CHAPTER 4
Interfacing with the Technosphere

The evolution of computer and networking technology can be seen as a progression
toward more user-friendly interfaces that encourage hypertext-style participation of both the
computer illiterate and those who wish to interact more intimately in Cyberia than can be
experienced by typing on a keyboard. DOS-style printed commands were replaced by the
Macintosh interface in the late 1970s. Instead of typing instructions to the computer, users
were encouraged to click and drag icons representing files across their screens and put them
wherever they wanted, using the now-famous mouse. But this has all changed again with the
development of virtual reality, the computer interface that promises to bring us into the
matrix--mind, body, and soul.
VR, as it's called, replaces the computer screen with a set of 3-D, motion-sensitive
goggles, the speaker with a set of 3-D headphones, and the mouse with a glove or tracking
ball. The user gains the ability to move through a real or fictional space without using
commands, text, or symbols. You put on the goggles, and you see a building, for example.
You walk'' with your hand toward the doorway, open the door, and you're inside. As you do
all this, you see the door approaching in complete perspective. Once you open the door, you
see the inside of the building. As you turn your head to the left, you see what's to the left. As
you look up, you see the ceiling. As you look to the right, let's say, you see a painting on the
wall. It's a picture of a forest. You walk to the painting, but you don't stop. You go into the
painting. Then you're in the forest. You look up, see the sun through the trees, and hear the
wind rustle through the leaves. Behind you, you hear a bird chirping.
Marc de Groot (the Global Village ham radio interface) was responsible for that
behind you'' part. His work involved the creation of 3-D sound that imitates the way the
body detects whether a sound is coming from above, below, in front, or behind. To him, VR
is a milestone in human development.
Virtual reality is a way of mass-producing direct experience. You put on the goggles
and you have this world around you. In the beginning, there were animals, who had nothing
but their experience. Then man came along, who processes reality in metaphors. We have
symbology. One thing stands for another. Verbal noises stand for experience, and we can
share experience by passing this symbology back and forth. Then the Gutenberg Press
happened, which was the opportunity to mass-produce symbology for the first time, and that
marked a real change. And virtual reality is a real milestone too, because we're now able for
the first time to mass-produce the direct experience. We've come full circle.''
Comparisons with the Renaissance abound in discussions of VR. Just as the 3-D
holograph serves as our cultural and scientific equivalent of the Renaissance's perspective
painting, virtual reality stands as a 1990s computer equivalent of the original literacy
movement. Like the printing press did nearly five hundred years ago, VR promises pop
cultural access to information and experience previously reserved for experts.
De Groot's boss at VPL, Jaron Lanier, paints an even rosier picture of VR and its
impact on humanity at large. In his speaking tours around the world, the dredlocked inventor
explains how the VR interface is so transparent that it will make the computer disappear. Try
to remember the world before computers. Try to remember the world of dreaming, when you
dreamed and it was so. Remember the fluidity that we experienced before computers. Then
you'll be able to grasp VR.'' But the promise of virtual reality and its current level of
development are two very different things. Most reports either glow about future possibilities
or rag on the crudeness of today's gear. Lanier has sworn off speaking to the media for
precisely that reason.
There's two levels of virtual reality. One is the ideas, and the other is the actual gear.
The gear is early, all right? But these people from Time magazine came in last week and said,
`Well, this stuff's really overblown,' and my answer's like, `Who's overblowing it?'--you
know? It reminds me of an interview with Paul McCartney in the sixties where some guy
from the BBC asked him if he did any illegal activities, and he answered, `Well, actually,
yes.' And the reporter asked `Don't you think that's horrible to be spreading such things to the
youth of the country?' and he said, `I'm not doing that. You're doing that.' ''
But the press and the public can't resist. The promise of VR is beyond imagination.
Sure, it makes it possible to simulate the targeting and blow-up of an Iraqi power plant, but
as a gateway to Cyberia itself, well ... the possibilities are endless. Imagine, for example, a
classroom of students with a teacher, occurring in real time. The students are from twelve
different countries, each plugged in to a VR system, all modemed to the teacher's house. They
sit around a virtual classroom, see one another and the teacher. The teacher explains that
today's topic is the Colosseum in ancient Rome. She holds up a map of ancient Rome and
says, Let's go.'' The students fly over the skyline of the ancient city, following their teacher.
"Stay together now,'' she says, pointing out the Colosseum and explaining why it was
positioned across town from the Forum. The class lands at the main archway to the
Colosseum. Let's go inside ...'' You get the idea.
More amazing to VR enthusiasts is the technology's ability to provide access to places
the human body can't go, granting new perspectives on old problems much in the way that
systems math provides planners with new outlooks on currents that don't follow the
discovered patterns.
Warren Robinett, manager of the Head-Mounted Display Project at the University of
North Carolina, explains how the strength of VR is that it allows the user to experience the
inside of a cell, an anthill, or the shape of a galaxy:
Virtual reality will prove to be a more compelling fantasy world than Nintendo, but
even so, the real power of the head-mounted display is that it can help you perceive the real
world in ways that were previously impossible. To see the invisible, to travel at the speed of
light, to shrink yourself into microscopic worlds, to relive experiences--these are the powers
that the head-mounted display offers you. Though it sounds like science fiction today,
tomorrow it will seem as commonplace as talking on the telephone.''
One of these still fictional interface ideas is called wireheading.'' This is a new branch
of computer technology where designers envision creating hardware that wires the computer
directly to the brain. The user literally plugs wires into his own head, or has a microchip and
transmitter surgically implanted inside the skull. Most realistic visions of wireheading involve
as-yet univented biological engineering techniques where brain cells would be coaxed to link
themselves to computer chips, or where organic matter would be grafted onto computer chips
which could then be attached to a person's nerve endings. This "wetware,'' as science fiction
writers call it, would provide a direct, physical interface between a human nervous system on
one side, and computer hardware on the other. The computer technology for such an interface
is here; the understanding of the human nervous system is not.
Although Jaron Lanier's company is working on nerve chip'' that would communicate
directly with the brain, he's still convinced that the five senses provide the best avenues for
interface.
There's no difference between the brain and the sense organs. The body is a
continuity. Perception begins in the retina. Mind and body are one. You have this situation
where millions of years of evolution have created this creature. What is this creature aside
from the way it interfaces with the rest of creation? And how do you interface? Through the
sense organs! So the sense organs are almost a better defining point than any other spot in the
creature. They're central to identity and define our mode of being. We're visual, tactile, audio
creatures. The whole notion of bypassing the senses is sort of like throwing away the actual
treasure.''
Still, the philosophical implications of a world beyond the five senses are irresistible,
and have drawn into the ring many worthy contenders to compete for the title of VR
spokesperson. The most vibrant is probably Timothy Leary, whose ride on the crest of the VR
wave has brought him back on the scene with the zeal of John the Baptist preparing the way
for Christ, or a Harvard psychology professor preparing the intelligentsia for LSD.
Just as the fish donned skin to walk the earth, and man donned a space suit to walk
in space, we'll now don cyber suits to walk in Cyberia. In ten years most of our daily
operations, occupational, educational, and recreational, will transpire in Cyberia. Each of us
will be linked in thrilling cyber exchanges with many others whom we may never meet in
person. Fact-to-face interactions will be reserved for special, intimate, precious,
sacramentalized events.''
Leary sees VR as an empowerment of the individual against the brainwashing forces
of industrial slavedriving and imperialist expansion:
By the year 2000, the I.C. (inner city) kid will slip on the EyePhone, don a
form-fitting computer suit, and start inhabiting electronic environments either self-designed or
pulled up from menus. At 9:00 a.m. she and her friend in Tokyo will meet in an electronic
simulation of Malibu Beach for a flirtatious moment. At 9:30 a.m. she will meet her biology
teacher in an electronic simulation of the heart for a hands-on `you are there' tutorial trip
down the circulatory system. At 10:00 a.m. she'll be walking around medieval Verona with
members of her English literature seminar to act out a scene from Romeo and Juliet. At 11:00
A.M. she'll walk onto an electronic tennis court for a couple of sets with her pal in Managua.
At noon, she'll take off her cyberwear and enjoy a sensual, tasty lunch with her family in
their nonelectronic kitchen.''
What was that part about Malibu Beach--the flirtatious moment? Sex, in VR? Lanier
readily admits that VR can provide a reality built for two: It's usually kind of shocking how
harmonious it is, this exposure of a collective energy between people. And so a similar thing
would happen in a virtual world, where there's a bunch of people in it, and they're all making
changes at once. These collective changes will emerge, which might be sort of like the
Jungian level of virtual reality.'' Users will literally "see'' what the other means. Lanier's trick
answer to the question of sex is, I think everything in virtual reality is sexual. It's eroticizing
every moment, because it's all, like, creative.'' But that answer doesn't satisfy true cyber
fetishists. If a cyber suit with full tactile stimulation is possible, then so should be cyber sex!
A conversation about teledildonics, as it's been called, gets VR enthusiasts quite heated up.

Loading Worlds
We're at Bryan Hughes's house, headquarters of the Renaissance Foundation, a group
dedicated to fostering the growth of the VR interface for artists and educators. Bryan has just
unpacked some crates from Chris Krauskopf at Intel, which include a computer, a VR system
designed by Eric Gullichsen called Sense8, and the prototype of a new kind of helmet-goggles
combination. As Bryan searches through the crates for an important piece of connective
hardware, the rest of us, who have been invited to try out the potentially consumer-grade VR,
muse on the possibilities of virtual sex.
Dan, an architecture student at Berkeley with a penchant for smart drugs,'' begins.
"They're working on something called `smart skin,' which is kind of a rubber for your whole
body that you slip into, and with gel and electrodes it can register all your body movements
and at the same time feed back to you any skin sensations it wants you to feel. If you pick up
a virtual cup, it will send back to you the feeling of the texture of the cup, the weight,
everything.''
So this skin could also imitate the feeling of ... ?'' I venture.
A girl,'' answers Harding, a graphic designer who makes hand-outs, T-shirts, and
flyers for many of the acid house clubs in the Bay Area. "It would go like this: you either
screw your computer, or screw someone else by modem. If you do your computer, you just
call some girl out of its memory. Your cyber suit'll take you there. If you do it the phone-sex
way, the girl--or guy or anything out there, actually--there could be a guy who's virtual
identity is a girl or a spider even--''
You could look like--be anyone you wanted--'' Dan chimes in. "And then--''
Harding nods. Every command you give the computer as a movement of your body is
translated onto her suit as a touch or whatever, then back to your suit for the way her body
feels, the way she reacts, and so on.''
But she can make her skin feel like whatever she wants to. She can program in fur,
and that's what she'll feel like to you.''
My head is spinning. The possibilities are endless in a sexual designer reality.... But
then I begin to worry about those possibilities. And--could there be such a thing as virtual
rape? Virtual muggings or murder through tapped phone lines?... These scenarios recede into
the distant future as Bryan comes back into the room. The chrome connector he has been
searching for is missing, so we'll have to make do with masking tape.
We each take turns trying on the new VR helmet. Using the latest sonar technology, it
senses the head position of the operator through a triangular bar fitted with tiny microphones.
The triangle must be mounted on a pole several feet above the helmet-wearing user--a great
idea except the little piece that connects the triangle thing to the pole is missing. But Bryan's
masking tape holds the many-thousand dollar strip of hardware safely, and I venture into the
electronic realm.
The demo tour is an office. No virtual sex. No virtual landscape. But it looks 3-D
enough. Bryan hands me the joystick that is used in this system instead of VPL's more
expensive glove controller. Bryan's manner is caring, almost motherly. He's introduced
thousands to VR at conventions with Tim Leary across the country and even in Japan, yet it's
as if he's still sensitive to the fact that this is my first time.'' It seems more like a video game
than anything else, and I flash on Craig Neidorf wandering through mazes, looking for
magical objects. Then Bryan realizes that I haven't moved, and gently coaxes me to push
forward on the joystick. My body jolts as I fly toward the desk in front of me. Bryan watches
my progress through a TV monitor next to the computer, which displays a two-dimensional
version of what I'm seeing.
That's right,'' he encourages, "it only needs a little push.'' I ease back on the virtual
throttle and guide myself around the room. You can move your head,'' he suggests with calm
reassurance. As I turn my head, the world whizzes by in a blur, but quickly settles down.
"The frame rate is still slow on this machine.'' That's what accounts for the strobelike effect
as I swivel my head too quickly. The computer needs to create a new picture every time I
move, and the illusion of continuity--essentially the art of animation--is dependent on flashing
by as many pictures per second as possible. I manage to work my way around the desk and
study a painting on the wall. Remembering what I've been told about VR, I walk into the
painting. Nothing happens. Everything turns blue.
He walked into the painting,'' remarks one of the peanut gallery watching my
progress. "Push reset.''
That's not one of the ones you can walk into,'' Bryan tells me as he punches some
commands into the computer. "Let's try a different world.''
'LOADING WORLD 1203.WLD'
blinks on the screen as the hard drive grinds a new set of pictures into the RAM of
the machine.
Now I'm in an art gallery, and the paintings do work. I rush toward a picture of stars
and galaxies, but I overshoot it. I go straight up into the air (there is no ceiling here), and I'm
flying above the museum now, looking at the floor below me. With Bryan's guidance, I'm
back on the ground. Why don't you go into the torus,'' he suggests. "It's neat in there.'' A
torus is a three-dimensional shape from systems math, the model for many different chaos
attractors. Into the doughnut-shaped VR object I go.
Even the jaded VR veterans gather around to see what the torus looks like from inside,
I steer through the cosmic shape, which is textured in what looks like a galactic geometry of
clouds and light. As I float, I feel my body making the movements, too. The illusion is
working, and an almost out-of-body sensation takes over. I dive then spiral up. The stars
swirl. I've got it now and this world is mine. I glide forward and up, starting a loop de loop
when--
Blue.
Shit.'' Bryan punches in some commands but it's no use. There's a glitch in the
program somewhere.
But while it lasted, the VR experience was like getting a glimpse of another
world--one which might not be too unlike our own. The illusion of VR worked better the
more I could control my movement. As scientists have observed, the more dexterity a person
experiences in a virtual world, the sharper he will experience the focus of the pictures. The
same computer image looks clearer when you can move your head to see different parts.
There is no real reason for this phenomenon. Lanier offers one explanation:
In order to see, you have to move your head. Your head is not a passive camera
mount, like a tripod or something holding your eyes up. Your head is like a spy submarine:
it's always bobbing and looking around, performing a million little experiments a second,
lining things up in the environment. Creating your world. That level of interactivity is
essential to the most basic seeing. As you turn on the head-tracking feature in the
Head-Mounted Display [the feature that allows you to effect where you're looking] there's a
subjective increase in the resolution of the display. A very clear demonstration of the power
of interactivity in the lowest level of perception.''
And a very clear demonstration of the relationship of human perception to the outside
world, casting further doubt on the existence of any objective physical reality. In Cyberia at
least, reality is directly dependent on our ability to actively participate in its creation.
Designer reality must be interactive rather than passive. The user must be part of the iterative
equation. Just as Craig Neidorf was most fascinated by the parts of his Adventure video game
that were not in the instructions, cyberians need to see themselves as the source of their own
experience.

Get Virtual with Tim!
Friday. Tim Leary's coming to town to do a VR lecture, and the Renaissance
Foundation is throwing him a party in cooperation with Mondo 2000 magazine--the voice of
cyber culture. It's downstairs at Big Heart City, a club south of Market Street in the new
warehouse/artist district of San Francisco, masterminded by Mark Renney, cyber culture's
interface to the city's politicians and investors. Entrance with or without an invite is five
dollars--no exceptions, no guest list. Cheap enough to justify making everyone pay, which
actually brings in a greater profit than charging fifteen dollars to outsiders, who at event like
this are outnumbered by insiders. Once past the gatekeepers, early guests mill about the large
basement bar, exchanging business cards and E-mail addresses, or watching Earth Girl, a
colorfully dressed cyber hippy, set up her Smart Drugs Bar, which features an assortment of
drinks made from neuroenhancers dissolved into fruit juice.
Tim arrives with R. U. Sirius, the famously trollish editor of Mondo 2000, and is
immediately swamped by inventors, enthusiastic heads, and a cluster of well-proportioned
college girls. Everyone either wants something from Tim or has something for Tim. Leary's
eyes dart about, looking for someone or something to act as a buffer zone. R. U., having
vanished into the crowd, is already doing some sort of media interview. Tim recognizes me
from a few parties in LA, smiles, and shakes my hand. You're, umm--''
Doug Rushkoff.'' Leary pulls me to his side, manages to process the entire crowd of
givers and takers--with my and a few others' help--in about ten minutes. A guy from NASA
has developed 3-D slides of fractal pictures. Leary peaks through the prototype viewfinder,
says "Wow!'' then hands it to me. This is Doug Rushkoff, he's writing a book. What do you
think, Doug?'' Then he's on to the next one. An interview for Japanese TV? "Sure. Call me at
the hotel. Bryan's got the number.'' Never been down to Intel--it's the greatest company in
the world. E-mail me some details!'' Tim is "on,'' but on edge, too. He's mastered the art of
interfacing without engaging, then moving on without insulting, but it seems that this
frequency of interactions per minute is taking a heavy toll on him. He spews superlatives
( That's the best 3-D I've ever seen!''), knowing that overkill will keep the suitors satisfied
longer. He reminds me of the bartender at an understaffed wedding reception, who gives the
guests extrastrong drinks so they won't come back for more so soon.
As a new onslaught of admirers appears, between the heads of the ones just processed,
Bryan Hughes's gentle arm finds Tim's shoulder. The system's ready. Why don't you come
try it?''
In the next room, Bryan has set up his VR gear. Tim is escorted past a long line of
people patiently waiting for their first exposure to cyberspace, and he's fitted into the gear.
Next to him and the computer stands a giant video projection of the image Tim is seeing
through his goggles. I can't tell if he's blown away or just selling the product--or simply
enjoying the fact that as long as he's plugged in he doesn't have to field any more of the
givers and takers. As he navigates through the VR demo, the crowd oohs and ahhs his every
decision. Let's get virtual with Tim! Tim nears the torus. People cheer. Tim goes into the
torus. People scream. Tim screams. Tim dances and writhes like he's having an orgasm.
This is sick,'' says Troy, one of my connections to the hacker underworld in the Bay
Area, whom I had interviewed that afternoon. "We're going now. ...'' Troy had offered to let
me come along with him and his friends on a real-life crack'' if I changed the names, burned
the phone numbers, etc., to protect their anonymity.

Needles and PINs
Troy had me checked out that afternoon through the various networks, and I guess I
came up clean enough, or dirty enough to pass the test. Troy and I hop into his van, where
his friends await us. Simon and Jack, a cracker and a videographer respectively, are students
at a liberal arts college in the city. (Troy had dropped out of college the second week and
spent his education loan on army surplus computer equipment.)
Troy puts the key in the ignition but doesn't crank the engine. They want you to
smoke a joint first.''
I really don't smoke pot anymore,'' I confess.
It proves you're not a cop,'' says Jack, whose scraggly beard and muscular build
suddenly trigger visions of myself being hacked or even cracked to death. I take the roach
from Simon, the youngest of the trio, who is clad in an avocado green polyester jumpsuit.
With the first buzz of California sensemilla, I try to decide if his garb is an affectation for the
occasion or legitimate new edge nerdiness. Then the van takes off out of the alley behind the
club, and I switch on my pocket cassette recorder as the sounds of Tim Leary and Big Heart
City fade in the night.
I'm stoned by the time we get to the bank. It's on a very nice street in Marin County.
Bank machines in better neighborhoods don't have cameras in them,'' Jack tells me as we
pull up.
Simon has gone over the scheme twice, but he won't let me tape his voice; and I'm too
buzzed to remember what he's saying. (Plus, he's speaking about twice the rate of normal
human beings--due in part to the speed he injected into his thigh.) What he's got in his hands
now is a black plastic box about the size of two decks of cards with a slit going through it.
Inside this box is the magnetic head from a tape deck, recalibrated somehow to read the
digital information on the back of bank cards. Simon affixes some double-stick black tape to
one side of the box, then slides open the panel door of the van and goes to the ATM
machine. Troy explains to me how the thing works:
Simon's putting our card reader just over the slot where you normally put your card
in. It's got a RAM chip that'll record the ID numbers of the cards as they're inserted. It's thin
enough that the person's card will still hit the regular slot and get sucked into the machine.''
Won't people notice the thing?'' I ask.
People don't notice shit, anymore,'' says Jack, who is busy with his video equipment.
"They're all hypnotized.''
How do you get their PIN number?'' I inquire.
Watch.'' Jack chuckles as he mounts a 300mm lens to his Ikegami camera. He patches
some wires as Simon hops back into the van. "I'll need your seat.''
I switch places with Jack, who mounts his camera on a tiny tripod, then places it on
the passenger seat of the van. Troy joins me in the back, and Jack takes the driver seat.
Switch on the set,'' orders Jack, as he plugs something into the cigarette lighter. A
Sony monitor bleeps on, and Jack focuses in on the keypad of the ATM machine. Suddenly,
it all makes sense.
It's a full forty minutes until the arrival of the first victim at the machine--a young
woman in an Alpha Romeo. When she gets to the machine, all we can see in the monitor is
her hair.
Shit!'' blurts Simon. "Move the van! Quick!''
We'll get the next one,'' Troy reassures calmly.
After a twenty-minute readjustment of our camera angle, during which at least a dozen
potential PIN donors'' use the ATM, we're at last in a position to see the keypad, around the
operators' hair, shoulders, and elbows. Of course, this means no one will show up for at least
half an hour. The pot has worn off and we're all hungry.
A police car cruises by. Instinctively, we all duck. The camera sits conspicuously on
the passenger seat. The cop doesn't even slow down.
A stream of ATM patrons finally passes through, and Troy dutifully records the PIN
numbers of each. I don't think any of us likes having to actually see the victims. If they were
merely magnetic files in a hacked system, it would be less uncomfortable. I mention this to
Troy, and Simon tells me to shut up. We remain in silence until the flow of bankers thenin to
trickle, and finally dies away completely. It is about 1:00 a.m. As Simon retrieves his
hardware from the ATM, Troy finally acknowledges my question.
This way we know who to take from and who not to. Like that Mexican couple. We
won't do their account. They wouldn't even understand the withdrawal on their statement and
they'd probably be scared to say anything about it to the bank. And a couple of hundred
bucks makes a real difference to them. The guys in the Porsche? Fuck `em.''
We're back at Simon's by about two o'clock. He downloads his card reader's RAM
chip into the PC. Numbers flash on the screen as Simon and Jack cross-reference PIN
numbers with each card. Once they have a complete list, Simon pulls out a white plastic
machine called a securotech'' or "magnelock'' or something like that. A Lake Tahoe hotel that
went out of business last year sold it to a surplus electronic supply house, along with several
hundred plastic cards with magnetic strips that were used as keys to the hotel's rooms. By
punching numbers on the keypad of the machine, Simon can write'' the appropriate numbers
to the cards.
Troy shows me a printout of information they got off a bulletin board last month; it
details which number means what: a certain three numbers refer to the depositor's home bank,
branch, account number, etc. Within two hours, we're sitting around a stack of counterfeit
bank cards and a list of PIN numbers. Something compels me to break Troy's self-satisfied
grin.
Which one belongs to the Mexican couple?''
The fourth one,'' he says with a smirk. "We won't use it.''
I thought it was the fifth one,'' I say in the most ingenuous tone I've got. "Couldn't it
be the fifth one?''
Fine,'' Suddenly Troy grabs the fourth and fifth cards from the stack and throws them
across the room. "Happy?''
I hold my replies to myself. These guys could be dangerous.
But no more dangerous or daring than exploits of Cyberia's many other denizens, with
whom we all, by choice or necessity, are becoming much more intimate. We have just peered
through the first window into Cyberia--the computer monitors, digital goggles, and automatic
teller screens that provide instant access to the technosphere. But, as we'll soon see, Cyberia
is made up of much more than information networks. It can also be accessed personally,
socially, artistically, and, perhaps easiest of all, chemically.