Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace [Paperback]

Douglas Rushkoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1995

Now in paperback with a new introduction by the author, "a dizzying and dangerous guided tour through 'cyberspace,' an unfolding terrain of digital information . . . redefining reality."--Publishers Weekly. Rushkoff profiles the thinkers, technologies, sciences, and philosophies that are moving our society into the 21st Century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This heady report takes readers on a dizzying and dangerous guided tour through "cyberspace," an unfolding terrain of digital information that, according to Rushkoff, is being tapped by a "cyberian counterculture" bent on redefining reality. In "Cyberia," artists, scientists and hackers explore virtual reality using prototype computers with 3-D goggles, headphones and a tracking ball to move through real or fictional space without commands, text or symbols; Silicon Valley engineers and mathematicians attempt to unlock creativity via psychedelic drugs or fractal graphics mirroring our irregular world; urban neopagans access information networks and use witchcraft to promote planetary survival. Computer bulletin boards, cyberpunk comic books, interactive videos, cyber-rock dance clubs and the acts of eco-terrorists and of employees who use computers to subvert the workplace are part of a cyberian universe whose gurus, interviewed here by Rushkoff, include Terence McKenna, Timothy Leary and R. U. Sirius, editor of Mondo 2000 magazine. Souped-up prose marks this exploration of cyberpunk culture. $20,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Rushkoff, a New York-based journalist, goes west to Berkeley for a look inside Cyberia--the emerging countercultural terrain of computer hackers, ``smart'' drugs, house music, and a range of alternate ``cyberpunk'' lifestyles and anarchic philosophies. This largely sympathetic report from the latest frontier will undoubtedly strike many older readers as outrageous, but others (especially those with clear memories of the 60's) may find much of the rhetoric familiar, even nostalgic. In fact, many of the ingredients hark back to the Berkeley scene of nearly three decades ago: the text is full of references to acid trips, pagan rituals, and Grateful Dead concerts, and even Timothy Leary puts in an appearance at a virtual reality demonstration. The most significant new element in the mix is the computer-- especially when used to connect with other computer users around the world. Leary advised dropouts to ``find the others,'' and computer networks like the WELL have made it easier than ever for Cyberians to locate those of similar beliefs. Rushkoff interviews authors, drug dealers, musicians, and hackers; watches two electronic outlaws stealing ATM codes; joins a role-playing game in which he acts the part of a thief; and talks to eco-terrorists and cultists about their beliefs. While some readers might wish the author had kept his nonsense detector more finely tuned, much of the book's value lies in Rushkoff's ability to resist patronizing his subjects. A provocative, wide-ranging survey of the current state of the interface between the longings of youth and the wild potentials of computer technology. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062510096
• ISBN-13: 978-0062510099
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,179,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other's values. He sees "media" as the landscape where this interaction takes place, and "literacy" as the ability to participate consciously in it.

His ten best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated to over thirty languages. They include Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism, and Coercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy and graphic novel, Club Zero-G. He has just finished a book for HarperBusiness, applying renaissance principles to today's complex economic landscape, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. He's now writing a monthly comic book for Vertigo called Testament.

He has written and hosted two award-winning Frontline documentaries - The Merchants of Cool looked at the influence of corporations on youth culture, and The Persuaders, about the cluttered landscape of marketing, and new efforts to overcome consumer resistance.

Rushkoff's commentaries air on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR's All Things Considered, and have appeared in publications from The New York Times to Time magazine. He wrote the first syndicated column on cyberculture for The New York Times and Guardian of London, as well as a column on wireless for The Feature and a new column for the music and culture magazine, Arthur.

Rushkoff founded the Narrative Lab at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, and lectures about media, art, society, and change at conferences and universities around the world.

He is Advisor to the United Nations Commission on World Culture, on the Board of Directors of the Media Ecology Association, The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and as a founding member of Technorealism. He has been awarded Senior Fellowships by the Markle Foundation and the Center for Global Communications Fellow of the International University of Japan.

He regularly appears on TV shows from NBC Nightly News to Larry King and Bill Maher. He is writing a new monthly comic book for Vertigo, and developed the Electronic Oracle software series for HarperCollins Interactive.

Rushkoff is on the board of several new media non-profits and companies, and regularly consults on new media arts and ethics to museums, governments, synagogues, churches, and universities, as well as Sony, TCI, advertising agencies, and other Fortune 500 companies.

Rushkoff graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received an MFA in Directing from California Institute of the Arts, a post-graduate fellowship (MFA) from The American Film Institute, and a Director's Grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has worked as a certified stage fight choreographer, and as keyboardist for the industrial band PsychicTV.

He lives in Park Slope Brooklyn with his wife, Barbara, and daughter Mamie.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting First Book On Cyberculture, April 19, 1999

By 

Alex Burns ([e-mail]) (Melbourne (Australia)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace (Paperback)

'Cyberia' (1994) was cyberculture theorist Douglas Rushkoff's first book, written in 1992 and delayed because the publishers felt that e-mail and the Internet were not likely to become significant.

'Cyberia' has its obvious flaws in retrospect - examples regarding the links between drug culture, hacking, the Internet, and computers that have since become well-known or overdone. Sometimes the tone is uncritical - probably because Rushkoff was so excited about the future potential of VR, the Internet etc. This book was written well before the Internet became the latest quarterly profit enhancer, well before the rise of Internet shopping malls and dubious e-mail chain letters. On its initial release, it made a significant impact, speeding up public acceptance of the Internet as a communications medium, and heralding the cultural 'future-shocks' regarding personal identity that will accompany it. Criticism is also prompted by a backlash against the author and his success.

'Cyberia' is best read as the author's first book, which succeeds in capturing the hope of a moment and sense of an underground movement that was pre-'Wired' magazine and pre E-commerce. There are some powerful sections such as a gonzo trip to the offices of 'Mondo 2000' and meetings with R.U. Sirius; Rushkoff checking out college colleagues entering Silicon Valley and being forced to take drug tests; and talks with Ralph Abraham, Timothy Leary, and Terence McKenna.

Read critically but thoughtfully.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars indexed historiographed and forgotten, June 7, 2003

By 

R. Abraham "unf unf unf" (Syosset, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace (Paperback)

In 1994, Doug Rushkoff set out to write an embedded, analytic travelogue linking a series of countercultural trends dealing with emerging networks and internet technologies. Instead of conducting technopunditry from the sidelines, Rushkoff got into the fray and followed around ravers, hackers,performance artists and writers whose philosophies emerged around a new surge of technoutopianism; linked inextricably with paganism, spirituality, and Eastern Philosphy. His aproach echoes the Tom Wolfe school subjective reporting, learning the lexicon of the object of study, trying to speak the language and reveal something about its psychology. What results is some snappy, breakneck prose colored philosophically and poetically by chaos mathematics and cyberpunk literature. This makes this book eminently fun, readable, and exciting. It also makes much of its proposed social and political uses for technology widely inaccurate. In a way, ten years removed, Cyberia should be appreciated now more than ever. We know better. And all of the wide-eyed fantasizing about decentralized spirituality and some wonderful fin de siecle millenial rapture spurned on by virtual reality are no longer dangerous or deluding, they can be seen in context, as thought waves that are spilled out of more optimistic time periods with exponential technological growth. The connect the dots game that Rushkoff plays is pretty astute, as well: the hippy connection, the second wave optimism that the 90s proposed to reconcile the "defeat" of the 60s, the fulmination of rave culture around these ideas that arrived in Berkely. A good book to read this book against would be Escape Velocity by Mark Dery, which is a little more "down to Earth", covers some similar material, and contains a counterpoint to Cyberia. Rushkoff himself has distanced himself widely from the rhetoric used in this book, but even this does not discredit this as a seminal text when looking at the viewpoints of subcultures built around technology.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique and detailed description of an emerging reality, July 29, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace (Paperback)

_Cyberia_ is a refreshingly complete account of what Leary
called "Cyber Culture." Focusing on the San Francisco Bay
Area, this book explains the various means by which people
travel to 'cyberia'. From all night raves, to paganism, to
super potent hallucinogens - people attempt to adapt
themselves for the future.
Each section of the book is well balanced and covers its
topic well. The book is still current, and the one flaw
that comes to mind is that the rave section focused too much
on house, ignoring other types of music.
All in all, an excellent book.