DETAILS

Title: Cyberpunk

Categories:

Science Fiction

Speculative Fiction

Location: William Gibson, Neuromancer Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

Pagination: 0

Illustrations: - gritty urban setting: the underworld - isolated protagonist - complex, pervasive computer technology - surveillance

Document Type: Graffiti

Notes:

Cyberpunk emerged in the 1980s along with the explosion in technology in the everyday lives of the mass populace. It explores the fusion between man and machine amid a backdrop of cyberspace, virtual reality, and fibre optics. As well, cyberpunk raises the possibility of technologically enhanced and "perfectable" cultural systems. In terms of punk, this fiction is harsh and gritty, focussing on those marginalized by this technology and existing on the edge of society, or it draws attention to the subversive effects of the technology itself and our embrace of it. As such, the setting of cyberpunk is generally urban and anarchic, situated somewhere in the imminent future. From a theoretical perspective, cyberpunk is concerned with the construction and effects of the hyperreal. As termed by Baudrillard, hyperreality describes the ultra-perfect and ultra-real world of computers, compared to which reality is flawed and unsatisfying. Cyberpunk explores the effects of technology on human interaction and human self-identity, while also grappling with more conventional themes of isolation and social oppression.