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Cyberia
life in the trenches of hyperspace
320 pages
An electrically charged, journalistic plunge into the underground intersection of early internet culture, raves, and psychedelic exploration.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like stepping into the humming, electrically charged heart of a cultural frontier. It moves at a brisk, journalistic pace, guided by a fresh and deeply curious voice that translates the fringe worlds of hackers, ravers, and psychonauts into accessible, vivid prose. The mood is distinctly underground and visionary, soaking the reader in the neon-lit, dial-up atmosphere of the early digital age. It traces an arc of discovery, moving from the fringes of Silicon Valley to the dazzling realization that these subcultures are actively designing the future. It will delight readers who are fascinated by the intersection of technology, altered consciousness, and the raw, experimental energy of countercultural pioneers.
- Mood
- electrically charged
- psychedelic
- underground
- visionary
- Tone
- observational
- curious
- vivid
- lucid
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- technological frontiers · digital subcultures · psychedelic exploration · counterculture and consciousness
- The writing
- Written in a fresh, accessible, and vivid journalistic voice that translates complex subcultures for the uninitiated.
- The arc
- A journey from curious observation of an underground fringe to a dazzling realization of how these pioneers are designing the future.
- Who it's for
- Readers fascinated by the early days of internet culture, underground raves, and the intersection of technology and altered states of consciousness.
Content notes
- drug use
- hallucinogens
About the book
Cyberia is an eye-opening and up-to-the-minute portrait of America in the age of digital highways, all-night raves, cyberliterature, and psychedelic renaissance - by a young journalist with a fresh voice and a remarkable skill for mapping the terrain of the new world in which we have all, somehow, found ourselves.
For over two years, Douglas Rushkoff lived among the players who are creating Cyberia and delivering it to the rest of us. Cyberia is his vivid report. Written in a language accessible to those who've never tested psychedelics or communicated over a computer modem, it is a journey into the thoughts and lives of people on the frontier of a great social experiment, people living - or surfing - on the very edge of culture.
Cyberia's journey begins in Silicon-Valley, home of the computer - the humming heart of the electrically charged culture - and takes off with vivid profiles of a host of Cyberians at the "new edge" of computers, consciousness, and chaos theory. Rushkoff meets rave organizers, neopagans, virtual reality entrepreneurs, smart drug enthusiasts, underground computer hackers, psychedelic experimenters, and other pioneers who are foraging, both legally and illegally, into this dramatic new terrain.
From mathematicians to self-taught punks, these are the minds behind innovations and ideas we now take for granted and those we can as yet barely imagine. Molding science and art, technology and pop culture, they are not just glimpsing the future, they are designing it
Rushkoff introduces us to Cyberia's luminaries, who speak with dazzling lucidity about the rapid-fire change we're all experiencing.
Listen in on conversations with dozens of Cyberians, including: Terence McKenna, dubbed the "Copernicus of consciousness" by the Village Voice, whose writings have spearheaded the psychedelic renaissance; Ralph Abraham, "Cyberia's Village Mathematician," a bearded technosage whose mathematical equations explain the shifting, hyperdimensional Cyberian turf; William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, the founders of cyberliterature, who talk about the facts, fantasies, and fears behind their works; and former editor in chief of Mondo 2000 R.
Description from Open Library.
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