…I felt that I was trying to describe an unthinkable present and I actually feel that science fiction’s best use today is the exploration of contemporary reality rather than any attempt to predict where we are going…The best thing you can do with science today is use it to explore the present. Earth is the alien planet now.
William Gibson in an interview on CNN, August 26, 1997.
It would be misleading to say that William Gibson’s appearance in Second Life would be his first, since anytime a phone call is made that is what happens, but his entry seemed to mark an important nexus between sci-fi and the present world. It’s kind of hilarious how he’s delivered into his “reading”; he’s unveiled from something that looks a bit like a shipping container, which releases him as if he were imprisoned by the “other side.” Check out the above video to see a report.
Though I haven’t “played” in Second Life (I use quotes because it appears that there is some debate concerning whether or not the site is a video game, a social space or both), it’s a bit different than how I imagined the cyberspace of Neuromancer. I always pictured a virtual reality environment as completely immersive like a dream. So far Second Life looks more like how we remember things, a bit in the third person with our abstracted selves performing in our minds eye. I’d be curious to know what Second Life is like, although I’m avoiding it because I barely have enough hours in a day to keep afloat in this world.
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