Cybergothic: The Uncanny Aculturation of the Internet
by Bryan Alexander
Published: April 01, 2004
After years of patient development in a time of occasional wars, an architecture created by the command of a military-industrial complex alters its character. Spaces designed to resist assault become screens for the imagination, haunted by projected fears and desires. The outside world treats these places with a mixture of contempt and craving, peopling them with its demons, rebels, tyrants, and alter egos.
This description deceives. It outlines both the Gothic tradition in British literature and the popular imagination of cyberspace. The echo of the former in the latter suggests our society dreaming ancient nightmares on-line, resurrecting the Gothic in cyberpunk fiction and in everyday acculturation.
