The Image

In the Fitzpatrick article the power of the image is discussed at great length. Where is the initial image more powerful than in Gibson's Pattern Recognition? The mystery seems driven by the kiss which is circulated on the net. (I haven't finished the book.) Each character is obsessed with the image for different reasons. Bigend's motivation seems purely financial. He must know because he doesn't.
The "white noise" is offered as a metaphor in both sets of work. Gibson describes Cayce's feelings through a city that is very much filled with images and distractions. "She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London..." (1) Fitzpatrick continuously uses DeLillo's movie, White Noise, to distinguish between, "the visual and the tactile, between the ephemerality of the image and the solidity of the physical..." (99) The physical Fitzpatrick discusses transcends into the world Gibson has created in London. The physical is altered by Cayce's dreamlike state due to jet-lag and the opposite state in which London runs. (Right is left, a simple coffee brew, cereal.) Gibson states on page twenty seven, "not so much a mirror-world car as an English car, as no equivalent exists, on Cayce's side of the Atlantic, to mirror." The mirror alternates the image, which in turn alters her reality and the way in which she interacts with the world.
The last detail I wanted to touch upon was Parkaboy. I liked most of his rants and found his character interesting. The statement I found most relevant to Fitzpatrick and my own rant concerning the image is located on page twenty two. "Parkaboy says you should go to new footage as though you've seen no previous footage at all, thereby momentarily escaping the film or films that you've been assembling, consciously or unconsciously, since first exposure." The "image burns" Fitzpatrick discusses are nearly impossible to erase. Therefore, can we ever see an image for the first time? It's like the most photographed barn in America Fitzpatrick discusses. Our experiences become nothing more than a picture of a picture. I'm off to finish this book!