Interactive fiction in the computer medium is a continuation of the modern “tradition” of experimental literature in print. Storyspace™ is a hypertext system we have created for authoring and reading such fiction. Here’s an abstract about Storyspace by Jay David Bolter:Īmong its many uses, hypertext can serve as a medium for a new kind of flexible, interactive fiction. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, “memex” will do. Bush:Ĭonsider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. I couldn’t help but thinking of the Vannevar Bush article “As We May Think” while reading about the Storyspace hypertext system, particularly this excerpt from V.
Jack-in and enjoy.Storyspace hypertext system created by Jay David Bolter What makes this work so enjoyable, is that Greco effectively uses the medium of hypertext to reflect the topic she explores: as a technology of text construction that constantly de-stabilizes the boundaries of the text, re-configures, deforms and enhances it by stitching together parts, hypertext seems to be the ideal medium for an exploration of the cyborg.
Greco's "Cyborg" addresses topics such as "Mind, Body, Anti-Body" and "Communication & Control" and poses interesting questions: If the challenge of the ever-emerging self is the struggle to create a narrative of one's history, how can cyborgs write themselves? What is this "autobiotechnography"? And what do cyborgs know? As Greco puts it, cyborgs know about parts, spare parts, prostheses, replacements and enhancements cyborgs know how to stitch themselves together, physically and psychically. A cyborg connects with the technology and possesses an interface with it cyborgs require this connection as a metaphor in their self-construction. Technology may invite us to distance ourselves from our bodies, but as Greco emphasizes, technology does not only enable a flight from the body, it also invades it: the body becomes a site of technological invasion. Neuromancer's Molly is referred to as a "meat puppet," not a prostitute. Cyberpunk's disposability of the body as "meat" raises the question whether the exploitation of bodies carries a particular moral or physical weight. In cyberspace, the mind is a commodity-cowboy hackers such as Case in Gibson's Neuromancer travel in cyberspace with their consciousness the body is disposable. In a section entitled "Your Body is Meat," Greco explores cyberpunk's separation of mind from body. This self-definition calls the traditional binaries of self/other and human/machine into question the human exclusivity of the Cartesian "I think, therefore I am" becomes debatable and gains new meanings.
Cyborgs can define themselves without insisting on the traditional boundaries that separate humans from their technology. As Greco points out, the reconstruction of the self as cybernetic requires a reconsideration of the boundaries between the body and the machine-the technologies that invade, colonize, deform or enhance the body. Recent feminist theory and literary deconstruction are effectively used as tools to examine how the technologies used to re-configure bodies become themselves manifestations of the changing attitudes towards bodies. Dick-to explore cyborgs as a metaphor for personal identity and political action. She uses the image of the cyborg in the works of 20th-century authors-such as William Gibson, Thomas Pynchon and Philip K. Greco wrote "Cyborg" using the hypertext authoring system Storyspace, created by Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce and John B. Cyborgs have been familiar figures in science fiction for quite some time, but since access to cyberspace has become possible for the masses, the notion of the cyborg has become more and more "real." Once we enter cyberspace, aren't we all cyborgs, technologically enhanced and extended bodies? How does this change our notions of self and personal identity?ĭiane Greco's hypertext "Cyborg-Engineering The Body Electric," addresses these pressing questions by animating the cyborg in the medium of hypertext. Stitching together the words "cybernetic" and "organism," research space scientist Manfred Clynes created the term 'Cyborg' in 1960. (800) Greco and the cover of her hypertext. "CYBORG - ENGINEERING THE BODY ELECTRIC"Įastgate Systems Inc. Cyborg-Engineering the Body Electric BORGING