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A modified extension cord from the telephone, the modem converts the computer into a portal as well as a tablet, the terminal a window into a vast universe that is nowhere. The face reflected in the screen is that of the cyborg.
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Situated within the discourse of cyborgs, cyberspace engenders individuals "cerebrally cyberpsychic as opposed to materially technic." In his essay, "The Technophilic Body: On Technicity in William Gibson's Cyborg Culture", David Thomas refers to this as the "post-classic" cyborg, interfaced with software, in contrast to the hardware interface of the "classic" cyborg, like Molly Millions or the Terminator. This cerebral cyborg, relieved of bodily dimensions "meets" others on spatially neutral ground; the capacity for identity seems virtually endless.
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As undifferentiated voices -- vox on the Vax, as agencies void of visually recognizable characteristics, members of computer networks construe puppets, masks with which to "face" others. Allucquère Rosanne Stone, who studies virtual communities, has noted the potential and enactment of fabricated identities, "computer cross-dressing." Operators can represent themselves without any reference to physical reality, performing identity freely through artifice. According to the tenets of compulsory identity, every body on the line is in biological drag. The social construction of the body becomes clear in cyberspace, where every identity is represented, rather than "real." The consensus of cyberspace is a precarious one; identification is entirely contingent, based on a consensual agreement to take one's word for it.
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