Hello everybody (this being my first post)
, I'd like to post an question which possibly has been answered before (I know part of it has) it's maybe a little otaku and maybe just bullshit, but here it is anyway:

I'm halfway through with Pattern Recognition & and the similarity between PR and that Marly-sidestory in Count Zero is pretty obvious (I like Casey a lot more than Marly, btw. A lot of Case in her, I think, both the punk and the 'born to run away'). The Cornell-Boxes & the fottage snippets seem to have the same emotional appeal.

The otaku question is now:
Somehow both the footage and the Cornell boxes remind me very much of 'Fragments of a hologram rose'
In the sense of seeing part of something & though it's by far not enough to see the whole, that whole is always there, in every piece, at the brink of being visible?
The feeling of loneliness & longing it seems to give those who see it?

Like that snippet from Fragments:

"Fast-forward through the humming no-time of wiped tape - into her body. European sunlight. Streets of a strange
city.
Athens. Greek-letter signs and the smell of dust...
and the smell of dust.
Look through her eyes (thinking, this woman hasn't met you yet; you're hardly out of Texas) at the gray
monument, horses there in stone, where pigeons whirl up and circle -
and static takes love's body, wipes it clean and gray. Waves of white sound break along a beach that isn't
there. And the tapes ends.

The inducer's light is burning now.
Parker lies in darkness, recalling the thousand fragments of the hologram rose. A hologram has this quality:
Recovered and illuminated, each fragment will reveal the whole image of the rose. Falling toward delta, he sees
himself the rose, each of his scattered fragments revealing a whole he'll never know - stolen credit cards - a
burned out suburb - planetary conjunctions of a stranger - a tank burning on a highway - a flat packet of drugs - a
switchblade honed on concrete, thin as pain.
Thinking: We're each other's fragments, and was it always this way? That instant of a European trip, deserted in
the gray sea of wiped tape - is she closer now, or more real, for his having been there?
She had helped him get his papers, found him his first job in ASP. Was that their history? No, history was the
black face of the delta-inducer, the empty closet, and the unmade bed. History was his loathing for the perfect
body he woke in if the juice dropped, his fury at the pedal-cab driver, and her refusal to look back through the
contaminated rain.
But each fragment reveals the rose from a different angle, he remembered, but delta swept over him before he
could ask himself what that might mean."

Anybody else see this?

P.S.
Maybe thats also too basic an insight, might be just a general 'theme' or idea in all of his works (like that 'collage' style he writes in.)

I would say a common theme, even if it is less dominant, the weird mix of gomi washed out on Tokyo bay, the mix of the wonderful, the bizarre and the simple refuse.

I think that even if it is common, as he ages it has lost some of its shine, which is why the Footage is much more both indefinite and concrete.

Sorry, not sure I get you:
"I would say a common theme, even if it is less dominant"
<- Meaning: "That's just his usual MO, buddy. You're right it's a common theme in those 3 stories, because it's a common theme in ALL his stories."?

", the weird mix of gomi washed out on Tokyo bay, the mix of the wonderful, the bizarre and the simple refuse.'"
<- nice line

"I think that even if it is common, as he ages it has lost some of its shine, which is why the Footage is much more both indefinite and concrete."
<- Uhm?

A Cornell box, or a Maker's box, or the refuse in that beach in Tokyo bay, it is made up of disparate items, but all are described or present in detail.

The Footage is a coherent whole, even if seen only in snippets, but we lack enough detail to really pin it down.

Buk's window, both in PR and in photos you can find around here (I recommend F:F:F: for that) still has that detail and unlikely link up, but it is just a side image, rather than a main theme.

Writers evolve, change, and their themes with them.

Gibson has stated on any number of occasions that he was, from an early age, attracted to detail. He uses said detail to describe the full world in which the characters inhabit.

A single image of "European skies" suggests a history of the relationship between Parker and the girl. The footage, via apophenia, suggests secret histories of the 20th century which the FFF which to decode.

It is a way, in the density of information in which man operates, to allude to something more beautiful in its simplicity which serves to represent the grander complexity around it. Sort of phenomenological in its way.

Each bit of footage, each fragment or rose, each piece of a Cornell, bracketed, meaningless, until looked at in the context of the whole. And yet each piece, seemingly so meaningless, holds the multitude of the finished work.

This makes me think of Indra's Net... which as it happens is a fine analogue for holograms.
Wikipedia Entry on INdra's Net

quote:

A Cornell box, or a Maker's box, or the refuse in that beach in Tokyo bay, it is made up of disparate items, but all are described or present in detail.

The Footage is a coherent whole, even if seen only in snippets, but we lack enough detail to really pin it down.

Yeah, I see the point & I'll read up to Buk's window ASAP <- maybe I'm not far enough into the book.

BTW:
I'm not sure the Footage REALLY is part of ONE movie? Does this become clear in the end?
<- Give me 2 days before you spoil.

I'm still not 100% sure that we're "in phase", so forgive me if I'm being over-specific (comes with my job - the urge to take things apart & REALLY understand how they work):

I wasn't so concered with the amount of detail given in the description (!) of one item (Box, Footage, Fragment of Rose), but with their
seeming connectedness.
So if WG uses different brushes & colors, he still might paint the same picture, no?

I think that you go more along the lines of "What are the artists tools and methods?", while I ask "Is this the same Idea he tries to bring across, maybe in a different form?"

Let's return, if you will, to Fragments of a HOLOGRAM Rose:
-Recovered and illuminated, each fragment will reveal the whole image of the rose.
-But each fragment reveals the rose from a different angle (!), he remembered

<- metaphor.
"A Cornell box, or a Maker's box, or the refuse in that beach in Tokyo bay", it's true that they are made up of DISPARATE items, all described or present in detail.

But they seem to belong to ONE coherent whole <- the Vision of their creator.
Or better:
The vision/feeling YOU get when you look at it.

quote:

Originally posted by ContritePuppy:
Gibson has stated on any number of occasions that he was, from an early age, attracted to detail. He uses said detail to describe the full world in which the characters inhabit.

Yep. Did you read Herberts "Dune"? Some comon themes to the cyberpunks: Herbert was much more interested in how politics and how human mental capabilities would evolve, than in the 'tech'.
And he need HUGE amounts of data to create that world in your mind.

With Neuromancer (my first), I had the feeling of being shown a collage of hi-res pictures.
Though I have to admit, it doesn't always work for me. Sometimes I can't picture the set the characters act in.

I still cannot 'see' Case browsing cyberspace, or Laney seeing his funny nodal points.
Did you ever think about what ICE really was supposed to work?
<- Other story, other time, but sometimes WG looses me, sadly.

quote:

A single image of "European skies" suggests a history of the relationship between Parker and the girl. The footage, via apophenia, suggests secret histories of the 20th century which the FFF which to decode.

It is a way, in the density of information in which man operates, to allude to something more beautiful in its simplicity which serves to represent the grander complexity around it. Sort of phenomenological in its way.

Each bit of footage, each fragment or rose, each piece of a Cornell, bracketed, meaningless, until looked at in the context of the whole. And yet each piece, seemingly so meaningless, holds the multitude of the finished work.

That was what I meant, only much better said.

Now I had this funny thought:
Bloke has this grand idea (the one you described), doesn't quite know how to explain it, writes a short story, is not really content.

Writes more stories, sometimes directly ON the subjet (e.g. everytime he takes you into one of his pawn shops like the Finn's place, or the thing with the boxes ... ), sometimes he uses the IDEA as method to paint his worlds out.

And still is not satisfied. (Mona Lisa Overdrive didn't really work for me, subjective statement, but ...).
And then this bloke starts to write about the present which strangely works even better, because of two reasons:
a) we know what the present looks like.
The information density becomes MUCH higher.
b) Meanwhile, there's lots of blokes trying to figure HIM out and they start chatting, and by that they create connections, meaning, see the hologram rose that was just in his head, because the only way he could REALLY describe it ... was by creating one and putting them im HIS place, looking at it.

Well sort of that, anyway

Aaaah, sorry I did mean the Marly-Sidestory from 'Count Zero', not Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Also that last bit:
Maybe just a tad bit apophenic on my part. Seeing cloud faces for real faces. Still like the thought, though.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustave:
This makes me think of Indra's Net... which as it happens is a fine analogue for holograms.
Wikipedia Entry on INdra's Net

There's a piece on this page:
"Hofstadter uses Indra's Net as a metaphor for the complex interconnected networks formed by relationships between objects within a system-- including social networks, the interactions of particles, and the "symbols" which stand for ideas within a brain or intelligent computer."

Interaction of particles. That's one of THE hardest topics in physics. Easy to describe 2 particles interacting, but take n particles ...

The connections are made by the observer, rather than being inherent in the items, which is what differentiates the hologram rose from a Cornell box. Apophenia rather than Pattern Recognition.

quote:

SIX
GOMI GUITAR

Extreme close, perhaps at entrance to a shelter.

An elaborately designed pair of black-and-purple Nike trainers, worn but clean. Behind them a pair of simpler white Reeboks (a woman's?).

A battered acoustic guitar strung with nylon. Beside it, a strange narrow case made of blue denim, trimmed with red imitation leather; possibly a golf bag intended to carry a single club to a driving range?

A self-inking German rubber stamp.

Neatly folded newspaper with Japanese baseball stars.

A battered pump-thermos with floral design.

Thirteen views of a cardboard city.

quote:

Originally posted by Billy Billions:
And still is not satisfied. (Mona Lisa Overdrive didn't really work for me, subjective statement, but ...).
And then this bloke starts to write about the present which strangely works even better, because of two reasons:
a) we know what the present looks like.
The information density becomes MUCH higher.
b) Meanwhile, there's lots of blokes trying to figure HIM out and they start chatting, and by that they create connections, meaning, see the hologram rose that was just in his head, because the only way he could REALLY describe it ... was by creating one and putting them im HIS place, looking at it.

Well sort of that, anyway

I think, for Gibson, this would break down because Gibson isn't trying to relate to you (the reader) exactly what is in his mind. He's drawing suggestions, using specificity by which we absorb a mood, a brushstoke and them fill in the wire frame. We skin it, as it were.

So, from his perspective as author, part of the business of reading a book is a kind of apophenia, as Psychophant suggests.

However, I think he's wrong. Sure, every author can is the ultimate authority on their work and intent but Bill's own patterns are consistent and clear. As such, I believe that whatever unconsciousness he ascribes to his work, has a form, whether or not he engages with that form directly.

The creator is usually, conversely, in the least likely position to detect patterns in his/her own work.

I've always felt, for me, that a part of writing for an audience was to see yourself reflected back in the eyes of others who, are likely, in their distance from the work and self, more objective as to its content.

Or at least possess insights the original creator did not. Bill's rather unique in that he is humble enough not to take credit for what other's read into his stuff even if he thinks it 's kind of a neat idea.

Of course, being a great author is in part about creating a piece that allows such interpretation to abound.

@Puppy:
Im not sure I understand what you mean (you seem to disagree for the reasons I'd see as supporting my "theory" (ahem)), but it was only a pet theory anyway and I think now that it's too far fetched. So we agree on that