ENGL 817AL - Field Notes: Neuromancer and the Visualization of Digital Space

My final field notes of the semester being put to use to talk about the final paper of my graduate program. Don't mind if I do!

As I explained in a previous post, my research paper this semester is focused on tracing the visualization of digital space through early science fiction films through to Neuromancer's "cyberspace" in 1984 and then beyond into other science fiction films.

I have done supplemental reading of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? (aka Blade Runner) and watched many an old and new science fiction film. And, while my research has not been exhaustive, it has been enlightening.

My initial catalyst for this topic was that the description of cyberspace in Neuromancer was very reflective of the TRON film that came out in 1982; its grid patterning, abstract shapes, and structure of the computer-insides world. And interestingly, as I did my research reading articles and watching films, this result actually did not change too much - many of the films and visualizations stick to the grid-like imagery, with The Matrix (1999) surprisingly being the least equivalent example.

A lot of the scholarly research I conducted touches on the social, sociological, political, economic and post-human cultural aspects of Neuromancer, but I did manage to locate articles that touch on the visualization of digital space in one form or another even though it was not their primary focus. One interesting avenue of research I uncovered was a period in the early 2000s where scholars were focusing on how to map cyberspace as we knew it post-Y2K using the conventional tools of traditional cartography. This proved fruitful in the tracing of the visualization of digital space as it was relevant to the "how we see it" of cyberspace in a way that makes sense to what we already know.

While my focus is on tracing the visualization of digital space and its influence(s), I am also curious how in many cases the digital spaces I have read about and watched in film act as an intermediary or liminal space that transitions the reader/viewer/character from reality to a full-blow 'realistic' simulation. Examples of this are the simulations the A.I.s put Case into in Neuromancer in order to talk to him, or the translation of human particles from reality into the computer world in TRON and TRON: Legacy, and even the blank white 'space' of the construct loading program where Neo learns about the difference between reality and the matrix in The Matrix. This thread of inquiry would be a whole other research avenue in and of itself!

At the time of this post, I only have two films left to watch: The Matrix (1999) and Johnny Mnemonic (1995). But here is a list of what I have watched so far:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• The Terminal Man (1974)
• Futureworld (1976) 
• Logan's Run (1977)
• Star Wars - A New Hope (1977)
• Blade Runner (1982) - this and BR 2049 will have their own post!
• TRON (1982)
• TRON: Legacy (2010)
• Ready Player One (2018)

I left Matrix and Johnny until the end because of their influence. The Matrix is considered an almost-adaptation of Neuromancer without actually being one, and Johnny Mnemonic is an adaptation of a short story of the same name that was written and published before Neuromancer. I feel these two films will give me the grounding and basis I need to move forward with my paper, but I left them for last so they did not taint what I was gleaning from the other films.

When I think about it, this class, and this paper, have been an interesting end to my program as I look at the future post-graduate program because this whole semester and this paper have been about looking at the past and future and technology and what it is and means to be a writer/author. It is making me wistful to contemplate by program is coming to a close with this paper that is all about tracing the visual influence of something through media of the past several decades. It is hard to express what I'm feeling... hmm...

ENGL 817AL - Field Notes: Contending with Collaboration

This post is not likely to be full of orderly and coherent thoughts...

When discussing the subheading for last week's class: "Authority, Ownership, and 'Complex' Authorship," we read a chapter from K.K. Ruthven's Faking Literature. In the chapter, the concept of collaborative authorship was examined and this particular section stuck out to me in relation to how we might approach Martin Amis' Time's Arrow:

"As a professional collaborator in the production of scripts for playhouses, Heywood engaged in what Jeffrey Masten calls `textual intercourse', an activity `predicated on erasing the perception of any differences that might have existed . . . between collaborated parts'. Modern critics, on the other hand, have put their knowledge of such practices to a different end by attributing to their preferred author those parts of the work they admire, and then relegating the rest to an inferior collaborator."

While Amis is the author of the text and there is no collaborator, there is an odd type of collaboration taking place on the page between the the narrator/consciousness and the physical body of Tom/Odilo. The narrator is telling the reader the story by relaying what he is experiencing through the uncontrollable-by-him body of Odilo. And Odilo's story is unfolding without the help or input of the narrator. Without both components of the narrator's insight and explanation to what Odilo's body is doing there would be just utter confusion instead. The narrator is the "preferred author" here because we do not have access to the thoughts of Odilo. The readers are biased towards the narrator over Odilo because of this as well.

Yet, there is a point in the novel where the collaboration to telling the story sort of blends because the narrator feels more at home within Odilo's body and understands more (or at least so he thinks) of what is going on in the physical world he cannot contribute to. As these events unfold to the narrator, the reader contends with the fact that the narrator is an unreliable one, but also that their "preferred" view of him was actually accurate to an extent. This blending of the events and understanding between the narrator to Odilo's actions, to me, makes it more of a traditional alignment with the idea of collaboration we're used to, but then yet again it is not quite the same still.

I have no idea if what I am getting at here makes any sense. Like I said, "unlikely to be orderly or coherent". My brain just cannot stop munching on this aspect of how is or isn't Time's Arrow a collaborative text in terms of not the author, but of the characters and the way they are authoring the experiences of Odilo's life in reverse.

Not sure if I will ever make sense of this line of thought... s... 

ENGL 817AL - Field Notes: What is an "Author" in Film?

I'm ramping up on research for my final paper in this class, and if you don't know me by now, you gotta know that I am finding a way to bring film into it if I can.

Coles Notes: I'm tracing the visualization of digital space through early science fiction films that pre-date the release of Neuromancer in 1984 and how they might have influenced the description of digital space in the novel, and then following that with how the novel has influenced science fiction films since then in further visualizations of digital space. Think Tron through to The Matrix and beyond.

But that is not what this post is focused on—as the title suggests. Our most recent class seminars and discussion were around the idea of 'What is an author?'. There were musing on tracing the rise of the 'author' in history and publishing as well has defining what an author is. And, since I am focusing on film in my final paper, I asked myself: "What or who is the author when it comes to film?"

I doubt I will be able to answer this question myself, and I am sure others would have a very adamant claim to who they would think is the 'author' of a film, but having studied film and film adaptations of books for the last five or so more years, even I do not have a definitive place of assignment for 'author' of a film. There are too many moving parts, people, and contributions to have a sole author, I think.

Claims could be made that it is the script writer who is the author. But then what if the script is adapted from a book or play or other source? Then is it not author that is original author?

What about the actors that bring the characters to like on screen? Are they not a type of author bringing a level of authorship to the depiction of that character?

What about the director? Is it not them who guides the story much like an author does?
What about the cinematographer? Is it not them who is bring the visuals of the story to life, like an author does with elaborate description in a novel?

Am I just grasping at straws here?

But, again, I have to think about all the moving parts that make a film function. And, because The Oscars was on recently, there isn't just ONE category for the awards which would celebrate the 'author' of the film and be done. There are multiple categories for all of the different contributing pieces to a film. 

So, in fact, am I not right, that there isn't really only just one 'author' of a film?