Digitized Life Imitates Digitized Art
Written by BCB, Edited by Antonia Martinez
The world described by William Gibson in his May 1981 short story published in OMNI Magazine produced an imagined environment in which information became so valuable that people would live for it, survive by it, and even kill for it. That is not the unique part, however.
The most fascinating part of the story was that in 1981, Gibson foresaw an age in which the digital storage and transfer of information would even become central to the human story. He would do so in the most unique way, turning human flesh into the device for muling data.
In a Cyberpunk exploration of the role of humanity in the digital future, we are offered insight into our own present where giant, mega-cap companies flourish and trade-in unimaginable sums of money all in the quest for and transfer of digital information. For Gibson, the authority on information was the crime syndicate known as the Yakuza, today, the biggest brokers are companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
In the world of “Johnny from Memory Lane,” we are introduced to a panoply of fascinating characters. Molly Millions with her mirror-shade eyes and razor hands, Ralfi Face a mid- to low- level information broker brokering deals to advance his own cause, and even the mysterious assassin sent by the Yakuza who embodies technology itself.
Johnny, however, is the pulse of the story. It Is his journey in understanding his own value that draws us in and keeps the heart of the story moving. Although short in duration, the story develops the notion that an “empty bucket,” in a tour of personal development can become so much more.
Johnny begins the tale as an information dump that does not have the ability to read the information stored within his own head. Despite having “one hundred megabytes of data in his head,” quite the sum for 1981, Johnny’s abilities as a “technology boy” are questioned from the start.
As Johnny picks up an alter ego to gain a meeting with the one who owns the current data trade in his head, it is only when he is stopped dead in his tracks that he meets Molly Millions. Hiring her on the spot, the two take off on a journey to discover the information inside his head with an assassin in hot pursuit.
Unfortunately for Johnny, it is bound to be a difficult journey full of trial as you cannot drug, cut, or torture the information out. It is only through the personal dedication of Johnny, trusting in his relationship with Molly, and a few Lo Teks, to carry him through. It is a technological development of a past war known as SQUIDS (Superconducting Quantum Inference Detectors), and a character left to a desolate life in the wake of that war, that allow Molly and Johnny the ability able to decipher the passphrase necessary to unlock the data.
The journey is full of self-defining opportunity. Perhaps the most central examination of this is a scheme in which Johnny himself serves as the story’s pithy-moral, that Johnny is the warning. We are all full of data that can be retrieved and amplified, and that even seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information can expose us to great external threat if left open in an information economy.
For BCB Cyber, and all of those looking to self-define in a digital world, we are offered a unique glimpse into our Cyberized world in the art that preceded it. Johnny is a parable for each of us, a warning, that we are each to recognize our worth in the data that we as entities in the world produce. How that data is used, manipulated, and engaged is a worthy aspect of our lives that deserves our attention. For it is through this involvement with our data that we can come to know ourselves.
For those who haven’t read the short story, we strongly recommend it. This goes for all William Gibson’s work; for in technology, there are few voices with such depth of insight and forethought that can better inform our journey. BCB Cyber offers a sincere, and indebted, thank you to Mr. William Gibson, one of the most incredible authors of the age. Starting with the Sprawl Trilogy, you will dive into a rich world of technologically enhanced literary fuel for our fire (#CommissionsEarned). Enjoy the trip!