherever I go, it goes and there is hardly a moment I am without it. Even in my sleep, my phone is no more than a couple of inches away from my head, plugged into the electrical strip near my bed. Each beautiful noise, each ding, ring, and dong that my phone jingles makes my heart swell with anticipation for the promises of what that noise might bring. Perhaps it is a message from my best friend, a picture from my sister, a call from my mother, a voicemail from my father. Who knows? The endless possibilities that my phone holds only add to my cravings for its unique technology. One thing is for certain though, I love my phone and my phone loves me. I use my phone more than any other piece of technology in my life, including my iPod, television and laptop.

What does it mean when I say I have an addiction to technology? Well for one everywhere I go, at all times, 24/7 I am plugged in. Whether it’s the headphone connected to my ears, the cell phone that’s always at my side, or the computer that rests in my lap, I am never without it. These forms of technology have become my best friends, my constant source of communication, and my means to everything. Nothing is more important in my daily communication than my cell phone; in fact it is my only sole means of communication—I have no house phone. My cellular phone works as my clock, my alarm, my calendar, my agenda, my notepad, and my camera. Without it, I am lost—literally (it is my GPS as well). Upon realizing that I may have left my phone at home or left it sitting on a subway seat somewhere in Manhattan, my heart begins to palpitate and my whole body tenses up with anxiety. My phone is my everything. And that statement alone is a little off-putting.  How did I become so attached to this inanimate, blinking rectangle? How does a piece of plastic make me feel more things than most alive human beings can? I know it just a material item but it means so much more to me than that.

My phone is constant reminder of just how connected I truly am. I have a BlackBerry Curve and through it I receive e-mails, facebook messages, voicemails, pictures, texts, and of course calls. It’s actually ironic that the amount of times I get real phone calls is minimal to the amount of texts or BBM’s I receive in a day, considering that is what a cell phones main purpose is—making phone calls. But since the development of smart phones and “apps,” calls seem somewhat elementary.  Cell phones have changed the way people communicate in great ways. Where before most people would speak to their friends or family by calling, now most communicating is done through texts. Rather than sending a birthday card or party invitation though the mail, all that is needed is a quick text to reach your friends immediately.  Long gone are the times of properly ringing the door bell and meeting families before picking up a date from his/her house, instead all that is needed is an “I’m outside,” text for the date to begin. Grammar no longer matters when concerning texts either, in fact it has practically been thrown out the window completely. Our elementary school teachers would look in horror at the way we abbreviate every word and completely ignore the use of punctuation and capitalization all together. Cell phones have transcended beyond communication. It really has revolutionized the way a whole generation thinks, talks, and functions.

Even when no one has called or messaged, I find myself constantly toying with my phone. Having it in my hand or near my body has become somewhat of a comfort blanket for me and I am almost never without it. Everyday my cell phone takes up copious amounts of my time and I don’t even realize it. When did this happen? When did most of my day become looking at a small cell phone screen and getting bewitched by the magic of its luminous being? As a young female in the 21^st century, I’m told I live in the “technology generation,” but what does that even mean? I find myself asking these questions, but do I really care about the answer? Perec states it best when he writes in his essay Approaches to What?, “To question the habitual. But that’s just it, were habituated to it. We don’t question it, it doesn’t question us” (210). The truth is, I don’t actually care about the answers to the questions or even care if I am addicted to technology. The point is, this is how it is and this is how it needs to stay.  It’s all I know.

 This technology has become so much apart of our everyday lives in the 21^st century, that it is hard to even fathom a time without it, but still it is important to do so. ,”[Q]uestion… the way we spend our time, our rythms,” writes Perec (210).  We must realize that there was indeed a time when cell phones and smart phones didn’t exist and people still lived a functional life. We must all remember that if need be, our lives will still go on if our phones were to disappear tomorrow. We need to ask ourselves, “is my phone really a matter of life or death? Can I in no way function without it?” If the answers to these questions are no, than it might be a good idea to step back a minute and really think about the importance we place on phones. Well at least think about it until the next person texts you…

 I know it’s obsessive, but from the minute I wake up, all throughout my day, and to the time I close my eyes at night, I am constantly connected through my cell phone. It is near me at all times and when it is gone I feel completely lost. Our generation has become so accustomed to having instant access to almost everything through the technology of a smart phones that I wonder, if it were all to go away tomorrow would be able to function normally? As Perec states, it is difficult to question something so much a matter of course that we forget its origins (210). The world would indeed be very different if the cell phone was to disappear. Appointments would be missed, alarms wouldn’t go off, and pictures wouldn’t be taken. The cell phone simply has revolutionized our world and there is no other way to put it. And although I realize that life could still go on if the cell phone were to disappear tomorrow, my life couldn’t go on and I have a feeling many of my peers would agree. It as becomes one of the most valued treasures I own, let alone the whole century.

Not a Day Without It