Cybernauts
Three portraits on the concept of Cybernauts, made using different mediums. The first one is vector, the second one was made using alcohol markers and the third one using watercolor pencils.
An edited version of the vector cybernaut
Here is a little text describing the concept behind cybernauts
Cybernauts are people whose job is to delve into the cyberspace, a virtual space that coexists with the physical one, and with which you can physically interact, if you have the adequate gear.
Cybernauts are split into 2 categories : active and passive. Active cybernauts are the one that can touch the weaving of the digital world, mainly to fix it, repair leaks, damage caused by time, bugs, or even other nauts. Passive cybernauts are the ones that dive deep into the web, but cannot voluntarily affect it. They send their consciousness through the entangled cables and connections of the cyberspace and explore every nook and cranny of this world, they map it so that the active cybernauts can do their job.
Why is the cyberspace so important ?
The cyberspace was long considered as a superficial addition to our world. We discovered it one day, we found the first well by which we could access the cyberspace, but we didn't understand it. It was not just a layer of information copied from our world, no. It was all the underlying mechanics that made our world go round. And it had its own, strange physicality. Some damage in the real world could certainly affect the cyberspace, but damage in the cyberspace was also passed onto the real world.
For example, one day, a rookie passive naut broke one of the connections linked to water supply in the cyberspace. In the real world, one of the main water pipes in the capital bursted, and several blocks were flooded until both the physical and cyberspace were fixed. While the cyberspace entity was damaged, the actual, physical pipe seemed to deny any known law of physics, even considering the quantic one.
Or, the other way round, the building of a soap company had caught on fire and everything in it was destroyed. In the cyberspace, it was where their website servers were hosted. All the connections between that company and others were frozen in the cyberspace, their website was down even though the physical server was still fully functionnal.
The cyberworld has its own laws, and some are far more problematic than it seems.
For example, when something's localization in the real world does not concord with what is present in the cyberworld. Like, if there was a bench in a park in the real world, but in the cyberworld, it's a waste disposal software. If someone decided to move that bench, it would also move the software in the cyberspace, and along with it, all the connections and functions it usually operated.
How to explain then, that the cyberspace has its own physical rules when yet, it seems it is the one that has no link to matter ? And why would people need gear to interact with it ? It is one of the unknown rules of the cyberspace.
Passive nauts just plug themselves in a well and can access anywhere in the cyberspace from there. Their body stays next to the well, and usually they stay relatively conscious of what happens around them in the real world.
Active nauts, however… they've got the gear, plus a uniform and special tools, and they… litterally jump into the well. And they don't come back. Or they do come back, but in the cyberspace. The cyberspace is like a very dark, dull version of our world, no lights, no objects, but with entities and connections. Threads floating about from one thing to another, those things set in space. Sometimes, those connections are pipes, or knots, or roads, or anything. The cyberspace is nourished by the real world after all, like a gigantic, atrophic baby making wild associations in its always growing mind.
And the active nauts, by passing through the wells, transfer their bodies to the cyberspace.
While no occupant of the cyberspace can see, hear, feel, whatever with occupants of the real world, the objects are existing in both, and any change in the state of one of the worlds will immediately affect the state in the other world.
Let's take an example, here is Bob. Bob is a regular office worker, and he likes his coffee in the morning. So he takes his mug to the coffee machine.
And here is Steve, Steve is a prankster that got some cybergear and that jumped through a well for fun. He saw a floating mug, and decided to take it and throw it away.
Bob saw his mug being taken from him and hurtled 3 cubicles away.
The mug is broken. Bob is sad, Steve doesn't care.
That's why cybernauts are extremely important. They're, unknowingly, the warranters of the balance of our world.
What happens if you jump into cyberspace without gear ? Nobody knows. Some people suggest you become data, or ghosts. Nothing can be lost between the two spaces… or can it ?
Also, do not remove your gear when in cyberspace. Nobody knows why either, but it's as very strict and severe rule. Do not remove the cybergoggles that are meant to help you navigate into the space.
What could you see ? What could you feel ? The cyberspace is not meant to be a physical place, yet everything is physical there. There is nothing around the wells, under the wells, nowhere on the planet is there a place you could call the cyberspace, when you jump in… you're no longer on Earth, yet… you are still.
