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Neuromancer

Neuromancer. By William Gibson. Introduction. Genre: Cyber noir thriller Corporate and Military Hegemony Gender Analysis Anti-heroism and Cyberpunk AI as Self-Directed Conclusion. Interview with William Gibson. Genre: Cyber Noir Thriller.

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Neuromancer

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  1. Neuromancer By William Gibson

  2. Introduction • Genre: Cyber noir thriller • Corporate and Military Hegemony • Gender Analysis • Anti-heroism and Cyberpunk • AI as Self-Directed • Conclusion Interview with William Gibson

  3. Genre: Cyber Noir Thriller • Physically, morally and spiritually dark, morbid and violent. • Futuristic urban decay. • Fast-action in the “real world” as well as in “the matrix”— a cyberspace “consensual hallucination” (51). • AI as dominant characters and motivational forces.

  4. Corporate and Military Hegemonies • Hegemony refers to domination by consent, a theme marked from the characters’ actions through the AI to the general populace under corporate and military control. • Set in Chiba City Japan, the Sprawl (BAMA USA), Istanbul (Eastern European decay and old decadence), and Freeside (a space station “free” state owned by the Tessier-Ashpools--a corporate family). • Most people enjoy the conveniences and pleasures provided by capitalism whereas the Zionites isolate themselves from “Babylon.”

  5. Gender Analysis • Ambiguous in terms of its presentation of women. • Although the male characters tend to see the women as “meat,” women are depicted as self-sufficient, intelligent, sexy, and independent of men. • Molly is the femme fatale, cyber-enhanced killing machine. She blocks out emotion (eyes cannot be penetrated). • Linda is the quintessential innocent turned victim. • Marie-France and Lady3Jane are beautiful, articulate, intelligent, but used by the AI. Marie-France is murdered by her husband (strangled in bed—and captured on video) (229).

  6. Anti-heroism and Cyberpunk • Case is self and other destructive • “Fueled by self-loathing” (262). • Case uses the women in his life (as “meat”). • No real answer to the question who does he love? • Never sees Molly again and dates a woman “who call[s] herself ‘Michael’” (270). Signals the lack of human connection in a world driven by cyberspace and corporate agendas. • Case as antihero merges with the mathematical mind of the AI, but not with inner emotion (258-9).

  7. AI as Self-Directed • Wintermute is logic. • Neuromancer is personality. • Their agenda is to merge “minds” and become a hybrid new entity—fully integrated. • The matrix becomes conscious and independent. • This new entity contacts others like itself on distant worlds (Centauri System). VirtualMatrix.org

  8. Conclusion • Cyberpunk presents ambiguous images of the future. • Urban development has destroyed the natural world. • Space becomes the new home of corporate hegemony. • The future is in the “hands” of AI—taking a course potentially independent from human destiny.

  9. Conclusion continued • The AI now has a “mind” that transcends human consciousness and incorporates all information and knowledge of the matrix within itself including a holographic “recording” of humans like Linda Lee and Case himself. • “Where do we go from here? …Tonight the very matrix asks itself that question” (259). Imageworks: final version Johnny Mnemonic

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