External Memory Drives: Deletion and Digitality in Agrippa (A Book of The Dead).
While William Gibson's cyberpunk fiction is fundamental for understanding the relationship between digitality and science fiction, I suggest that Gibson's most important "digital" work is neither cyberpunk, science fiction, nor even fiction. It is, instead, an autobiographical poem, Agrippa: (A Book...
| Published in: | Science Fiction Studies Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 14 - 33 |
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| Format: | Article |
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University of California Press
Mar2016
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=113336672&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 113336672 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00917729 SFS jtl: Science Fiction Studies issn: 00917729 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2016 vid: 43 iid: 1 pid: 414 pub: University of California Press artinfo: ui: 113336672 10.5621/sciefictstud.43.1.0014 ppf: 14 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 935KB tig: atl: External Memory Drives: Deletion and Digitality in Agrippa (A Book of The Dead). aug: au: Swanstrom, Lisa su: Agrippa: A Book of the Dead (Book) Gibson, William, 1948- Cyberpunk fiction Digitization Digital technology & society sug: subj: Agrippa: A Book of the Dead (Book) Gibson, William, 1948- Cyberpunk fiction Digitization Digital technology & society ab: While William Gibson's cyberpunk fiction is fundamental for understanding the relationship between digitality and science fiction, I suggest that Gibson's most important "digital" work is neither cyberpunk, science fiction, nor even fiction. It is, instead, an autobiographical poem, Agrippa: (A Book of The Dead), published in 1992. Agrippa marks a pivotal point in Gibson's writing for its engagement with actual-as opposed to speculative-digital editing techniques, not merely in terms of the disk that contains the poem encoded within it, but in terms of Gibson's tendency to triangulate digitization, identity, and memory. Agrippa as a whole-that is, as a work of poetry, a printed book, and a self-effacing digital object-functions initially as a modernist monument to subjectivity at the very moment of its dismantling and, in this respect, is wholly consistent with Gibson's cyberpunk fiction, which tends to treat digital technology in analog terms. Yet in the twenty-plus years since its initial publication, Agrippa has continued to evolve, and a reading of this strange text today yields different possibilities. In what might be termed Agrippa's afterlife, a more fluid form of memory has emerged, one that is collective, participatory, collaborative, and much more in tune with the nature of digitality. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Science Fiction Studies is the property of University of California Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Science Fiction Studies holder: University of California Press dt: @attributes: year: 2016 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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