CyberPunk

Table of Contents

Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life."[1][2] The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983.[3][4] It features advanced science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.[5] Cyberpunk works are well situated within postmodern literature.[6]

Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and megacorporations, and tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert's Dune.[7] The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to be marked by extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its creators ("the street finds its own uses for things").[8] Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction.[9]

"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners
who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where
daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous
datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of
the human body." – Lawrence Person[10]

Style and ethos

Primary exponents of the cyberpunk field include William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, and John Shirley.[11]

Many influential films such as Blade Runner and the Matrix trilogy can be seen as prominent examples of the cyberpunk style and theme.[7] Computer games, board games, and role-playing games, such as Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun, often feature storylines that are heavily influenced by cyberpunk writing and movies. Beginning in the early 1990s, some trends in fashion and music were also labeled as cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is also featured prominently in anime,[12] Akira and Ghost in the Shell being among the most notable.[12]

Setting

Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from the hard-boiled detective novel, film noir, and postmodernist prose to describe the often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society. The genre's vision of a troubled future is often called the antithesis of the generally utopian visions of the future popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Gibson defined cyberpunk's antipathy towards utopian SF in his 1981 short story "The Gernsback Continuum," which pokes fun at and, to a certain extent, condemns utopian science fiction.[16][17][18]

In some cyberpunk writing, much of the action takes place online, in cyberspace, blurring the border between actual and virtual reality.[19] A typical trope in such work is a direct connection between the human brain and computer systems. Cyberpunk depicts the world as a dark, sinister place with networked computers dominating every aspect of life. Giant, multinational corporations have for the most part replaced governments as centers of political, economic, and even military power.

Protagonists

Protagonists in cyberpunk writing usually include computer hackers, who are often patterned on the idea of the lone hero fighting injustice, such as Robin Hood.[20] One of the cyberpunk genre's prototype characters is Case, from Gibson's Neuromancer.[21] Case is a "console cowboy," a brilliant hacker who had betrayed his organized criminal partners. Robbed of his talent through a crippling injury inflicted by the vengeful partners, Case unexpectedly receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be healed by expert medical care but only if he participates in another criminal enterprise with a new crew.

Like Case, many cyberpunk protagonists are manipulated, placed in situations where they have little or no choice, and although they might see things through, they do not necessarily come out any further ahead than they previously were. These anti-heroes—"criminals, outcasts, visionaries, dissenters and misfits"[22] call to mind the private eye of detective novels. This emphasis on the misfits and the malcontents is the "punk" component of cyberpunk.

Society and government

Cyberpunk can be intended to disquiet readers and call them to action. It often expresses a sense of rebellion, suggesting that one could describe it as a type of culture revolution in science fiction. In the words of author and critic David Brin:

...a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly
always portray future societies in which governments have become
wimpy and pathetic ...Popular science fiction tales by Gibson,
Williams, Cadigan and others do depict Orwellian accumulations of
power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the
secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite.[23]

Cyberpunk stories have also been seen as fictional forecasts of the evolution of the Internet. The earliest descriptions of a global communications network came long before the World Wide Web entered popular awareness, though not before traditional science-fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and some social commentators such as James Burke began predicting that such networks would eventually form.[24]

Media

Literature

The science-fiction editor Gardner Dozois is generally acknowledged as the person who popularized the use of the term "cyberpunk" as a kind of literature, although Minnesota writer Bruce Bethke coined the term in 1980 for his short story "Cyberpunk," which was published in the November 1983 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories.[25] The term was quickly appropriated as a label to be applied to the works of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan and others. Of these, Sterling became the movement's chief ideologue, thanks to his fanzine Cheap Truth. John Shirley wrote articles on Sterling and Rucker's significance.[26]

William Gibson with his novel Neuromancer (1984) is likely the most famous writer connected with the term cyberpunk. He emphasized style, a fascination with surfaces, and atmosphere over traditional science-fiction tropes. Regarded as ground-breaking and sometimes as "the archetypal cyberpunk work,"[10] Neuromancer was awarded the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards. After Gibson's popular debut novel, Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) followed. According to the Jargon File, "Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naive and tremendously stimulating."[27]

Early on, cyberpunk was hailed as a radical departure from science-fiction standards and a new manifestation of vitality.[28] Shortly thereafter, however, many critics arose to challenge its status as a revolutionary movement. These critics said that the SF New Wave of the 1960s was much more innovative as far as narrative techniques and styles were concerned.[29] Furthermore, while Neuromancer's narrator may have had an unusual "voice" for science fiction, much older examples can be found: Gibson's narrative voice, for example, resembles that of an updated Raymond Chandler, as in his novel The Big Sleep (1939).[28] Others noted that almost all traits claimed to be uniquely cyberpunk could in fact be found in older writers' works—often citing J. G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Stanisław Lem, Samuel R. Delany, and even William S. Burroughs.[28] For example, Philip K. Dick's works contain recurring themes of social decay, artificial intelligence, paranoia, and blurred lines between objective and subjective realities, and the influential cyberpunk movie Blade Runner is based on one of his books. Humans linked to machines are found in Pohl and Kornbluth's Wolfbane (1959) and Roger Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness (1968).

In 1994, scholar Brian Stonehill suggested that Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow "not only curses but precurses what we now glibly dub cyberspace."[30] Other important predecessors include Alfred Bester's two most celebrated novels, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination,[31] as well as Vernor Vinge's novella True Names.[32]

Science-fiction writer David Brin describes cyberpunk as "the finest free promotion campaign ever waged on behalf of science fiction." It may not have attracted the "real punks," but it did ensnare many new readers, and it provided the sort of movement that postmodern literary critics found alluring. Cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive to academics, argues Brin; in addition, it made science fiction more profitable to Hollywood and to the visual arts generally. Although the "self-important rhetoric and whines of persecution" on the part of cyberpunk fans were irritating at worst and humorous at best, Brin declares that the "rebels did shake things up. We owe them a debt."[33]

Cyberpunk further inspired many professional writers who were not among the "original" cyberpunks to incorporate cyberpunk ideas into their own works, such as George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails. Wired magazine, created by Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe, mixes new technology, art, literature, and current topics in order to interest today’s cyberpunk fans, which Paula Yoo claims "proves that hardcore hackers, multimedia junkies, cyberpunks and cellular freaks are poised to take over the world."[34]

Film and television

The film Blade Runner (1982), adapted from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is set in 2019 in a dystopian future in which manufactured beings called replicants are slaves used on space colonies and are legal prey on Earth to various bounty hunters who "retire" (kill) them. Although Blade Runner was largely unsuccessful in its first theatrical release, it found a viewership in the home video market and became a cult film.[35] Since the movie omits the religious and mythical elements of Dick's original novel (e.g. empathy boxes and Wilbur Mercer), it falls more strictly within the cyberpunk genre than the novel does. William Gibson would later reveal that upon first viewing the film, he was surprised at how the look of this film matched his vision when he was working on Neuromancer. The film's tone has since been the staple of many cyberpunk movies, such as The Matrix (1999), which uses a wide variety of cyberpunk elements.

The number of films in the genre or at least using a few genre elements has grown steadily since Blade Runner. Several of Philip K. Dick's works have been adapted to the silver screen. The films Johnny Mnemonic[36] and New Rose Hotel,[37][38] both based upon short stories by William Gibson, flopped commercially and critically.

In addition, "tech-noir" film as a hybrid genre, means a work of combining neo-noir and science fiction or cyberpunk. It includes many cyberpunk films such as Blade Runner, The Terminator, 12 Monkeys, The Lawnmower Man, Hackers, Hardware, and Strange Days.

Anime and manga

Cyberpunk themes are widely visible in anime and manga. In Japan, where cosplay is popular and not only teenagers display such fashion styles, cyberpunk has been accepted and its influence is widespread. William Gibson’s Neuromancer, whose influence dominated the early cyberpunk movement, was also set in Chiba, one of Japan’s largest industrial areas, although at the time of writing the novel Gibson did not know the location of Chiba and had no idea how perfectly it fit his vision in some ways. The exposure to cyberpunk ideas and fiction in the mid 1980s has allowed it to seep into the Japanese culture. Even though most anime and manga is written in Japan, the cyberpunk anime and manga have a more futuristic and therefore international feel to them so they are widely accepted by all. “The conceptualization involved in cyberpunk is more of forging ahead, looking at the new global culture. It is a culture that does not exist right now, so the Japanese concept of a cyberpunk future, seems just as valid as a Western one, especially as Western cyberpunk often incorporates many Japanese elements.”[39] William Gibson is now a frequent visitor to Japan, and he came to see that many of his visions of Japan have become a reality:

Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it
and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when
one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face
drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns—all that towering,
animated crawl of commercial information—said, "You see? You see? It
is Blade Runner town." And it was. It so evidently was.[40]

Cyberpunk has influenced many anime and manga including the ground-breaking Armitage III, Blame!, Akira, Battle Angel Alita and Ghost in the Shell.

Games & Online

Several role-playing games (RPGs) called Cyberpunk exist: Cyberpunk, Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk v3, by R. Talsorian Games, and GURPS Cyberpunk, published by Steve Jackson Games as a module of the GURPS family of RPGs. Cyberpunk 2020 was designed with the settings of William Gibson's writings in mind, and to some extent with his approval[citation needed], unlike the approach taken by FASA in producing the transgenre Shadowrun game. Both are set in the near future, in a world where cybernetics are prominent. In addition, Iron Crown Enterprises released an RPG named Cyberspace, which was out of print for several years until recently being re-released in online PDF form.

In 1990, in a convergence of cyberpunk art and reality, the United States Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games's headquarters and confiscated all their computers. This was allegedly because the GURPS Cyberpunk sourcebook could be used to perpetrate computer crime. That was, in fact, not the main reason for the raid, but after the event it was too late to correct the public's impression.[41] Steve Jackson Games later won a lawsuit against the Secret Service, aided by the new Electronic Frontier Foundation. This event has achieved a sort of notoriety, which has extended to the book itself as well. All published editions of GURPS Cyberpunk have a tagline on the front cover, which reads "The book that was seized by the U.S. Secret Service!" Inside, the book provides a summary of the raid and its aftermath.

Cyberpunk has also inspired several tabletop, miniature and board games. Netrunner is a collectible card game introduced in 1996, based on the Cyberpunk 2020 role-playing game.

Computer games have frequently used cyberpunk as a source of inspiration, such as the Deus Ex series and the System Shock series as well as the MMORPG Neocron. Other games, like Blade Runner and the Matrix games, are based upon genre movies. Electronic Arts and Tilted Mill also published a game called SimCity Societies in 2007 which features the ability for a cyberpunk society along with numerous others. While it is arguable as to whether or not the game as a whole should be classified as cyberpunk, the widely popular Final Fantasy VII features many elements of cyberpunk fiction, particularly in regards to its portrayals of the world-ruling technological corporation Shinra and the dystopian city of Midgar, which is the center of Shinra power.

In Second Life, the cities of Hangars Liquides [4] [42], Insilico[43] and S.I.C.[44] are also influenced by the Cyberpunk theme.

Another game was Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller on the 3DO System.

Social impact

Society and counterculture

Several subcultures have been inspired by cyberpunk fiction. These include the Cyberdelic counter culture of the late 80s and early 90s. Cyberdelic, whose adherents referred to themselves as "cyberpunks," attempted to blend the psychedelic art and drug movement with the technology of cyberculture. Early adherents included Timothy Leary, Mark Frauenfelder and R. U. Sirius. The movement largely faded following the dot-com bubble implosion of 2000.

Cybergoth is a fashion and dance subculture which draws its inspiration from cyberpunk fiction, as well as rave and gothic subcultures.

In addition, a distinct cyberpunk fashion of its own has emerged in recent years which rejects the raver and goth influences of cybergoth.

Arts and aesthetics

Literary subgenres and connected genres

As a wider variety of writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new sub-genres of science fiction emerged, some which could be considered as playing off the cyberpunk label, others which could be considered as legitimate explorations into newer territory. These focused on technology and its social effects in different ways. One prominent subgenre is "steampunk," which is set in an alternate history Victorian era that combines anachronistic technology with cyberpunk's bleak film noir world view. The term was originally coined around 1987 as a joke to describe some of the novels of Tim Powers, James P. Blaylock, and K.W. Jeter, but by the time Gibson and Sterling entered the subgenre with their collaborative novel The Difference Engine the term was being used earnestly as well.[47]

Another subgenre is "biopunk" (cyberpunk themes dominated by biotechnology) from the early 1990s, a derivative style building on biotechnology rather than informational technology. In these stories, people are changed in some way not by mechanical means, but by genetic manipulation. Paul Di Filippo is seen as the most prominent biopunk writer, including his half-serious ribofunk. Bruce Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist cycle is also seen as a major influence. In addition, some people consider works such as Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age to be postcyberpunk.

Music

Some musicians and acts have been classified as cyberpunk due to their aesthetic style and musical content. Often dealing with dystopian visions of the future or biomechanical themes, some fit more squarely in the category than others. Bands whose music has been classified as cyberpunk include Psydoll, Front Line Assembly, Atari Teenage Riot and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Some musicians not normally associated with cyberpunk have at times been inspired to create concept albums exploring such themes. Nine Inch Nails' concept album Year Zero fits into this category. Billy Idol's Cyberpunk drew heavily from cyberpunk literature and the cyberdelic counter culture in its creation. 1. Outside, a cyberpunk narrative fueled concept album by David Bowie, was warmly met by critics upon its release in 1995. Many musicians have also taken inspiration from specific cyberpunk works or authors, including Sonic Youth, whose albums Sister and Daydream Nation take influence from the works of Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson respectively.

Industrial music can be seen as cyberpunk, as well as various electronic body music acts.

Postcyberpunk

As new writers and artists began to experiment with cyberpunk ideas, new varieties of fiction emerged, sometimes addressing the criticisms leveled at the original cyberpunk stories. Lawrence Person wrote in an essay he posted to the Internet forum Slashdot:

Many writers who grew up reading in the 1980s are just now starting
to have their stories and novels published. To them cyberpunk was
not a revolution or alien philosophy invading science fiction, but
rather just another flavor of science fiction. Like the writers of
the 1970s and 80s who assimilated the New Wave's classics and
stylistic techniques without necessarily knowing or even caring
about the manifestos and ideologies that birthed them, today's new
writers might very well have read Neuromancer back to back with
Asimov's Foundation, John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, and Larry
Niven's Ringworld and seen not discontinuities but a continuum.[2]

Person's essay advocates using the term postcyberpunk to label the new works such writers produce. In this view, typical postcyberpunk stories continue the focus on a ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information and cybernetic augmentation of the human body, but without the assumption of dystopia (see Technological utopianism). Good examples are Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire. In television, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex has been called "the most interesting, sustained postcyberpunk media work in existence."[4] In 2007, SF writers James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel published Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. Like all categories discerned within science fiction, the boundaries of postcyberpunk are likely to be fluid or ill defined.[5]