A great
novel written by
Pat Cadigan,
published in 1991. Unfortunately, it's now
out of print, but I was able to replace my
lost copy with one visit to a
used book store. It won the
Arthur C. Clarke award.
Synners is a great cyberpunk ride through a future L.A. in which a corporate media giant gains access to direct brain socket technology, and pushes it through before proper testing is done. Evil badness ensues, but so do plenty of exciting plot twists and psychedelic imagery.
A few of the main characters started out as videographers, some producing music videos, but this was a limited and confining medium to work in. The advent of sockets removed these creative limitations, allowing them to totally synthesize images out of the raw materials of their imagination. These folks called themselves "synners".