Cyberpunk

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Cyberpunk

• The Literary Movement

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Where Did Cyberpunk Come From?

• Coined by Bruce Bethke in his story Cyberpunk
  (1983) about a gang of teenage hackers
• This story was circulated in manuscript from June
  1980.

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Where did Cyberpunk Come From?

• Gardener Dozois -- US writer, anthropologist and
  editor of Asimovs SF Magazine
• Defined the movement in 1983.
• Net Address for Reading list of SF
  --http//www.sfwa.org/reading/rec_dozois.htm

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Criteria for a Cyberpunk Text

• Marginalized characters in technologically-enhance
  d cultural "systems
• Systems are enhanced by certain technologies,
  particularly "information technology" (computers,
  the mass media)
• technological system extends into its human
  "components" as well, via brain implants,
  prosthetic limbs, cloned or genetically
  engineered organs, etc.

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Characters in Cyberpunk

• Have themselves become part of "the Machine.
  They, like Main stream Postmodernist characters,
  have lost their sense of self
• Live on "the Edge" criminals, outcasts,
  visionaries or those who simply want freedom for
  its own sake
• Know how to turn the system's technological tools
  to their own ends

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The SystemIn Cyberpunk stories' settings,
thereis usually a "system" which dominates the
lives of most "ordinary" people

• Oppressive government
• A fundamentalist religion

• A group of large, paternalistic corporations

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Cyberpunk Style

• Urban setting
• Dark and pessimistic mood
• Concepts are thrown at the reader without
  explanation
• Moral ambiguity (anti-heroes)
• Characters are consumers, not makers
• Density of information

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The Cyberpunk Scenario in Film

• Blade Runner (1982) near-future milieu,
  orientalism, density of visual material.
• Videodrome (1982) emphasis on bodily
  metemorphosis, media overload and destructive sex

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Major Writers of Cyberpunk

• Bruce Sterling
• William Gibson
• Rudy Rucker
• Lewis Shiner

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William Gibson

• Gibsons Neuromancer brought the term cyberpunk
  into general use
• Johnny Mnemonic is set in the Neuromancer
  universe

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Burning Chrome

• a collection of ten of Gibson's short stories
• Both conventional science fiction and cyberpunk
  novellas of the 'Sprawl'-series
• Polaroids of the postmodern condition.

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Johnny Mnemonic

• Condensed, fast-paced narrative
• Imaginary future dominated by technology
• the terminology for elements of that future world
  -- places, customs, organizations, devices, etc.
  -- are only partially explained
• Characters, even the dolphin, are cyborgs, or
  combinations of biological organisms and
  artificial or technological parts.

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Extrapolations

• Memory
• Information economy
• Split between high and low tech industries
• Gender issues
• Body manipulation
• Dolphin experiments

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The Body in Johnny

• allows for play in terms of defining and
  expanding the definition of "human
• threat of a incurable, potentially devastating
  disease, which, note, decomposes the body
  (extrapolation of HIV)

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Themes in Johnny Mnemonic

• Defining human, in particular the mind/body
  paradox
• The loss of independence or individuality
• Gender role reversal
• Defining social casts through information economy

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Homework

• To what extent do you think the fictional social
  conditions and status of information reflect
  actual social conditions or power relations
  today? What major differences do you see -- such
  as in the status or power of government,
  corporations organized crime, or computer
  hackers/crackers?