Breaking the Girl: Pygmalion, Poe, and Lem
Twisting and turning
Your feelings are burning
You’re breaking the girl
She meant you no harm
Think you’re so clever
But now you must sever
You’re breaking the girl
—The Red Hot Chili Peppers
In his Metamorphoses, Ovid is concerned with, among other things, images of woman and the men that love them. Perhaps that is a euphemistic way of saying: Ovid’s book of changes often features women as the victims of men’s desire. Ovid frequently and incisively examines how the...
Posted by bigjelly on 12 16th, 2008
Katrinko Must Die: Techno-...
The figure of the cyborg helps us see more specifically whether other central stories of our age are accurate or useful. Many of these stories are ancient, about gender and power, life love and death. But others, entwined with them, are themselves cyborg myths, attempts to understand the broader implications of human/machine co-evolution which . . . develop, critique, and rewrite as they learn to “speak”...
Posted by bigjelly on 09 19th, 2006
Gibson’s Merging Rea...
While “José Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’” calls into question the validity of extraterrestrial abduction, sightings, and existence, it nevertheless confirms the reality of its visual iconography in the popular imagination of our age. There remains a perpetual debate about the literal existence of supernatural entities and aliens, but when turning to William Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum,”...
Posted by bigjelly on 08 4th, 2006
Bester’s “Fond...
Man, I’m beautifully hot.
I can’t think of a more appropriate story to read on a scorching summer day than Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit.” This science fiction narrative uses the heat almost as if it’s a character with its own volition. If not a character, it’s definitely a force of nature that seems to act on the protagonist in deliciously violent ways,...
Posted by bigjelly on 11 6th, 2005
Configuration and Interpre...
The section of First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game on ludology suggests that video games should be studied differently than one would study a narrative; i.e., they are not (just) stories, so the considerations of play must be considered foremost. The most useful discussion in this section centers around configuration.
Eskelinen, the most outspoken and intractable of the group, suggests...
Posted by bigjelly on 02 29th, 2004
Bush, Licklider, and Nelso...
The pieces by Bush, Licklider, and Nelson in the New Media Reader seem to continue expounding upon the question that Turing and Wiener were interested in: just how do humans think and what does that mean for the design and use of technology? Just what is a well-designed tool that will allow scientists and, by implication, the rest of us work in the most productive way that we can. Are there generalizations...
Posted by bigjelly on 01 27th, 2004
Tarkovsky’s Solaris...
To science? It’s a fraud! No one will ever resolve this problem, neither genius, nor idiot! We have no ambition to conquer any cosmos. We just want to extend earth up to the cosmos’ borders. We don’t want anymore worlds. Only a mirror to see our own in. We try so hard to make contact, but we’re doomed to failure. We look ridiculous pursuing a goal we fear and that we really...
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