CYBERPUNK- Week 9

WHAT IS CYBERPUNK?

- a science fiction genre based on the possibilities inherent in computers, genetics, body modifications and corporate developments in the near future.

The word comes from forming of 'Cybernetics' (study of communication, command and control in living organisms, machines and organisations) and 'Punk' ( style of fast, loud, short rock music with an anarchist political philosophy and a DIY, anti-expert, 'seize the day' approach to life).


It developed as reaction against the over-blown and predominantly safe stories of 'space opera' such as George Lucas's 'Star Wars'. The precedents for cyberpunk can be found in reality-challeging literary work of Phillip K.Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep made into 'Bladerunner').

Common themes include hackers vs corporations, artificial intelligence and cities out of control and and post-industrial dystopias dissected with a film noir sensibility.

WILLIAM GIBSON

- is a US/Canadian writer whose fictional work has spawned a number of key concepts like 'cyberspace' and 'virtual reality'- His work sits uncomfortably in the sci-fi genre because its gritty realism about the near future makes it too close to the truth- dystopian.
His writing is hard to understand. He takes ideas from science and theory and reinvents them, he jumps right into the middle of a story and provides the reader with few clues to understand what is going on. The only way to appreciate Gibson is to re-read his stories until you 'get it', if there is anything to get.


MATRIX

- pushed the limits of cyberpunk.

It pushes the boundaries of computer-generated effects as it explores a possible future world where machines dominate humans but keep them in ignorant bliss of their real state. The machines in Matrix create a totally illusory reality for people, constructing their identities to suit the purposes of the machine.


CYBERPUNK THEMES


Utopia and Dystopia

Some of the most powerful myths for and against technology have been intertwined with utopian writing. Utopias tell of imaginary places where everything is perfect, usually because people and technology are in harmony. The last two hundred years have seen a large number of Utopian experiments where people have attempted to live out the literary myth.

Technology itself has often been visualised as Utopia - somewhere we can create, a microcosmic recreation of nature sanitized and optimized for human enjoyment. All the hazards of life will be screened out of the technological 'program'. Technology will provide us with something 'nicer' than the real world. Once we've recorded nature in some hyper-real form, the real thing will no longer be necessary. We can dispose of nature.
Cities as Machines

The City in Bladerunner is post-modern where people are moving to the Off-World. Sometimes it is crowded, sometimes it is lonely - which is what cities are like: you can be anonymous in the crowd. It is LA; it is noir sci-fi.

Three non-exclusive alternatives:

the city is a machine for living ... it creates human life just as humans create it
the city is a natural thing, created by natural beings just as bee-hives and ant nests are created by natural beings
the city is a living being ... a cyborg which combines human tissue with synthetic infrastructure.

In the 1960s, a group of English architects designed a new type of city. Their dream was of a city that built itself unpredictably, cybernetically, and of buildings that did not resist tvs, phones, air con and cars but played with them; inflatable buildings, buildings like giant experimental theatres, buildings bedecked in neon, projections, laser beams. This project called ‘Archigram’ was detailed in a set of posters called ‘Architectural Telegrams’.


Technological change

-Mark Poster says the first electronic media age was characterised by the use of one source and many receivers.

One person could write a letter, make a film or television program, record an album and thousands could receive that message. Only certain groups of people could produce and send messages as there were educational, financial and technical restrictions to those who could produce- 1st electronic media age.

Telephone was different because anyone could both send and receive messages with a minimum of technical and financial resources. The latest development to mimic the telephone is the Internet- made it possible for an individual to 'publish' to a huge audience.

In Aust household accessing the net has gone from 286,000 in 1996 to 1.1 million in May 1999. By mid 1990s there were + 30 million users around the world. Early 2000, was estimated there were 262 million net users world-wide.

Modernism to Postmodernism

Shadowing this split between the technologies of dissemination and the technologies of interaction is the shift discussed by a variety of theorists from moderism to postmoderism.


But who controls the switches?

Just as postmodernism is built upon modernism, second media age is built on the first, therefore is largely dependent on world view inherent in existing technologies. It is through the combination of old and new technologies that new industries, uses and expansions have occurred, and continue to emerge. The new media brings with it a need for new understandings.

Virtual reality brings with it even more complex questions about the nature of society. Remember that, in virtual reality, a type of cyborg structure exists in which your body - your mind and senses - is part of the medium. Virtual reality duplicates and warps reality. It multiplies the experiences you can have and therefore the memories you can have. It alters the ways in which you construct yourself as a person. If the individuals are changed, then so is the society. This opens up space for new forms of culture to emerge.