The fact that I know Miku but not Gibson goes to show I need to step out of my universe a lot more often.

To be honest the whole Miku thing has never really dawn much of my interest personally [shrugs] although I have always thought Vocaloid in general to be a really cool idea and can see it being a useful tool for music creation down the road.

And Yes Miku is cute... But there is this line for me where simulated performers will never cross, can never cross even online in comparison to a real artist. There is that baring of "one's soul" thing that can't be simulated. There is only so much your own mind and obsession can do... or so I hope.

On the other hand... is the idea of what is "real" and not "real" really that important? If what makes a thing real to YOU is your perception of a thing is anything really real in the end?

And really who cares but who cares?

You know, somehow I could have envisioned a Miku 4.0 in Chiba...

Since I don't know a thing about William Gibson, and most likely not many people here do, here's wiki's first paragraph. :D

"William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction.[16] Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his short story "Burning Chrome" and later popularized the concept in his debut novel, Neuromancer (1984). In envisaging cyberspace, Gibson created an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s.[17] He is also credited with predicting the rise of reality television and with establishing the conceptual foundations for the rapid growth of virtual environments such as video games and the Web." o_o sweet.


@Mudfuzz
can't you argue that the soul of the artist(s) is conveyed through the lyrics and background music? They're only using 'Miku' as a popular media sponsor. And with that train of thought, 'Miku' becomes nothing more then was it was to begin with: Miku Hatsune and all the other Vocaloids are INSTRUMENTS. :P

I would recommend William Gibson to anyone with an intrest in cyberpunk, especially his older stuff - he's a bit of a legend!

True, and if you read the first art of what I said... Second part has to do with the visual aspect and performing through a CGC, that's why I started with "And Yes Miku is cute"...

I see Vocaloid tech as a good forward movement but also a not there yet.

In a way I think a lot of vocaloid music is more "real" than other manufactured pop, from Japan or otherwise. While it's true the actual performance can never perfectly emulate a human being, I guess performance has never been the most important thing to me when it comes to music. There's plenty of talented singers and musicians that make boring music. I'm much more impressed with effort and sincerity, which you get plenty of in the vocaloid scene.

I finally got around to watching "the hologram concert" and I think my favorite part was seeing DECO*27 enthusiastically jumping around playing guitar during his song ("Ai Kotoba") near the end. You could just see how much he was enjoying it. I mean I don't know a lot about the guy, but like most of the vocaloid writers/producers I'm pretty sure he was just a guy who put a song up on the internet, and now he's on stage with hundreds of people cheering for his song that thousands of people around the world enjoy. That's pretty cool. So I feel like that creative energy and sincerity that can only come from people who honestly enjoy making music, that's what gives Miku and other vocaloids their "soul" so to speak. Hopefully that doesn't come off as too grand or serious a statement, I mean we are ultimately still talking about singing computer software, but that is how I feel about it.

When's someone on American news going to talk about Hatsune Miku?

Does Gibson know that there is someone named Dixie Flatline mixing music using Miku's voice?

I'm still waiting for Glenn Beck to rant about Miku xD

- A wild William Gibson appear
- I choose you Hatsune Miku
- William Gibson used NEED MOAR REZ
- He missed
- Hatsune Miku used HENTAI MIKU PICS
- It was super effective
- William Gibson used REQUIRES FURTHER STUDY

I'm going to say "Requires further study" any time someone tells me I don't know what's what.

...anyone find it awkward?
In his bridge trilogy theres a character: Rei Toei – A holographic idol who is essentially Miku - a virtual pop idol. I guess he didn't think we'd get something so soon eh? haha

Too bad Miku probably won't end up with the same outcome as Rei...SPOILER:

Matter Replicated several million times across the world effectively having enough 3-d real world clones of herself to run a country...

Wow, he actually changed his opinion to give it another chance. Wonder what that extra study will entail.

@shcfyd: Agreed. And besides, didn't Gibson write the novel IDORU, which has a main character that is, well, a virtual idol?

I guarantee you he has already fapped to her