3.10.1 Cyber is derived from the Greek word for helmsman or navigator, kubernetes. Norbert Weiner coined the term in the late 1940's to refer to auto-directive systems that are capable of "steering" or responding to feedback, much the same way that a helmsman makes subtle changes to the course of a ship based on the behaviour of the water. Fuller liked to call himself a navigator and frequently used ship metaphors in his work He frequently referred to planet earth as a ship in the celestial ocean, the Spaceship Earth that can be navigated from the Geoscope.

3.10.2 Though originally meant as a means of modelling electromechanical systems, cybernetics quickly spread to other disciplines, including the arts. Roy Ascott mounts a one-man show in 1963 at the Molton Gallery in which all work is directly inspired by cybernetics. He writes in the catalogue: 3.10.3 Cybernetics has provided me with a starting point from which observations of the world can be madeŠMy independent enquiry is regularly reinforced with close reference to scientific publications and search into their methods of analysis and investigation. (Ascott, 1963, pg. 4)

3.10.4 The first cybernetic systems were based on the model of a central command structure, and computer programs were built in simple hierarchies with one serving as the master program that controlled other programs, or subroutines. But as our world became more complex, the computer systems have become decentralised, distributed among many entities, with no sense of closure. The implications of this are many, and it inspired an entire new genre of sci-fi literature envisioning a frightening, fragmented world organised around cyberspace. The very term cyberspace, which had such an impact on the public imaginary, came out of science fiction. William Gibson, in 1983, coined the word to describe the virtual terrain of databanks along a surfable net. (Gibson, 1983). Connect cyber to punk, a subculture from the UK in the 1970's, and you have an interesting hybrid youth culture. Cyberpunks took to science fiction writers like Gibson, Stephenson, and Sterling, who carved out a specific literary niche notable for high-tech, fast-moving, gritty, distopic worlds. The future of these worlds is now, rather then fifty years from now as in traditional sci-fi novels. Gibson portrays a world in Neuromancer in which national governments have dissolved, and vast planned urban structures created by multinational corporations are ruled by Artificial Intelligence and kept immortal by cloning and cryogenics. They control all the data of their citizens and other social and economic structures.

3.10.5 Cyberpunks, much as their punk rock predecessors, have more of a symbolic place, triggering more the imagination than acting out actual subversive acts. They are programmers who spend hours doing code for large corporations and speak the language as well as their native tongue. Ironically, Gibson, who coined Cyberspace and contributed to the Cyberpunk myth, is technologically illiterate.

3.10.6 Regardless, cyberpunks ingested and emulated this literature and a whole rash of cyberpunk role-playing games emerged. Shadowrun combined cyberpunk elements with Dungeon and Dragon elements. Steve Jackson Games is one of the biggest creators of role-playing games (RPG). Role playing is central to a hacker's existence. Much of a hacker's play involves Social Engineering (SE) or Reverse Social Engineering (RSE), in which a hacker role-plays over the phone either as a knowledgeable authority (such as a line technician or a system operator) or a clueless person (such as an academic in the University who has forgotten their password) in order to get people to divulge information (Mizrach, no date)

3.10.7 I believe that those who have been influenced by the literature of Gibson, Sterling, and Stephenson would have a natural predispostion to the worlds suggested by Buckminster Fuller. Role playing brings up issues of identity and machine-human symbiosis which I discuss in the following chapter. [top]