Session 7: Literatures of Cyberspace
5th Global Conference
Sunday 11th July 2010 – Tuesday 13th July 2010
Mansfield College, Oxford
The Cyberpunk Vision of the Urban Condition, Identities and Agencies in Future Cape Town as Rendered Lauren Beuke’s in Moxyland
Irikidzayi Manase
University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa
The paper draws on ideas focusing on cyberpunk identities, tests the cybog metaphor in relation to nanotechnology and explores the agencies associated with cyberpunk literature to examine what its means to be a resident of a Cape Town of 2018 as represented in Lauren Beukes’ novel, Moxyland. This Cape Town is defined by hegemonic high-technology corporations and a repressive city authority that employs cyber-based apartheid surveillance techniques and brutality in an attempt to manipulate the residents so that they can slide into an addictive consumerism and remain as oppressed subjects, respectively. The paper takes into cognisance the intersection between urban experiences and science fiction that is reflected in cyberpunk literature in its depiction of the way the represented individuals grapple with issues such as continuous exposures to excessive corporate initiated consumerism and invasive and corrupt local and national governments. This intersection and the fascinating formation of identities drawing on the ubiquity of information technology, cyber games and other technologies in the spaces in which the fiction is set are discussed in relation to Beukes’ Moxyland. The paper thus examines what it means to be human in this Cape Town that is dominated by corporate manipulation and deceit, nanotechnology, the cyberspace and high-tech police surveillance and brutality. It discusses further the nature of the existing hegemonies and how they impact on the other identities, such as the nano/cybog, activist flaneure and terrorist ones, constituted by characters such as Toby, Tendeka, Lerato, Kendra and others in the novel. The paper ends with an evaluation of the significance of the rendered residents’ creativity and activism as they attempt at challenging the impact of the city’s authorities and its corporate hegemony and asses still whether the subversion points to a better vision of the Cape Town of the future.
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A Loss of Connection: Science in Romanticism and Modern Science Fiction
Susan Rose Nash
Western Kentucky Universit, Kentucky, USA
Science has long been presented as a method of solving the problems humanity faces, and scientists have often been lauded as the saviors of the world. However, writers of Romantic-era fiction and of modern science fiction share a fear of the future [“both,” “share,” and “common” would be redundant] that humanity could create with the power of science unchecked by humane judgment. Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the power inherent in scientific knowledge in the hands of a common man. Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and “The Birth-mark” shows science entering the domestic sphere with Rappaccini as a father and Aylmer as a husband. Each man uses science to alter the woman he loves with the intent of improvement, yet both women are killed in the process. Complete dedication to scientific experimentation creates a separation between these men and their humanity. Romantics like Hawthorne saw science as the ultimate medium for all of humanity’s evil to manifest itself.
This attitude continued in the minds of modern science fiction authors. In the twentieth century, science pervades every aspect of human life. This growth allows science to influence the lives of everyday individuals. Science becomes so common it is used with little thought given to possible consequences. Society changes because of science. Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt” and Fahrenheit 451 show the same lack of humanity that Hawthorne demonstrates in his scientists, but on a societal scale. The Hadleys and the Montags accept science and technology because it has always been present in their lives. For both Hawthorne and Bradbury, a world guided by science results in families being destroyed, society failing, and violence being considered inconsequential. The human drive to control and destroy creates a direct link between the Romantic period and modern science fiction.
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Human Identity and Individuality in the World Of Altered Carbon
Grzegorz Trębicki
Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland
Subjects such as the changing idea of a body in the era of cyberculture, various biotechnical advances and their impact on life, death, human identity and individuality, as well as political and social consequences of electronic revolution have long lain within the range of more ambitious science fiction and cyberpunk. The British SF writer Richard Morgan’s recent “Takeshi Kovacs” trilogy (Altered Carbon, 2002; Broken Angels, 2003; Woken Furies 2005) also seems to elaborate on those problems. However, in comparison to many previous works of the genres in question, Morgan’s extrapolation remains especially moving and convincing. This is partly because his vision manages to successfully background daring technological advances against complex psychological, social and economic issues. An unobtrusive yet serious critique of contemporary corporate, social and religious systems gives it an additional mundane perspective that is absent in many similar texts. On the other hand, the core idea of the entire trilogy – Morgan’s concept of the digitalization of human consciousness and the subordination of the whole motif to the social and economic contexts – provides a convenient pretext for raising fundamental questions concerning humanity. This paper will attempt to analyze the most essential elements of Morgan’s vision with a special emphasis laid on how the very concepts of human identity and individuality are put to the test in the world of “altered carbon”.
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