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Cyberspace

Cyberspace — from the Greek (, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder) — is the global domain of electro-magnetics accessed through electronic technology and exploited through the modulation of electromagnetic energy to achieve a wide range of communication and control system capabilities. The term is rooted in the science of cybernetics and Norbert Weiner?s pioneering work in electronic communication and control science, a forerunner to current information theory and computer science. Through its electro-magnetic nature, cyberspace integrates a number of capabilities (sensors, signals, connections, transmissions, processors, controllers) and generates a virtual interactive experience accessed for the purpose of communication and control regardless of a geographic location. In pragmatic terms, Cyberspace allows the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures (ITI), telecommunications networks--such as the Internet, computer systems, integrated sensors, system control networks and embedded processors and controllers common to global control and communications. As a social experience, individuals can interact, exchange ideas, share information, provide social support, conduct business, direct actions, create artistic media, play simulation games, engage in political discussion, etc. The term was originally coined in the cyber-punk genre of science fiction author, William Gibson.^[1] The now ubiquitous term has become a conventional means to describe anything associated with computers, information technology, the internet and the diverse internet culture.

Origins of the term

Metaphorical

Cyberspace as an Internet metaphor
Alternate realities in philosophy and art

Predating computers
Influenced by computers

Philosophy
Art

Popular culture examples
See also
Notes
References
External links

Origins of the term

The word "cyberspace" (from cybernetics and space) was coined by science fiction novelist and seminal cyberpunk author William Gibson in his 1982 story "Burning Chrome" and popularized by his 1984 novel Neuromancer.^[2] The portion of Neuromancer cited in this respect is usually the following:

Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding, (69).

Gibson later commented on the origin of the term in the 2000 documentary No Maps for These Territories:

All I knew about the word "cyberspace" when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.

Metaphorical

The metaphor used to describe the 'sense of a social setting that exists purely within a space of representation and communication . . . it exists entirely within a computer space, distributed across increasingly complex and fluid networks.Slater(2002,355) The term Cyberspace started to become a de facto synonym for the Internet, and later the World Wide Web, during the 1990s, especially in academic circles^[3] and activist communities. Author Bruce Sterling, who popularized this meaning,^[4] credits John Perry Barlow as the first to use it to refer to "the present-day nexus of computer and telecommunications networks." Barlow describes it thus in his essay to announce the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (note the spatial metaphor) in June, 1990:^[5]

As Barlow, and the EFF, continued public education efforts to promote the idea of "digital rights," the term was increasingly used during the Internet boom of the late 1990s.

Cyberspace as an Internet metaphor

While cyberspace should not be confused with the real Internet, the term is often used to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the communication network itself, so that a web site, for example, might be metaphorically said to "exist in cyberspace." According to this interpretation, events taking place on the Internet are not therefore happening in the countries where the participants or the servers are physically located, but "in cyberspace".

Firstly, it describes the flow of digital data through the network of interconnected computers that was both not 'real' since one could not spatially locate it or feel it as a tangible object and clearly 'real' in its effects. Secondly cyberspace was the site of computer mediated communication (CMC), in which online relationships and alternative forms of online identity were enacted, raising important questions and about the social psychology of Internet use,the relationship between 'online'and 'offline' forms of life and interaction, and the relationship between the 'real' and the virtual. It draws attention to remediation of culture through new media technologies not just a communication tool but a social destination and culturally significant in its own right. Finally cyberspace was seen as providing new opportunities to reshape society and culture through "hidden" identities, or the borderless communication and culture. ^[6]

The "space" in cyberspace has more in common with the abstract, mathematical meanings of the term (see Space) than physical space. It does not have the duality of positive and negative volume (while in physical space for example a room has the negative volume of usable space delineated by positive volume of walls, Internet users cannot enter the screen and explore the unknown part of the Net as an extension of the space they're in), but spatial meaning can be attributed to the relationship between different pages (of books as well as webservers), considering the unturned pages to be somewhere "out there." The concept of cyberspace therefore refers not to the content being presented to the surfer, but rather to the possibility of surfing among different sites, with feedback loops between the user and the rest of the system creating the potential to always encounter something unknown or unexpected.

Videogames differ from text-based communication in that on-screen images are meant to be figures that actually occupy a space and the animation shows the movement of those figures. Images are supposed to form the positive volume that delineates the empty space. A game adopts the cyberspace metaphor by engaging more players in the game, and then figuratively representing them on the screen as avatars. Games do not have to stop at the avatar-player level, but current implementations aiming for more immersive playing space (i.e. Laser tag) take the form of augmented reality rather than cyberspace, fully immersive virtual realities remaining impractical.

Although the more radical consequences of the global communication network predicted by some cyberspace proponents (i.e. the diminishing of state influence envisioned by John Perry Barlow^[7]) failed to materialize and the word lost some of its novelty appeal, it remains current as of 2006.^[8]^[9]

Some virtual communities explicitly refer to the concept of cyberspace, e.g. Linden Lab calling their customers "Residents" of Second Life, while all such communities can be positioned "in cyberspace" for explanatory and comparative purposes (as Sterling did in The Hacker Crackdown and many journalists afterwards), integrating the metaphor into a wider cyber-culture.

The metaphor has been useful in helping a new generation of thought leaders to reason through new military strategies around the world, led largely by the US Department of Defense (DoD). ^[10] The use of cyberspace as a metaphor has had its limits, however, especially in areas where the metaphor becomes confused with physical infrastructure.

Alternate realities in philosophy and art

Predating computers

Before cyberspace became a technological possibility, many philosophers suggested the possibility of a virtual reality similar to cyberspace. In The Republic, Plato sets out his allegory of the cave, widely cited as one of the first conceptual realities. He suggests that we are already in a form of virtual reality which we are deceived into thinking is true. True reality for Plato is accessible only through mental training and is the reality of the forms. These ideas are central to Platonism and neoplatonism.

Another forerunner of the modern ideas of cyberspace is Descartes' thought that people might be deceived by an evil demon which feeds them a false reality. This argument is the direct predecessor of the modern ideas of brain in a vat and many popular conceptions of cyberspace take Descartes' ideas as their starting point.

Visual arts have a tradition, stretching back to antiquity, of artefacts meant to fool the eye and be mistaken for reality. This questioning of reality occasionally led some philosophers and especially theologians to distrust art as deceiving people into entering a world which was not real (see Aniconism). The artistic challenge was resurrected with increasing ambition as art became more and more realistic with the invention of photography, film (see Arrival of a Train at a Station) and finally immersive computer simulations.

Influenced by computers

Philosophy

American counterculture exponents like William S. Burroughs (whose literary influence on Gibson and cyberpunk in general is widely acknowledged^[11]^[12]) and Timothy Leary^[13] were among the first to extoll the potential of computers and computer networks for individual empowerment.^[14]

Some contemporary philosophers and scientists (i.e. David Deutsch in The Fabric of Reality) employ virtual reality in various thought experiments. For example Philip Zhai in Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality connects cyberspace to the platonic tradition:

Let us imagine a nation in which everyone is hooked up to a network of VR infrastructure. They have been so hooked up since they left their mother's wombs. Immersed in cyberspace and maintaining their life by teleoperation, they have never imagined that life could be any different from that. The first person that thinks of the possibility of an alternative world like ours would be ridiculed by the majority of these citizens, just like the few enlightened ones in Plato's allegory of the cave.

Note that this brain-in-a-vat argument conflates cyberspace with reality, while the more common descriptions of cyberspace contrast it with the "real world".

Art

Main article: New media art

Having originated among writers, the concept of cyberspace remains most popular in literature and film. Although artists working with other media have expressed interest in the concept, such as Roy Ascott, "cyberspace" in digital art is mostly used as a synonym for immersive virtual reality and remains more discussed than enacted.^[15]

Popular culture examples

In the math mystery cartoon Cyberchase, the action takes place in Cyberspace, managed by the benevolent ruler, Motherboard. It is used as a conceit to allow storylines to take place in virtual worlds -- "Cybersites" -- on any theme and where specific math concepts can be best explored.
The anime Digimon is set in a variant of the cyberspace concept called the "Digital World". The Digital World is a parallel universe made up of data from the Internet. Similar to cyberspace, except that people could physically enter this world instead of merely using a computer.
The CGI show, ReBoot, takes place entirely inside cyberspace, which is composed of two worlds: the Net and the Web.
In the computer game System Shock, the player can use a neural implant to "jack in" to cyberspace terminals, where they can collect data, fight security programs and trigger certain events in the real world, such as unlocking doors.
In the movie Tron, a programmer was physically transferred to the program world, where programs were personalities, resembling the forms of their creators.
The idea of "the matrix" in the movie The Matrix resembles a complex form of cyberspace where people are "jacked in" from birth and do not know that the reality they experience is virtual. See Matrix (cyberpunk).
In the EXE series of MegaMan, there is a place where A.I. programs called NetNavis can "jack in" to Cyberspace from about any electrical appliance. Also, in the MegaMan Zero series, particularly MegaMan Zero 3, the player can occasionally transitate from the real world to the cyberspace during missions.
In the Japanese anime series Lain, the main character begins to learn of a new dimension of reality taking place in cyberspace.
Irregular Webcomic!'s Space theme frequently involves the characters going into Cyberspace.
In the Xenosaga video game series on the PlayStation 2, there is virtual reality called the U.M.N. ("Unus mundus network") that uses the human collective unconscious as an interstellar, cyberspace network. It is similar to the matrix mentioned above, but also facilitates hyperspace travel for spacecraft and can create a virtual reality representation of human memories.
In the Ghost in the Shell fictional universe, there is an extrapolation of the Internet (called "The Net") which a large section of society seems to be able to access. The interface can range from simply visual (through conventional displays or implants) to full-sensory immersion via neural jacks, where (as in William Gibson's Cyberspace) data is shown as visual constructs such as objects that present servers or databases, with graphical depictions of security mechanisms and information stores. Entering and/or traveling The Net is referred to as "net diving", which is an activity with the potential to be physically dangerous.
In the video game Shadow the Hedgehog, two cyberspace levels were made: Digital Circuit and Mad Matrix.
In the Game Boy Advance game Sonic Advance 3, the sixth zone "Cyber Track" is set in cyberspace.
The Air Force Cyber Command (Provisional) (AFCYBER) is the newest United States Air Force major command whose development was announced by the Secretary of the Air Force on November 2, 2006
In the video game Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII a character could use a "synthetic net dive" to enter cyberspace and obtain information.

Notes

References

William Gibson. Neuromancer:20th Anniversary Edition. New York:Ace Books, 2004.
Irvine, Martin. "Postmodern Science Fiction and Cyberpunk", retrieved 2006-07-19.
Oliver Grau : Virtual Art. From Illusion to Immersion, MIT-Press, Cambridge 2003. (4 Auflagen).
Sterling, Bruce. The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder On the Electronic Frontier. Spectra Books, 1992.
Zhai, Philip. Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
Christine Buci-Glucksmann, "L?art � l?�poque virtuel", in Fronti�res esth�tiques de l?art, Arts 8, Paris: L?Harmattan, 2004

Cyberculture, The key Concepts, edited by David Bell, Brian D.Loader, Nicholas Pleace and Douglas Schuler

Slater, Don 2002, 'Social Relationships and Identity Online and Offline', in L.Lievrouw and S.Livingston (eds), The Handbook of New Media, Sage, London, pp533-46.