Examines the representation of organic existence and consciousness in Gibson’s Burning Chrome and Johnny Mnemonic.
This essay will argue, with respect to the stories Burning Chrome and Johnny Mnemonic, that Gibson represents the relationship between technology and the body as a dynamic process that is in continual flux. The characters in his stories attempt to determine fixed meaning in this cybernetic chaos, but come to accept the deferment of certainty and meaning that is a consequence of technology’s continual reshaping of the boundaries of the body and its consciousness.