Cyberspace and the real life

Today cyberspace is a well-known and widely used term. Millions of people are logged on to cyberspace every day interacting. The idea of cyberspace has inspired many films and books. The one of the most famous films “Ghost in the Shell” and “Matrix”. These films are from the 90tese, but the term cyberspace emerged ten years earlier, in the 80ties, with William Gibson. Gibson has become one of the best know science-fiction writers, with works like Neuromancer and Count Zero.

In 1984 was Neuromancer published. This book had n huge impact on the science-fiction ganger. Neuromancer is about a Case, a cyber-space hacker that has damage to his nervous system, which makes it impossible to enter cyberspace. He gets an offer to hack for a person, in exchange for his hacking abilities. Do we see a similarity from Gibson’s world in Neuromancer, and into today’s society with the World Wide Web?


The ganger is called “cyberpunk”. Cyberpunk explore the cyberspace and its possibilities in the years to come, the possibilities in a technological universe that has no earthly boundaries. Here lies a key factor in science fiction and cyberpunk, to free your self from the normal life and entering a new world of virtual reality. In the 1990these Gibson’s cyberspace was on the verge to become a reality with the World Wide Web.
For many this has come as a relief, it becomes an option to their “failed life”, a second chance to make it right. In The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, Martha Wertheim writes about the eagre to look for a better life in a better world. For many, cyberspace is such a tool. Like religion is for others. Looking at today’s society, most of the users of cyberspace (World Wide Web) us it for information and social interactions. Not as a new world, where you become another person.

But today we see some persons live another life in cyberspace in a way we see in Gibson’s Neuromacer. They want to live their whole life in cyberspace. The idea of cyberspace has probably also influenced many musicians. Cyberpunk and electronic music has strong links. A young hacker from England said in an interview to NRK that he and his buddies always listened to the same music when they were hacking. He mentioned Underworld as one groups. This croup play intensive electronic music that makes you float into your own world, in a way like rave music at rave parties. The music is used as a tool to close out the world when being in cyberspace.