Dolphins
pervasive
Dolphins, seem to be inescapable. These creatures seem to populate reaches of the human mind in such a way that it is almost disgusting.
Despite the similiarities of man and simian, for some reason these overgrown eels continue to captivate and hypnotize those unfortunate to have more than a passing thought about them.
Why do these creatures keep appearing in Cyber culture?
Is it referential? Perhaps these's something more to this than mere coincendence.
John C Lily 1961 Man and Dolphin
Johnny Mnemonic Story May 1981, film 1995
SEL 1998
GameCube 2001
Flipper Zero 2020
In writing this I am unsure if William Gibson was aware of John C Lily, if he knew about one of the godfathers of MK Ukltra, his vocal albeit digusting relationship with the creatures and his very stereotypical 60s drug obsession.
If he perhaps put two and two together and Jones (Johnny Memnonic) is perhaps a hybrid of Lily's works "Center of the Cyclone" and "Man and Dolphin".
It is doubly unsure if perhaps the dolphin in Serial Experiments Lain is from Gibsons work, adapted to film only three years before SEL's release. If somehow both pulled from the same works of Lily or perhaps both were greatly taken into consideration. SEL highlights
conspiracy, perhaps the dreams and visions displayed in the series are a result of crawling through the web, to strange places, perhaps stranger substances.
We can moreso say the same about anyone connected to Sega and Nintendo, while most of Ed Annunziata's work mentions much of psychedila, unfortunately there is no somking gun between Ecco The Dolphin and Nintendo's strange decision to codename
their console "Dolphin", perhaps it it the Japanese love of playing with words that Dolphin emerged to pair with the "Flipper" gpu present in said developing console, named by the company ATI.
with the advent of the Flipper Zero, the cycle continues, the perverse spying form of this creature interlinked with technology, conspiracy and cyber culture.
It's connections through cyber culture as loose and slippery as it's form.