wait ...

DAMN!

That means it had nothing to do with her and it was all set up by the intermediaries!

I just need to get off the darned computer and read the book a second time.

Reading a second time through:

It would have to have been purposeful by somebody -- nothing accidental about it. Perhaps the chart was set up by Stella as a bread-crumb trail for the seekers she hoped would eventually investigate ...

I'm reading the book a second time through now, and this is the chief concern in my mind -- how did the T-map get into the flare, and how was it constructed before it was ever placed there? I'll read this book seventy times if I have to -- but I am going to understand this.

back to the original question, i think it is vague and it is bugging me a bit in the second read through. The t image is in the white fade on one of the segments- that's where the mystic otaku got it from anyway that Taki passes on- in the image are streets and the watermark numbers, which are not sequential and are assigned by who- Sigil, Stella or Nora? It doesn't match any map, at least Parkaboy and Darryl's geographic bot can't find it anywhere.

so is that psychogeography if it doesn't relate to a real place? could it be Nora trying to retrace her damaged neural pathways and they just look like streets to Cayce and the boys? are the images in the footage linked to particular parts of her brain she is trying to link together thru working on the footage and that is why it is so compelling- it somehow keys straight to a fraction of the public's cortex? Whoa, Bigend would make a mess of that for us wouldn't he

Or did Stella put the T together and tell Sigil to include it in the watermark for this one segment. Who else has the numbers for the encryption except Sigil and why would Sigil generate a t (apophenia????)? why would Nora remember or deal with those? Stella has seen the x-ray/mri or whatever, I am sure. She may even have one of those twin link deals going where she experiences the T as well.

Talk about raising questions- there are plenty of ways for this to go.

Indeed, this was the thing that stuck in my head (pun mostly intended) as a niggling unanswered question.

The thing that bothers me is that I don't think we can know for sure. The key description is in chapter nineteen (pages 168-169 of the hardcover). Rereading this, with the knowledge of the rest of the book, I break it down this way.

Each sement of the footage has a watermark number, put there by Sigil, so that the progression of the footage in the world can monitored, mainly by Stella and Sergei.

Nora includes the T image in the footage, possibly with the street map.

The T image contains all the watermark numbers.

Why?


Nora doesn't know about the watermarking. She couldn't have put those numbers in there.

Stella/Sergei/rendering farm/Sigil could possibly have put it together, but I see no reason to do so. Placing all the watermark numbers together on a map to nowhere on an image whose meaning would be understood by only a couple people (I don't mean just as a mine fragment, but as to why that should matter anyway) doesn't serve their purposes any.

I was going to suspect Mystic/Taki, but Baranov's use of Echelon points the data flow from Sigil to Stella, so it can't be the Japanese.

So I guess it has to be Stella/Sergei reintroducing all the numbers back into a segment. I can't figure why. And I have no clue about the map of nowhere (which is why it's easier to dump into the Nora put it there category).

Perhaps WG just went with the creative flow when writing this part of PR, and didn't think all of it through?

I have just finished the book and immediately sought some forum, like this one, to ask "What was up with the T-Map"

I know there are mystical elements throughout the book, but the "T bitmap image", for me, is too tangible and detailed to have just 'surfaced' somehow through Nora's creative (subconscious) process. I have to say I was sorely disappointed that it was never sufficiently explained - I am left feeling that that WG might have originally had more of an explanation but somehow decided not to bother. For me, I kept waiting for it to be tied together - in a manner similar to some of his previous books. But instead it's just left there as an exercise for the student - and not in some way (like Cayce's father's messages) that doesnt need to be explained. A map with numbers that is complexly encoded within a movie NEEDS to be explained.

Call me crazy, but I assumed that Nora had nothing to do with the creation of the watermark "T".

My take was that Gibson definitely left the issue vague to inspire the kind of free associations everyone has come up with on this board - the concept of art inspired by pain and personal history, psychogeography, etc.

But the watermark numbers were created by Stella and her steganographers, without Nora's involvement; therefore, I took it that they embedded the "T" as a sort of symbolic image, not intended as any sort of map of her brain.

In PatternRecognition.. the act of comparison, not the novel, it is customary to use the expression..

it fits.. to a perfect "T"...

At least that's how I deciphered the "T" 2 seconds after ripping into my bubble wrapped, autographed version of PR when I finally got it after preordering on Ebay way back when..

Though, after reading it.. or while reading it.. it was clear that there was a pattern that was developed and encoded by Gibson himself.. which, of course, is that there's a pattern which holds similar shapes to his previous "images" (though he did little to reduce the resolution on this "new" image that hangs in the air, derived from a singularity of patterns, just beyond the text of PR)

But that idea of the "new" image is an idea that provides an even further dimension of over-lay to ponder.

And it's that notion, I believe, that drove the novelist to write it..

Writes Good.
though the blogs concern me.


joko

[This message was edited by joko on August 26, 2003 at 08:13 PM.]

[This message was edited by joko on August 26, 2003 at 08:18 PM.]

I think that Stella placed the image, and the watermark numbers on the image, into the footage deliberately, without any orders from Nora. Stella mentions that she wanted the Maker to be tracked down eventually, which is why she answered Cayce's mail at all. Stella included the image as a clue.

The original T image was an X-ray of the piece of steel embedded in Nora's brain. Stella gave Nora access to the image, and Nora drew the map of her own accord. Stella then used her familiarity with the footage to place each of the segments in the resulting map and attached the watermark numbers. Then Stella had the modified map hidden in the footage, knowing that it would, eventually, be found.

I understand the appeal of Nora just knowing the shape of the thing in her head 'somehow', but I also like the way this theory fits together without using that kind of 'magic'. Your milage may vary.

Edit: I suppose there still is the question of how Nora could know that image relates to her condition. I simply assume that her condition has impaired her connection with the outside world incompletely. She maintains some awareness of things, as long as they relate to her footage.
________
You have to give up.

Oh yes, on the original question of how the map relates to the footage, I thought that was pretty clear. Nora has created a city in her mind, and the story in the footage is 'shot' in that city. The city is the shape of the piece in her head. It is not a real city (which is why the map search bot cannot find a match). The watermark number positions on the map correspond to the locations where each particular segment of footage takes place.

Sorry to be so literal-minded.

________
You have to give up.

I like Colin's theories, although I don't know if the two of them are compatible.

I assumed Nora (and Stella) had seen thousands of times the radiographies of Nora's head and the strange T object in her head. So even if Nora cannot identify what it is or its relationship to her, she knows it is a critical part of her new life. So I thought that Nora inserted the T image, and then Stella, once it was brought to her attention, and identifying what it was immediately, set the whole watermark concept around it. In a sense, she is trying to map her sister's image.

Now I am not sure, but I liked it at the time. The advantages of elliptical writing, the readers provide the explanations.

José

I guess my main confusion regarding the T is, what is it mapping? Was all the footage supposed to take place in different locations of some city? But does the location even matter? I wish it had been explained more because it could have made for a very mysterious aspect to the story. Like, say the map had actually matched up with some childhood town her family used to visit and that was where her footage was supposed to take place. But the way it's brought out, I just don't see what the purpose or idea is behind having a map at all.