(no subject)
Dec. 2nd, 2002 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bzarcherOccasionally I write for purposes other than thinking, sex, or emotional spew. :D
This is something that's been in my head since I did a literary analysis of Snow Crash last year, and now's as good a time as any to write a bit on it.
Human life is defined by moments of percussion and tactile impact/force. Conception as the sperm colliding/merging with the ovum. Birth as the expulsion from the womb. Our heartbeats as a constant series of respiratory explosions. Even breathing itself the act of intake and expulsion. Sex as a rythmic collision of partners. Fights. Hugs. Even our writings are impressions created by force, heat, and light. (Even so called 'laser printers' require the pressure and heat of the toner and fuser assemblies.)
The computer age has changed this. While the act of typing is a percussive one, or the 'clicking' of a mouse, modern ergonomics experts have reduced even these to near fritctionless, silent, events. (Even the 'mouse ball' has been replaced by a laser, and many companies offer flexible, solid state keyboards made of soft, malleable plastic that produce no sound and little sensation.) Media is not written on by the scratch of a pen or pencil, or even the strike of a typeface, but by silent, invisible movements of energy. Text appears on screens as bursts of electrons, untouchable. To remedy this, we incorporate devices such as 'force feedback' technology in the attempt to induce a bit more 'reality'. Sound becomes a key. Bass sounds often note important events to grab attention of the user through vibration.
In addition, much of our communication and interaction over computers is an attempt to inject percussive life into them. We simulate combat. We simulate intimacy. We simulate travel.
Snow Crash is no exception to this in how it portrays the electronic life. In the first pages, we hear of Hiro's 'Deliverator' job. The description of his car is incredibly tactile, and the descriptions include buzzes, vibrations, and impacts. A massive amount of description is given to the virtual and real sword/knife/gunfights, with as much concentration on the feeling of the weapons and their impacts as the results. Even the choice of the primary weapons of the protagonists and antagonists is a choice to imply greater contact and percussion.
Hiro uses a set of swords, or the 'redneck katana' during the chapter on his training. Even the 'reason' firearm is one that acts with hypervelocity shells described as 'slicing' or 'penetrating'.
Raven uses knives.
Y.T. uses her skateboard, fists, or the 'liquid knuckles' that, while a chemical, are still described as an impact. Even her defensive dentata is a weapon of injection and impact, activated by the injection of Raven's member into her sex.
Uncle Enzo, in his climactic attack on Raven, uses a steel razor.
The mafioso known as 'Fisheye' has lost his eye to an icepick.
Each combat is described in terms of percussive forces, slashing, feedback, and damage. Even the magnetic harpoons of the various skateboarding characters are -impacts-. The sonic charges of the skateboards used for Y.T.'s attempted escape or to destroy Raven's glass weapons are described as 'driving her {Y.T.'s} stomach into her brainpan.'
A continual implantation of force, and the descriptive language of force into the narrative serve to help spread more life and existence into the Metaverse of the novel.
I need to do more with that....but this is a start.
This is something that's been in my head since I did a literary analysis of Snow Crash last year, and now's as good a time as any to write a bit on it.
Human life is defined by moments of percussion and tactile impact/force. Conception as the sperm colliding/merging with the ovum. Birth as the expulsion from the womb. Our heartbeats as a constant series of respiratory explosions. Even breathing itself the act of intake and expulsion. Sex as a rythmic collision of partners. Fights. Hugs. Even our writings are impressions created by force, heat, and light. (Even so called 'laser printers' require the pressure and heat of the toner and fuser assemblies.)
The computer age has changed this. While the act of typing is a percussive one, or the 'clicking' of a mouse, modern ergonomics experts have reduced even these to near fritctionless, silent, events. (Even the 'mouse ball' has been replaced by a laser, and many companies offer flexible, solid state keyboards made of soft, malleable plastic that produce no sound and little sensation.) Media is not written on by the scratch of a pen or pencil, or even the strike of a typeface, but by silent, invisible movements of energy. Text appears on screens as bursts of electrons, untouchable. To remedy this, we incorporate devices such as 'force feedback' technology in the attempt to induce a bit more 'reality'. Sound becomes a key. Bass sounds often note important events to grab attention of the user through vibration.
In addition, much of our communication and interaction over computers is an attempt to inject percussive life into them. We simulate combat. We simulate intimacy. We simulate travel.
Snow Crash is no exception to this in how it portrays the electronic life. In the first pages, we hear of Hiro's 'Deliverator' job. The description of his car is incredibly tactile, and the descriptions include buzzes, vibrations, and impacts. A massive amount of description is given to the virtual and real sword/knife/gunfights, with as much concentration on the feeling of the weapons and their impacts as the results. Even the choice of the primary weapons of the protagonists and antagonists is a choice to imply greater contact and percussion.
Hiro uses a set of swords, or the 'redneck katana' during the chapter on his training. Even the 'reason' firearm is one that acts with hypervelocity shells described as 'slicing' or 'penetrating'.
Raven uses knives.
Y.T. uses her skateboard, fists, or the 'liquid knuckles' that, while a chemical, are still described as an impact. Even her defensive dentata is a weapon of injection and impact, activated by the injection of Raven's member into her sex.
Uncle Enzo, in his climactic attack on Raven, uses a steel razor.
The mafioso known as 'Fisheye' has lost his eye to an icepick.
Each combat is described in terms of percussive forces, slashing, feedback, and damage. Even the magnetic harpoons of the various skateboarding characters are -impacts-. The sonic charges of the skateboards used for Y.T.'s attempted escape or to destroy Raven's glass weapons are described as 'driving her {Y.T.'s} stomach into her brainpan.'
A continual implantation of force, and the descriptive language of force into the narrative serve to help spread more life and existence into the Metaverse of the novel.
I need to do more with that....but this is a start.
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no subject
Date: 2002-12-02 09:22 pm (UTC)I wish we could take implements of that and stick it into M3's cyber-world - especially the Metaverse for hackers.
If you haven't read Cryptonomicon, do it. Another stunning book. Sucked me in for hours on end, and I couldn't put it down.
--S.
no subject
Date: 2002-12-03 08:42 am (UTC)But getting back to the subject at hand, you seem to suggest we as a society have lost something you deem the essence of life. Indeed, are you arguing we no longer live but just simulate living? When we MUSH, is that a simulation playing a simulation? And if our character is in the hologram room, is that a simulation playing a simulation playing a simulation? And what if - well, yeah.
So what is your final analysis, Mr. Archer?
And can we PLEASE say vagina instead of the horribly grating 'sex'?
no subject
Date: 2002-12-03 11:36 am (UTC)Sorry, I divorce myself from the language to help me think better, sometimes. Vagina, Vagina, Vagina. :D
I think that in the case of MUSHing and 'online' lifestyles, we are forced to inject simulations of force, or percussive activity, in order for our bodies and minds to connect to it on the level we desire for 'real' interaction. Stephenson recognized this, even in the somewhat prototypical online communities at the time he was writing, and simply created this percussive imprint writ large in his Metaverse.
no subject
Date: 2002-12-06 10:54 am (UTC)I would say that human life as it stands is at an impasse. We're getting increasingly addicted to the simulated life in place of a physical one, and even the physical life is getting subverted into that simulation. (I used to go over to friends houses to wrestle and play with transformers and maybe play video games while doing other stuff. Kids today can have whole parties where everyone plays video games and nobody gets off the couch. LAN parties work much the same for adults.) MUSHing is, I would say, less a simulation of a simulation and more the real being subjugated to lesser importance compared to the simulation.
(A great example of this are the people who can and will rack up over 100 hours a week of -active- time, IC or otherwise on a MUSH. The virtual community and social life is a near total replacement for the physical.)
Snow Crash is just taking that impasse in the direction that the physical life will continue to suffer compared to the simulated, at least for the people who can afford it. I would say his 'Gargoyles' are the ultimate in the simulated living you suggest, being so plugged into the machine that it's part of their bodies.
As to our current society, I think we're starting to see a definite social and economic divide between people who are trying to be exclusively simulated (addicts), people who are still attempting to keep a pretty even split between the two (most of your average people on Livejournal, or a reasonable amount of MUSHers who try to have social lives, dating, marraiges, etx.), and people who for various reasons and factors either deny a simulated lifestyle or cannot afford to have one.
If I had to guess, the trends will get worse before they improve. Certainly if practical VR technology comes out, I expect addicts to a purely VR lifestyle (so long as the money holds out) will be a real societal problem. And I have a feeling that people attempting to make a 'middle ground' will become an increasing minority.