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Neural trode technology in Neuromancer enables a condition of disembodiment, sensorial immersion into the electric field of the matrix, or, for recreation, into simstim -- simulated stimulation -- a futuristic media in which the "viewer" experiences the body of a character on a show through sensorium--"the world -- all the interesting parts, at least, as perceived by Tally Isham" (BC, 183). The experience of disembodiment is not a new innovation; altered states of being, the sensation of bodilessness, is historically associated with signifiers of artifice: drugs, religion and fiction, for instance. Technological interface creates the illusion of concealing, or effacing the body. This technology is depicted in Neuromancer in the rhetoric of drugs. The pleasure of the interface is addictive. The console cowboy Case experienced the "consensual hallucination" of the matrix as an ecstatic state of exhilaration. Deprived access by means of a chemical alteration that inflicted neural damage -- a punishment for stealing from his employers -- he is confined to his flesh. In withdrawal, drenched in sweat he wakes nightly, "reaching for the console that isn't there" (5), and subverts his need in the abuse of other, more tangible substances. His body merely "meat," his need for the experience of cyberspace leaves him internalized and suicidal. He is desperate.
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If the literature of electronic culture can be located in the works of Philip K. Dick or William Gibson, in the imaginings of cyberpunk projection,
or a reserve of virtual reality, then it is probable that electronic culture shares a crucial project with drug culture. This project should be
understood in Jean-Luc Nancy's and Blanchot's sense of désoeuvrement -- a project without an end or a program, an unworking that
nonetheless occurs, and whose contours we can begin to read.
(Avital Ronell, Crack Wars, 68.)
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