CyberCities: Visual Perception in the Age of Electronic Communication (review)

In this collection of five essays, Christine Boyer presents a fragmented but intriguing perspective on the influence of the computer upon contemporary society. By drawing from a number of disparate sources, she manages not only to illustrate how cities and urban centers have been phenomenologically impacted by the prevalence of electronic information but also, in her free-association style of writing, to replicate the experience of information bombardment characteristic of this very phenomenon.

Boyer’s manner of pulling examples and information from a variety of sources creates a very entertaining and insightful (although sometimes overwhelming) experience. A continuous collection of quotes and references from writers, personalities, and films punctuates her writing and helps propel the reader through her essays. For example, she cites films such as Bladerunner and Chinatown, and interesting stories such as one about the artist Orlan, who used her body and a series of plastic surgeries in an attempt to make her face resemble a computer composite of five mythical women (p. 120). Historical information is accurate and well documented, but Boyer’s presentation reads like a journey through the Internet without the visual or graphic imagery.

Each essay takes on a different aspect of the phenomenon or dilemma of the cybercity. Boyer begins by clarifying three basic assumptions that are integral to her assertions about the impact of electronic communication on the human and urban experience. First, she draws interesting analogies between the advent of the machine and the computer by asserting that “the machine is to modernism what the computer is to postmodernism.” Second, she suggests that while the city has been the focus of modernism, it is receding and the computer is rising as the new focal point of culture and society. Finally, she argues that physical time and space are rapidly condensing or disintegrating as technologies become more instantaneous and prevalent.

The third essay, “Disenchantment of the City: An Improbable Dialogue between Bodies, Machines, and Urban Form,” is perhaps the most interesting and significant of those collected here. Boyer argues that the evolution of the senses and the growing dominance of sight over all other senses was a significant, real effect of the emergence of technologies such as television and virtual reality. She eloquently describes the transition to literal transparency in modern architecture (glass walls, reduction of structural elements, etc.) and to the emptiness of cyberspace, in which virtual realities are the ultimate in transparency. In the end, there is no human reference point in cyberspace or cybercities.

Through these essays, Boyer issues a subtle warning about the dangers of disassociation of humans from their physical realm, which she sees as the product of an increasing dependence on and fascination with computers and electronic technology. The bottom line for Boyer is that the contemporary urban environment is profoundly influenced by rapidly developing information technologies. The results of this are the ultimate disintegration of the connection between humans and their physical environment and an increasingly fragmented quality to our cities and built environments. “Cyperspace is a new electronic, invisible space that allows the computer or television screen to substitute for urban space and urban experience” (p. 242).

The five essays are collectively striking. Individually they are mesmerizing but sometimes verbose. While Boyer consistently makes amazing connections between her three basic assumptions and an incredible variety of texts and media, her writing sometimes runs the risk of losing its clarity and impact. The key to this book is perhaps in how one approaches it. This is not a linear journey but an intriguing collection of ideas, connections, and analogies that follow a freer sort of logic. Boyer readily admits to this freer style. She may have chosen it intentionally or found it to be a function of the nature of her subject. As she explains, “Finally, these essays are themselves examples of associative thinking: they are disjunctive assemblages utilizing strategies of analogy, metaphorical associations, and circumlocutions that juxtapose unexpected subjects in...