week 9 lecture

Cyberpunk was the topic of week 9's lecture, and during the lecture we were introduced to William Gibson. He sounds complicated, and normally I don't like it when I can't understand things, therefore have to re-read them, which is what you would have to do with his work. But it also sounds like he has some interesting ideas, especially the "merging of organic and mechanical elements in the human body." We saw a steady flow of Keanu Reeves as well. Ha ha, not really, only twice. But anyway, the Matrix came up again as I recall it did weeks ago, to compare it with Alphaville, which I found extremely helpful to me to better understand what Alphaville was all about, not that I really understand either one now, but I'm getting there! The whole cyberpunk thing refered to the utopia and dystopia themes that we've heard of before; they were also brought up in the course of Alphaville. It's strange to me to think that people think of tecnhology as being utopia...as seen in the lecture notes, if you percieve technology as being a utopia, what happens when you are forced to go back to reality; what will you have then? The cities as machines theory is something to think about. All three alternatives (the city is a machine for living, the city is a natural thing created by natural beings and the city is a living being) all have elements of truth to them. I especially agree with the first two-the city is both of these things, but it's funny that all through life I was taught the difference between 'man-made' and 'natural' developments, and here it says that the city is a natural being, even though I would originally have thought of it as un-natural and man made, although really it is both. The Modernism/Post-Modernism section brings up the discussion on freedom of speech, which is a large theme in my essay. The lecture said that new media needs new understandings, and especially political ones. I agree with that after doing my essay, but I'm not all for freedom of speech with new media, even though before this I have always been pro-freedom of speech! So I guess I'm not bringing a needed political understanding yet. Anyway, that's it for this week.