ABSTRACT

The chapter takes aim at and hacks a number of interrelated rhetorical techniques that had invaded and occupied cyberspace from the beginning. It suggests strategies by which to deploy counterhegemonic practices that contribute to a general decolonization of cyberspace. The chapter bears the handle Ars Metaphorica, which designates literally the "art or technique of metaphor". It examines the principles and technology of the virtual reality interface. The chapter hacks the transcendentalism that belongs to and informs the subject matter of cyberspace. It then hacks the concept of humanism that has been rampant in the theories and practices of cyberspace. Cyberspace constitutes what is arguably one of the noisiest and most contested words in contemporary culture. Hacking Cyberspace, therefore, does not take sides in the conventional debates and arguments that compose cyberspace. Hacking proposes a mode of investigation that both learns how to infiltrate systems that have usually gone unexamined and develops strategies for exploring their functions and reprogramming their operations.