Week 4 - Response To Content

What is cyberspace?

Cyberspace has a different meaning everywhere you look. The broadest explanation I could find was a network of technology joined by a matrix called the ‘Net.’ Information is shared between these technologies through microwave transmitters that beam it into orbit to be received by any technology that seeks it out. (1). The idea of satellites in space bouncing the sent information back to the Earth could be one of the reasons why we think of the words ‘Cyber’ and ‘Space’ together a lot of the time. (2).

Is it real?

Some places you look say its ‘real,’ explaining it as a group of computers joined together in order to interact with each other. (3). others say it’s “an extension of the idea of virtual reality.” (1). Reality could mean anything in this case. Is ‘real’ being able to touch it as an object? Or is ‘real’ something you know to be true? The question can only be answered for someone by themselves because it also depends on their definition of the word ‘real.’

Where is it?

Depending on which way you choose to look at it, it’s either ‘real’ in the physical form of computers joined together or an image in your head fuelled by the imagination. While conversing as a class about the different meanings of the word ‘cyberspace,’ my tutor summed it all up in an interesting way.

“The physical is the technology; the idea is the notion that stems from imagination.” (4).

References:

(1) View from the Edge-The Cyberpunk Handbook. 1988, R. Talsorian Games Inc.

(2) Discussions in Tute.

(3) Gibson, W 1987, ‘Burning Chrome’, New York: Ace.

(4) Lauren Horner, 2011.

~Blue-Inspiration