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Irvine Valley College: Online Literature Study of the School of Humanities and Languages Literature 110 - Popular Literature Spring 2013 - Ticket #62740 // Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, MFA, Instructor
Unit 8c: Science Fiction and The Future Neuromancer, William Gibson
The Cult of Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk clothing styles While we are studying character and value systems, it is instructive to take a closer look at the Cyberpunk movement. In addition to being a literary phenomenon and a movie fad, it has spawned commercial styles of many kinds - including clothing, gadgets, games, music, and furniture! But what does it signify? One definition of cyberpunk is "high tech and low life." The "style" is very much in keeping with the environment of *Neuromancer* in that way. There are some good analyses of this movement on the Web - and here are a couple of good links: The Cyberpunk Project: a data file of cyberpunk culture. The Cyberpunk Review defines cyberpunk in this way: Brief Definition of Cyberpunk: created by Illusivemind, here is a single sentence definition of cyberpunk:
While some see cyberpunk to be a long-since dead relic of the 80s, I consider it to be alive and well. There are many aspects of “cyberpunk-ness” but these are what I consider the most important cyberpunk themes: Negative Impact of technology on humanity: In a cyberpunked near-future, technology runs rampant, and usually manipulates most societal interactions. Dystopian near futures are very common, but so are futures where the impacts of specific technologies are played out in a world only slightly different from the present. Sacred societal boundaries are often crossed with regularity. Often the earth is severely damaged. Crime and drug use are often key supporting themes. Fusion of man and machine: In addition to cyborgs, sentient programs and robots, cyberpunk often blurs of what it means to be human. Traits we take for granted as representing humanity disappear via introspective looks brought on by the fusion of man and machine. In some cases, such as in the extreme Japanese cyberpunk films, the fusion is explicitly invasive. In other cases, sentient programs take over roles traditionally occupied by humanity, thus, marginalizing humans on the fringes of society. This fusion also affects the control of perception - numerous storylines explore with influences to perception, usually involving some method of virtual reality environment to either mask or take the place of the “real world.” Corporate control over society: Cyberpunk almost always has an ever powerful controlling entity that directs society. Most often this is represented as a corporation. Some times its simply an ever present singular government. A common theme for corporate control involves a futuristic dystopia, where the last traces of high civilization exist only in an enclosed and protected city, where civil liberties are removed under the guise of protecting humanity. Story focuses on the underground: Cyberpunk almost always focuses on the underground of society. While the story may lead to revolution and toppling the power structure, the perspective is always that of the oppressed or the punk, anti-hero of the oppressed. Ubiquitous Access to information: Cyberpunk often deals with the continual spread and access to information. Hacker themes and ever-connecting internets are common. Additionally, the connection of humans to this omnipresent information stream leads to the blurring of the virtual with the real. Cyberpunk visuals and style: Cyberpunk visuals, ideally, are dirty, hyper-realistic “lived in” looks at the near future. Often cyberpunk films will have a single dominating color that permeates the film. We also see patterns of dark motifs contrasted with shocking neon color schemes. And just as important, a sense of slick style often pervades a cyberpunk movie.
Cyberpunk dystopia
Finally, we can examine the novel, *Neuromancer,* with respect to the themes of the other genres we have studied. One of the things that has baffled me when I teach classes in Contemporary Literature is how little cross-over there is between Science Fiction fans and fans of other genres such as Mystery, Police Procedural, and the like. Even among the Sci-Fi readers there is a kind of division between those who like Science-Fantasy, set in some very far future or some unspecified past, and the folks who like books about the foreseeable future. Another thing that goes along with this division in reading preference is a general disinterest in the future by many of us today. It's a strange thing, really, because a hundred years ago books about the future were widely popular - Jules Vernes' 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a huge success - and he published, in all, 52 books of adventure and travel to the moon, the center of the earth, and through the sky! (a futuristic concept in a time when most folks never went more than 20 miles from home!)
And yet, now, when our technology enables us to do more than Verne in all his fantasy could even imagine, we seem to have grown indifferent to the future. Perhaps more than indifferent, we may simply fear it so much that we don't want to contemplate it any more. There are many reasons for wanting to avoid thinking about the future. Some folks would say that, after 9/11, we have become a nation that only wants to focus on the terror of the present. Others would point out that the world might run out of oil by 2020, and then the urban nightmare of *Blade Runner* might become a reality. Movies that draw heavily on Gibson's work, such as *The Matrix*, have suggested that our future could be more ghastly than we can imagine. Even serious scholars, such as N. Katherine Hayles in her book How We Became Posthuman, have pointed out that we, ourselves, have come to think of the human body and psyche as something that could easily be replaced by the right computer program. It's not a comforting thing, the thought that the "person" we think we are could be simply replicated by technology without any detectable difference (or maybe only imporvement). So, Cyberpunk Fiction and the scholarly musings about Cybernetics and the Cyber-body make us slightly uncomfortable at a very basic level.
Cover of N. Katherine Hayles' How We Became Posthuman Still and all, the best of Cyberpunk and Cyberfiction does let us enter a world that could very well be our future with almost-familiar hero-characters like Case and Molly - in cities and towns that we almost recognize - in literary forms that have a familiar shape. For those of us who will live in the future, the imaginative possibilities are very significant.
Science Fiction: William Gibson: <http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/index.asp> Philip K. Dick: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick>; <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/philip_pr.html> Jules Verne: <http://epguides.com/djk/JulesVerne/works.shtml> Ursula K. Le Guin has a fantastic Web Site! Ray Bradbury is a long-time favorite. Although best known for The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury has been writing wonderful books for decades! Actually, should we want to talk about Categories overlapping, we have the perfect example with Science Fiction - one of the reasons for this is that much "real literature" is science fiction in content - and many of the fantasy and mystery genre tropes can also be seen as SciFi. Take a look at this list from Wikipedia of top SciFi Authors: this list is a treasure in itself! If you are having trouble finding an author for the Research Paper, it is a good place to start looking!
Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink: write to me with questions!
Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, MFA, your Instructor, is a Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Languages, Irvine Valley College, Irvine, California. See Online writing at Home Page. |
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