ABSTRACT

The expression "cyberspace" appeared for the first time in 1982, in a short story by American writer William Gibson entitled Burning Chrome. Movement through cyberspace and the associated sense of disorientation are primarily described using spatial metaphors. Cyberspace is a network, a global village, people may navigate, surf, or travel on its information highways until they reach a safe port or home, a starting point or destination; these metaphors are never random and their use contributes to the construction of virtual reality: Thus, metaphor may allow them to avoid or at least to mitigate the disorientation issues that arise when they consult hypermedia. For cyberspace also, the labyrinth remains a dominant metaphor, though taking on new spatial forms. The attempt to map cyberspace can take many different forms: a spatial visualization may be obtained by transferring onto a map the system of infrastructures making it up, its user network, data, and traffic flows.