Memory Trade: Prehistory of Cyberculture - Tapa blanda

The Notion of "culture" is changing at the speed of information itself. Computer technology is creating a new kind of public cyberculture with all its utopian and apocalyptic possibilities. But is it that new?
Popular debate generally ignores cyberculture's historical context. The official history begins in the 19th century and tracks the evolution of telecommunications, the egalitarian dream of the global village, and the emergence of the military-industrial complex. However this omits the deeper prehistory of technological transformations of culture that are everywhere felt but nowhere seen in the telematic landscape of the late-twentieth century. Cyberculture is an extension, rather than innovation, of human engagement with communication and information technologies.

Darren Tofts is Senior Lecturer in Literature at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.