Transhuman Artists and Their Art in William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy

Abstract

William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy has left an indelible mark on pop culture and has even influenced the trajectory of digital technologies. While not the first purveyor, Gibson is often credited with popularizing the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Gibson himself never championed the term himself, but he certainly benefited from its zeitgeist. At their core, Gibson’s futuristic techno-laden narratives owe as much to the crime fiction of the 1930’s and 1940’s as they do to the science fiction of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Much like Dashiell Hammett’s socially conscious crime fiction, Gibson’s techno-noir has much more than the plot moves going on. Gibson’s Sprawl is a tactful takedown of the burgeoning materialistic consumer driven society of the 1980’s. Gibson did not write these novels as a warning for the future, but as a spotlight for contemporary issues. Ironically Gibson has been championed for influencing and enhancing the very technological capitalist society he skewers. Gibson coined the term cyberpunk, copies of his first novel Neuromancer were passed around the offices for computer companies for inspiration. Gibson’s impact on technology has tainted scholarship pertaining to his works. William Gibson is concerned with the role of the artist and their art in a society saturated with new media products and bodily augmentation. Gibson focuses on the importance of artists and art and their role in opening lines of communication between isolated; traumatized characters.