Mapping Chiba City in Neuromancer

Illustration of Chapter. 1 Chiba City Blues in Neuromancer
http://neuromancer-movie-trailer.blogspot.com/

Geographical features:

Chiba City,
http://owebstertravel.blogspot.com/
2011/04/blog-post_1716.html

1. Chatsubo, Jarre de The (pg.3, 7) - a bar with hustlers, prostitutes, cowboys

2. Dark clinics (pg.4)- where hobbyists interfere with DNA, other genetics. steal organs from strangers, black market. In Case's case, he is looking for neurosurgery,

3. Ninsei (pg.10)- center of the city, crosses Tokyo and Port

4. Chiba (pg. 6)- Near port, between Tokyo and Narita Airport

5. Coffin Hotels, Cheap Hotel (pg.19)

6. Nameless old streets bisecting the city and the port

7. Night City (pg.6-7)- old city between port and city of Tokyo; dark, dead halogen signs and mirky sky, outlaw city with whores, pirates, criminals, and merchants

8. Warehouses

9. Dean's office

10. Fastmoving alleyway- what happens behind the city

11. big corporate entity- Nenhi hotel on recouline street

12. Mitsubishi Bank (pg. 15)

13. Beautiful Girl (pg.10) - cafe, coffee shop

Ageographical:

1. Matrix/Sprawl (pg. 5, 9)- through consensual hallucination

2. Chiba-"magnet for the Sprawl's techno-criminal subcultures"; implants, nerve-splicing, microbionics

3. Drugs- cocaine, people inhaling it

Atmosphere:

Lawless, full of crimes, where lowlife hopeless city dwellers live in the underground backstreets

sky like a dead television channel, "social darwinism" experiment- survival of the fittest(pg.7); follow the demand or die, Mixture of Japanese traditional culture and the newly introduced Western and Milanese culture: almost has a post-war feel; Gaijin (foreigners) crowds on the street; Stores with English names such as "Beautiful Girl", sailors from the port and "tense solitary tourists" hunting for places with dark purposes. (pg.10)

Old city that have brought down to semi-destruction the government left the city still operating- perhaps as a reminder for descendants of their origin?



Mapping Idea:

  Chiba City can be mapped out by the interaction between the illegal movements. Traces of Case's one New Yen would be a tool to show who the illegal exchangers would have their deal with, and where the receiver of the New Yen would go to pass the paper currency to someone else. What all the population have in common is that they use money, and money does not discriminate its users against their status. It can move with its holders freely in and out of buildings. Tracing the bill and identifying who the passers are will show how many of those passers are involved in the dark business, and we will see the interaction between the dealers that are not described in the literature. In such an unlawful and prostitute-abundant city, tracking a backdoor business between the passers would be enough to outline the entire Chiba City. It would be interesting to see illegal dealing between a whore and a organ trader, or hustler and a street samurai. We would know the urban population and their personal whereabouts.