An International Conference
October 8-10, 1999
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Science Fiction as Vernacular Theory
Moderator: Joe Haldeman
Respondent: Daniel Bernardi

Magic Mirror: The Novel as Software Development Environment
Mark Pesce, University of Southern California

From its earliest days, science fiction has had a catalytic effect on the development of a range of technologies. Radio, television and nuclear weapons first presented themselves to the popular mind in works such as H.G. Wells' novels and Hugo Gernsback's manifold publications. Beginning with the publication of Vernor Vinge's novella True Names (1980), science fiction thrust itself to prominence as a creative whiteboard for the architecture of systems of software. This points to the novel as "tinker toys" in the new universe of virtuality; the blank page echoes the black silence of cyberspace devoid of human presence, and the creative act of putting words on the page becomes in the 21st century the spell of words which create worlds. A thousand-year-old medium has, in the age of computing machinery, become the ultimate programming tool and the clearest compass into the forms of the future.

 
 
Rethinking Women and Cyberculture
Mary Flanagan, SUNY, Buffalo

How can the juxtaposing of fiction and critical essays change the way we consider gender and technology issues? This presentation will utilize works of critical study and fiction that deal with the ways in which conceptions of gender are embodied in technologies and the ways in which technologies shape our notions of gender. I will explore the consequences for women living in cyberculture and suggest alternate possibilities.

 
 
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