Original artwork, not a still
Burning Chrome · 1982
The street finds its own uses for things.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Gibson's line states a rule people keep rediscovering: makers decide what a technology is for, then users decide what it is. It fit cyberpunk's picture of grubby, improvised tech, and it has since become a standard sentence in writing about hackers, hip-hop turntablism and any product bent to an unplanned use.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Burning ChromeShow the scene
The line is from William Gibson's short story "Burning Chrome", first published in Omni in July 1982 and later the title story of his 1986 collection. It is spoken in the narrator's voice, that of Automatic Jack, the hardware man in a hacker duo with Bobby Quine. In the passage, vasopressin is a hormone doctors use against senile amnesia, but the street finds its own uses for things. Gibson first read the story aloud at a convention in Denver in autumn 1981, to an audience of four.
Sources (2)
- Wikiquote: William Gibsonentry credited to "Burning Chrome"Reference checked
- Wikipedia: Burning Chromelead, Plot and Connection sectionsReference checked
Context reviewed
