Literature in Technoculture: A Reading of Three Poems by Steven B. Katz

 The term technoculture is used to refer the technologies implicated in cultures. Aesthetic dimensions of cultural artefacts of postmodernism follow a new dialectic that forms part of technoculture.Here, culture circulates through tools of communication using devices like computer and internet.The question of relating literature to technoculture can be explored through reading of three poems by Steven B Katz. It includes "A Computer File Named Alison", "In the Beginning" and "After Reading Gordel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid".

All these poems are set in virtual space.

    The first poem is written in first person point of view.It presents a situation in which the speaker has decided to do away with a file which he created in the name of his wife, Alison, to accommodate other files. This poem clearly shows the discourse in a virtual sphere where reality is more virtual than real. It explains the human-machine interface in an extended level of impersonality.

      The second poem "In the Beginning" can be read as an imitation of story of creation revealed in the Genesis.It presents creation of world as a computer programme and which is initiated by God in six days by using e-cash and also a lot of programming commands. Here God presents himself as a technocrat. After creating all the creatures, he logged off on the sixth day when the computer was down. The symbols of programming commands can be seen through out the poem.The poem presents the contented way of society of technoculture to use the imagination for creating a new world order of virtual reality.

        The third poem "After Reading Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" is written as response to the ideas put forwarded in Douglas R. Hofstadter's book "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid". This book deals with the issues which questions possibility of artificial intelligence, mathematics and programming and so on. The poem brings out a postmodern world view, central notions our culture are decentered in post structuralist fashion. The statements which bring out in the poem validate the way the world of virtual reality conceive the world at large and are part of the ideational arena of technoculture.

        In all these three poems we can see the conceptual aspects of the literature of technoculture. The concept of real and virtual is emphasized. The anxiety of virtual is present and showcase the impossibility of representing reality as reality available for the poet is already an image or copy.

Ms. Thazna Mol, Assistant Professor of English, Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna