The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age

230 Pages·1995·28.965 MB·English

by  Allucquere Rosanne Stone

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The War of Desire and Technology
at the Close of the Mechanical Age

The War of Desire and Technology
at the Close of the Mechanical Age
Allucquere Rosanne Stone
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 1995 Allucquere Rosanne Stone
All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa-
tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Sabon by Achorn Graphic Services and was printed and
bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stone, Allucquere Rosanne.
The war of desire and technology at the close of the mechanical
age / Allucquere Rosanne Stone,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-262-19362-0
1. Computers and civilization. 2. Virtual reality. 3. Information
technology. I. Title.
QA76.9.C66S883 1995
303.48'34—dc20 95-17286
CIP
This book is dedicated to the memory of Nathaniel and Mathilde
Fisher, Murry Glasser, and Robert Ensel, whose faith and support
made it possible.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Sex, Death, and Machinery, or How I Fell in Love
My
with Prosthesis 1
1 Collective Structures 33
2 Risking Themselves: Identity in Oshkosh 45
3 In Novel Conditions: The Cross-Dressing Psychiatrist 65
4 Reinvention and Encounter: Pause for Theory 83
5 Agency and Proximity: Communities/CommuniTrees 99
6 The End ofInnocence, Part I: Cyberdammerung
at the Atari Lab 123
7 The End ofInnocence, Part II: Cyberdammerung
at Wellspring Systems 157
8 Conclusion: The Gaze of the Vampire 165
Notes 185
Bibliography 201